November 15, 2024

Freddy Buncay

12th Grade

St. Francis Preparatory School 

The grandfather poses a complex problem for which there is no definitive solution. As far as we know, time only moves forward, but if you go back in time, a famous paradox occurs. What if you killed your grandfather when he was a child? If you had killed your grandfather when he was a child, your mother or father would not have been born, and you would have ceased to exist. This implies that you could not have traveled back in time to kill your grandfather in the first place. 

We must explain time in order to understand the paradox; in the past, we perceived time as a line, with the present as its midpoint. The past points one way and the future another. Physicist Isaac Newton proposed the idea that time is the same everywhere in the universe. On the other hand, eastern philosophers saw time as a non-linear entity, believing that time has numeration variations depending on where you are at a point in time. Physicist Albert Einstein, known for his theories of relativity, demonstrated that time is not linear and universal, depending on physical quantities. The formation of time-like curves, where time and space fold and twist on themselves, may indeed be a reality. Therefore, despite ongoing research, the possibility of these time tunnels facilitating time travel remains. 

Another possible solution to the paradox is that the time traveler can participate in any event that has already occurred but cannot participate in any event that has never occurred, as this leads to a contradiction. The next solution suggests that every alteration in the past creates a different past with unique outcomes, forming a multiverse. The multiverse is a hypothetical collection of all universes. So, when the time traveler kills their grandfather, a new timeline comes to fruition where the grandfather dies young and doesn’t have offspring. Consequently, the timeline of the time traveler continues to exist without any disturbance; both timelines exist in different paradigms and universes. Every time the multiverse theory alters the past, it creates a new timeline. 

Arguing on the basis of classical physical laws, early critics deemed the grandfather paradox as entirely impossible. However, now that we know the possibilities opened up by the uncertainty principle and relativity, the answer to the grandfather paradox isn’t as obvious as in the past. However, apart from relativity, there is no concrete conceptualization of time. The concept of time travel requires an explanation. 

But how does one even time travel? The most likely method is through wormholes, also known as space-time holes. Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking proposed that wormholes could potentially loop back to a point in the past, as any entity that can influence space should also have the ability to influence time. Hawking came up with two ways to confront the paradox. In the “consistent histories” model, we can interact with the past, but we can’t change it, removing the chance of the paradox happening. The second option, grounded in quantum mechanics, explores the probability of an event occurring in which various outcomes occur in different ways. This scenario entails a time traveler who travels back to a time when the grandfather has already had offspring and then continues along a parallel timeline in which the time traveler is not yet born. 

The grandfather paradox is a long, complicated problem with no answer as of now. No one truly knows what will happen if you go back in time and kill your grandfather. Many new findings have changed the way we view the paradox, but we still have a long way to go before we find the answer, if one even exists.