[HN Gopher] Life on a Closed Timelike Curve
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Life on a Closed Timelike Curve
        
       Author : the_mitsuhiko
       Score  : 88 points
       Date   : 2025-01-12 21:33 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (iopscience.iop.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (iopscience.iop.org)
        
       | heisenzombie wrote:
       | Fun!
       | 
       | This kind of seems analogous to:
       | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe
       | 
       | Both notice the duality between a loop and two paths that branch
       | and meet.
        
       | jeroenvlek wrote:
       | Am I interpreting this correctly to say that if you travel
       | through the universe (at relativistic speeds?) and you arive at
       | your destination, then you are reset to be the same person as
       | when you started the journey?
        
         | dvh wrote:
         | Ex falso quodlibet - "from falsehood, anything follows". If you
         | start with a false assumption, you can logically derive any
         | statement from it, even if that statement is absurd.
        
         | evanb wrote:
         | A closed timelike curve is the name in General Relativity for a
         | time machine: you go forward in time and wind up in your past,
         | and you go around and around the loop forever.
         | 
         | The point is that when you get to the same point in the loop
         | your state must be what it was the last time you were at that
         | point in the loop.
         | 
         | If you have a relativistic trajectory that doesn't form a loop
         | in time there's no reset effect.
        
         | ben_w wrote:
         | "A" universe, but not "the" (i.e. our) universe.
         | 
         | Specifically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godel_metric
         | 
         | It's specifically a universe where time travel definitely
         | happens.
        
           | codethief wrote:
           | From the paper:
           | 
           | > Finally, we stress again that our main results are valid in
           | an arbitrary background spacetime (including charged Kerr
           | black holes [51, section 12.3]), provided that the CTC of
           | interest is the orbit of a periodic one-parameter family of
           | symmetries of the metric. This happens in all axisymmetric
           | models whose rotation Killing field becomes timelike
           | somewhere.
        
             | ben_w wrote:
             | Thanks, that's what I get for skim-reading :)
        
         | lmm wrote:
         | > Am I interpreting this correctly to say that if you travel
         | through the universe (at relativistic speeds?) and you arive at
         | your destination, then you are reset to be the same person as
         | when you started the journey?
         | 
         | If you manage to arrive at the same place _and time_ that you
         | started from (i.e. because you time-travelled, e.g. by going
         | through a wormhole), then you are necessarily the same person
         | when you arrive as you were when you departed.
         | 
         | It's kind of a cool result. The laws of physics conspire to
         | keep the universe consistent even in the presence of time
         | travel.
        
           | the_mitsuhiko wrote:
           | > It's kind of a cool result. The laws of physics conspire to
           | keep the universe consistent even in the presence of time
           | travel.
           | 
           | Indeed. I find this very cool and this paper gives some
           | interesting examples of how this might unfold including
           | Einstein clocks and the grandfather paradoxon.
        
           | goatlover wrote:
           | Well in the model of General Relativity. Laws of physics are
           | human descriptions of how we think nature operates based on
           | current observations. It's not like we have a wormhole
           | available to test time travel, assuming wormholes actually
           | exist in nature. We don't really know if nature "conspires"
           | to keep things consistent like that. Physicists do have a
           | desire to come up with consistent theories though.
        
         | red75prime wrote:
         | I think it's more like: "Quantum mechanics is consistent with
         | what we expect to happen with matter that exists in a closed
         | timelike curve: everything is reset upon return to the starting
         | spacetime point."
        
         | lazide wrote:
         | It might make more sense of you think of spacetime as literally
         | one thing, with one constant value. That value being c (or some
         | meta value that boils down to the same thing).
         | 
         | Energy in all its forms (including velocity), mass, etc. or the
         | lack thereof being 'space', and time being what you have 'left
         | over' when you subtract 'space'.
         | 
         | The more mass, or velocity, etc. you have, the less 'time' you
         | get left over. That is time dilation, both in the presence of
         | masses and when you've got a lot of velocity (because having a
         | lot of velocity means you have a lot of energy).
         | 
         | That is an alternative formulation of e=mc^2. [https://en.m.wik
         | ipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivale...].
         | 
         | At the point your velocity hits c (somehow), you have no 'time'
         | left over from your perspective, so wherever you go, you go
         | there instantly from your perspective. No time has passed for
         | you. Same if you are 'inside' a singularity like a black hole.
         | 
         | Space time curvature (aka gravity) may arise from that effect
         | not just being a point one, but a subtle cumulative area
         | effect.
         | 
         | In that model, time travel, FTL, and any other lack of
         | causality (aka effect after cause) make no sense, because there
         | is no 'lever' for such a thing to ever happen.
         | 
         | Maybe if someone could invent negative mass/energy (we
         | currently have no evidence/idea such a thing could exist!), or
         | a way to manipulate the fundamental factors that make spacetime
         | spacetime. We have no concrete idea how to even conceive of
         | trying such a thing idea right now though.
         | 
         | That result is terrifyingly boring in its implications though,
         | which is why we try to avoid it.
        
           | lupire wrote:
           | > That result is terrifyingly boring in its implications
           | though, which is why we try to avoid it.
           | 
           | What result? A result that the entire Universe is
           | deterministic and already determined, like a movie already
           | recorded to tape that we are somehow watching play from
           | inside?
        
       | tingletech wrote:
       | Seems like a typo in the first sentence of the abstract:
       | "...close timelike curve..." vs "...closed timelike curve..."
        
       | Klaster_1 wrote:
       | Do Greg Egan books have a DOI?
        
         | A_D_E_P_T wrote:
         | Some of them should. _Permutation City_ and the 3-Adacia series
         | of short stories are worth a spot in anybody 's reference
         | library.
        
           | NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
           | You know, there are no photographs of the man. Are we certain
           | that he's not from the future, hiding out in his past as a
           | fugitive?
        
       | cosmos0072 wrote:
       | I have a degree in theoretical physics, and also did research on
       | general relativity.
       | 
       | The result is cool, but it's not directly applicable to the
       | traditional (sci-fi) scenario "I travel to the past and meet
       | myself / my parents / my ancestors"
       | 
       | The reason is simple: the authors suppose a CLOSED timelike
       | curve, i.e. something like a circle, where you travel back in
       | time and BECOME your younger self - which by the way only exists
       | because you traveled back in time in the first place.
       | 
       | A slightly different scenario would be much more interesting, but
       | my guess is that it's much harder to analyze:
       | 
       | a NEARLY closed timelike curve, which arrives from the past,
       | coils around itself one or more times - like a coil, indeed -
       | allowing causal interaction between the different spires (i.e.
       | one can interact with its future self/selves and with its past
       | self/selves), and finally the last spire leaves toward the
       | future.
        
         | codethief wrote:
         | > The reason is simple: the authors suppose a CLOSED timelike
         | curve, i.e. something like a circle, where you travel back in
         | time and BECOME your younger self
         | 
         | Exactly. This part of the paper is not really surprising or
         | newsworthy. If you apply periodic boundary conditions, you get
         | periodicity, duh. In the case of CTCs, this has been known for
         | a long time[0].
         | 
         | > A slightly different scenario would be much more interesting,
         | but my guess is that it's much harder to analyze: [...]
         | 
         | Agreed. The only result I'm aware of in this context is a paper
         | from the 90s by Echeverria, Klinkhammer, and Thorne about a
         | thought experiment (Polchinski's Paradox) involving a billard
         | ball entering a wormhole and colliding with its past self.
         | Wikipedia[0] gives a good overview of the result.
         | 
         | [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-
         | consistency_pri...
        
           | the_mitsuhiko wrote:
           | This paper (among some others that are referenced in this
           | Wikipedia article) are also cited here and referenced.
        
           | zozbot234 wrote:
           | More generally, imposing "self-consistency" on a closed cycle
           | of interactions is just a matter of picking a fixed point.
           | Such a fixed point will always exist if the underlying system
           | is continuous - and continuity may always be assumed if the
           | system be non-deterministic. (For example, a billiard ball
           | enters a wormhole sending it to the past with probability
           | 50%, or else it is knocked away by a billiard ball sent from
           | the future (and does not enter the wormhole) with probability
           | 50%. This system is self-consistent, but this is achieved by
           | a "mixture" of two outcomes.)
        
             | lupire wrote:
             | Can the ball roll into wormhole, emerge in the past, hit
             | its past self and stop, while its past self it knocked to
             | roll into the wormhole, emerge in the past, hit its past
             | self ...
        
               | zozbot234 wrote:
               | Sure, this is another self-consistent solution which is
               | discussed at length in the papers referenced above. But
               | the neat thing about non-determinism is that it adds
               | continuity - thus, a guaranteed existence of some self-
               | consistent solution - even when the underlying system is
               | discrete (as in, the ball is only allowed to either enter
               | the wormhole on its own or be knocked off altogether -
               | which is what creates the purported paradox).
        
         | moralestapia wrote:
         | >which by the way only exists because you traveled back in time
         | in the first place
         | 
         | No, you keep going forward all the time, but on a dimension
         | closed on itself.
         | 
         | That's the whole point.
        
           | Sharlin wrote:
           | If time is closed on itself, then by definition there can be
           | no change from one "round" to another, you have to return to
           | the exact world state you started in. Otherwise it wouldn't
           | be closed. Just like a coil is not a closed shape even if its
           | projection (a circle) is.
        
         | PaulHoule wrote:
         | Most 'time loops' in science fiction might better be described
         | as time knots.
         | 
         | I think of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_(film)
         | which is much more complicated than the usual time travel
         | scenario; presumably the protagonist leaves but doesn't really
         | enter since the protagonist is their own mother and father (the
         | matter that makes them up does enter since they eat and breathe
         | the way everybody else does; thinking the story through I'd
         | think if I was going to have such a miraculous and singular
         | existence I'd rather be a fantastic creature of some kind
         | [dragon?] as opposed to a relatively boring intersex person
         | capable of both reproductive roles)
         | 
         | Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Eternity which
         | tames the complexity of time travel by presupposing 'eternity'
         | has a second time dimension, making large-scale engineering of
         | history practical. 'Eternity' itself owes it's existence to a
         | time loop which is ultimately broken by the protagonist.
        
         | zmgsabst wrote:
         | Your younger self doesn't have to be a future state of your
         | present self, you just have to induce it, eg, being your own
         | father or grandfather. Your younger self doesn't have to be in
         | your future if you allow some overlap (father) or short gap
         | (grandfather) on the circle.
        
         | vyrotek wrote:
         | This reminds me of comic strips where someone interacts with an
         | adjacent frame.
        
         | pdonis wrote:
         | _> a NEARLY closed timelike curve, which arrives from the past,
         | coils around itself one or more times - like a coil, indeed -
         | allowing causal interaction between the different spires (i.e.
         | one can interact with its future self /selves and with its past
         | self/selves), and finally the last spire leaves toward the
         | future._
         | 
         | The classic sci-fi story describing this is Heinlein's By His
         | Bootstraps. Note, though, that even in this version, the causal
         | interactions are fixed: the same person experiences the events
         | multiple times from different viewpoints, but the events have
         | to be the same each time. They can't change. In Heinlein's
         | story, the main character tries to do something different at
         | one of these interactions and finds that he can't.
        
           | j1elo wrote:
           | also a good example is the movie Triangle
        
             | lupire wrote:
             | And the TV show Dark
        
         | cgh wrote:
         | Isn't the cool part of this the assertion that the arrow of
         | time flips at points of minimum and maximum entropy? In other
         | words, it's two parallel timelines, not a continuous loop of
         | entropic time. The article dedicates itself to proving this
         | assertion with a bunch of math of which I understood maybe 10%.
         | 
         | I am not a physicist, etc so if I sound daft then that's why.
        
         | harrison_clarke wrote:
         | futurama solved that: fry travelled back and became his
         | grandfather's younger self, rather than his own younger self
        
       | A_D_E_P_T wrote:
       | > "In the introduction, we stated that, since a CTC is a compact
       | set, there is an event x0 where the entropy of the spaceship is
       | minimal. In the proximity of such event, our macroscopic notion
       | of causation breaks down. This is evident in figures 2 and 3,
       | where the existence of the low-entropy state at proper time T
       | does not have any macroscopic cause in its near past or future.
       | It just 'fluctuates into existence'. Indeed, any form of order
       | that the event x0 carries (including objects and people) has no
       | logical cause that can be expressed in purely macroscopic terms.
       | For example, if there is a book, nobody wrote it. If a person has
       | a memory, this memory is illusory, and its content is meaningless
       | (by human standards). _This is because our notions of 'writing'
       | and 'forming a memory' implicitly rely on increasing entropy_
       | [1], and there is no event with lower entropy than x0."
       | 
       | I don't believe that "our notions of 'writing' and 'forming a
       | memory' implicitly rely on increasing entropy." Entropy's
       | relation to the arrow of time is complex but it's enough for
       | entropy to be non-static, and for things to durably exist in the
       | world, for there to be a notion of movement in time. If something
       | was written at time T, entropy fluctuated into a minimum at
       | T+100, and entropy increased again at T+200, at all points the
       | original writing event would be traceable back to T.
       | 
       | Time appears to stop and things become causally disconnected from
       | each other when entropy reaches minima or maxima _and stays
       | there._ Even so, local fluctuations can lead to the emergence of
       | an arrow of time -- e.g. if a glucose molecule coalesces out of
       | the void, you can measure time by it, as it 's not perfectly
       | stable.
        
         | cryptonector wrote:
         | See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42660606 (yesterday).
         | Writing is not a reversible computation, therefore it requires
         | an increase in entropy.
        
           | A_D_E_P_T wrote:
           | You write something at T, under normal background conditions
           | of increasing entropy. Entropy at some T+n fluctuates to a
           | minimum, and at T+n+1 begins to rise from that minimum. None
           | of this appears to _necessarily_ reverse what you 've written
           | at T?
        
             | cryptonector wrote:
             | If you've made some state change that amounts to
             | irreversibly changing information, then you've increased
             | entropy, full stop. I believe TFA is obviously correct that
             | closed timelike loops involve forgetting, thus no time
             | travel paradoxes.
        
       | andyjohnson0 wrote:
       | > Using Wigner's theorem, we prove that the energy levels
       | internal to the spaceship must undergo spontaneous
       | discretization.
       | 
       | I am in no way qualified to understand this paper. But I have a
       | question.
       | 
       | Is it normal for physicists to talk about a mathematical result
       | being a "proof" of the predicted behaviour of a physical system?
       | To what extent would claims of a proof in physics require
       | experimental validation?
       | 
       | I appreciate that Wigner's theorem is well established, and that
       | mathematics is the framework for describing physics. I also
       | appreciate that experimental validation of the situation
       | described in the paper is very likely beyond our abilities, even
       | in the future. My question is about how physicists view the idea
       | of proof
        
       | dustingetz wrote:
       | What about entropy? e.g. you send an egg around a CTC, the egg
       | breaks (or like it's a quantum particle whose wave packet
       | disperses over time, or a bacteria powered by cellular
       | respiration), the system cannot reconstruct without adding
       | energy. So, no life on CTCs and likely not even quantum particles
       | which are unstable and decay? No probability processes at all,
       | not even the quantum vacuum fluctuations and zero point energy
        
         | the_mitsuhiko wrote:
         | > What about entropy?
         | 
         | Look at 3.1. "spontaneous recombination of an unstable
         | particle" for how this works.
        
           | dustingetz wrote:
           | Thanks, and LOL:
           | 
           |  _we will model the spaceship as an idealized box with
           | perfectly reflecting walls. This is necessary, because the
           | second law of thermodynamics applies only to thermally
           | isolated systems, to which we can assign a Hamiltonian [5,
           | section 11] [Landau L and Lifshitz E 1980 Statistical Physics
           | vol 5, 3 edn (Pergamon)]._
           | 
           | Chasing down that source:
           | https://ia802908.us.archive.org/31/items/ost-physics-
           | landaul...
           | 
           |  _SS11. Adiabatic processes
           | 
           | Among the various kinds of external interactions to which a
           | body is subject, those which consist in a change in the
           | external conditions form a special group. By "external
           | conditions" we mean in a wide sense various external fields.
           | In practice the external conditions are most often determined
           | by the fact that the body must have a prescribed volume. In
           | one sense this case may also be regarded as a particular type
           | of external field, since the walls which limit the volume are
           | equivalent in effect to a potential barrier which prevents
           | the molecules in the body from escaping.
           | 
           | If the body is subject to no interactions other than changes
           | in external conditions, it is said to be thermally isolated.
           | It must be emphasized that, although a thermally isolated
           | body does not interact directly with any other bodies, it is
           | not in general a closed system, and its energy may vary with
           | time.
           | 
           | In a purely mechanical way, a thermally isolated body differs
           | from a closed system only in that its Hamiltonian (the
           | energy) depends explicitly on the time: E = E(p, q, t),
           | because of the variable external field. If the body also
           | interacted directly with other bodies, it would have no
           | Hamiltonian of its own, since the interaction would depend
           | not only on the co-ordinates of the molecules of the body in
           | question but also on those of the molecules in the other
           | bodies.
           | 
           | This leads to the result that the law of increase of entropy
           | is valid not only for closed systems but also for a thermally
           | isolated body, since here we regard the external field as a
           | completely specified function of co-ordinates and time, and
           | in particular neglect the reaction of the body on the field.
           | That is, the field is a purely mechanical and not a
           | statistical object, whose entropy can in this sense be taken
           | as zero. This proves the foregoing statement.
           | 
           | Let us suppose that a body is thermally isolated, and is
           | subject to external conditions which vary sufficiently
           | slowly. Such a process is said to be adiabatic. We shall show
           | that, in an adiabatic process, the entropy of the body
           | remains unchanged, i.e. the process is reversible._
           | 
           | I am unable to make these statements coherent
        
             | lupire wrote:
             | It's a poorly worded way of saying, if heat doesn't exist,
             | and objects don't gain or lose energy, but only change
             | configuration in a controlled way, physics is reversible.
             | This is traditional time-symmetric Newtownian physics
             | before thermodynamics. "What does down bounces back up."
             | 
             | Entropy is measure of information. If an object changes
             | state according to some law or data that you don't know,
             | then you can't predict the result, and you can't set up
             | conditions to undo the changes. Thus you can't reverse it,
             | because you don't know the original state. If you can
             | explicitly model every particle, you can reverse it.
             | 
             | You can't uncrack an egg, because you don't know an egg
             | works. But you can unopen a door, because you know how a
             | door works. All you need is a perfectly elastic mirror,
             | carefully placed to bounce the swinging door off of.
             | 
             | An expert egg mechanic can uncrack an egg with a precise
             | arrangement of mirrors.
        
               | dustingetz wrote:
               | Yes but mirror boxes are not real, except maybe the case
               | of quark color confinement inside a proton?
        
       | Rygian wrote:
       | As a layman on this topic, I understand that research does not
       | need to work towards a predefined goal.
       | 
       | But for the sake of my understanding and edification, I would
       | have loved to see some mention in the Abstract explaining the
       | usefulness of the article. Is it "merely" a mental experiment to
       | confirm that we know how to apply our equations in a synthetic
       | environment? Do the conclusions influence or open venues for
       | verifiable (experimental) research?
        
         | 3ple_alpha wrote:
         | So they assume four-dimensional space-time of a certain shape,
         | similar to how a two-dimensional sheet could be curved taking
         | various shape. Then they calculate how would physical objects
         | behave in space-time of that shape.
         | 
         | Can such shapes exist anywhere in our universe, realistically
         | or even just theoretically? For all we know, perhaps not.
        
       | zombot wrote:
       | I consulted Wikipedia on "Closed Timelike Curve" and didn't
       | understand the explanation either. I could distinctly hear a
       | "woosh" sound as it all flew by above my head.
        
       | dmor wrote:
       | For a bit of fun you can use this prompt:
       | 
       | Read this paper and write a time-travel story plot line based on
       | its contents
       | https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6382/ad98df#...
        
         | tizio13 wrote:
         | Thank you for this suggestion. Here's what Mr. Gippity came up
         | with: *Title: The Loops of Eternity*
         | 
         | In the heart of a Godel-type universe, the _Eternal Voyager_
         | drifted along its predestined closed timelike curve, a path
         | that looped through space and time. Captain Alyssa Raines
         | stared out at the swirling axially symmetric stars, her
         | reflection caught in the reinforced glass. For as long as she
         | could remember, she had lived this voyage, though memory itself
         | was a fickle thing here.
         | 
         | Time aboard the _Voyager_ was peculiar. Every cycle through the
         | curve, entropy reset itself. Memories, once etched into her
         | mind, dissolved at the journey 's endpoint, leaving only
         | fragments. She wrote notes obsessively in a battered journal,
         | hoping to tether herself to some semblance of continuity. Yet,
         | each "new" cycle, she found the same journal waiting, her
         | handwriting foreign, the pages detailing lives she did not
         | remember living.
         | 
         | The ship itself obeyed the laws of quantum mechanics in this
         | bizarre space. Energy levels within the _Voyager_ spontaneously
         | discretized, ensuring that after each loop, all systems--
         | including Alyssa herself--reset to their initial state. It was
         | as if the universe conspired to erase the ship's passage,
         | preserving the self-consistency of history.
         | 
         | Yet Alyssa began to suspect something was different this time.
         | She had found a sketch in her journal--an intricate design of a
         | watch. It was labeled "the clock outside time." She didn't
         | recall drawing it, but the annotations intrigued her: _"To
         | break free, entropy must not reverse."_
         | 
         | Determined, she poured herself into constructing the clock.
         | Using the ship's limited resources, she crafted a device meant
         | to measure time independent of the curve. If her hypothesis was
         | correct, the clock would retain its state even after the loop's
         | reset. It was a desperate hope to escape the recursive prison.
         | 
         | As the ship neared the curve's maximal entropy point--a moment
         | she called "the entropy mirror"--the clock's hands trembled.
         | For the first time, Alyssa felt something unusual: a visceral
         | sense of causality breaking apart. The clock ticked steadily as
         | the _Voyager_ looped. And when the curve closed, the clock did
         | not reset.
         | 
         | Alyssa awoke in her cabin. The journal was still there, her
         | memories still fragmented. But the clock was ticking. It was no
         | longer bound by the curve.
         | 
         | She realized the truth: if she could detach herself from the
         | curve's entropic cycle, she could chart a path out of this
         | endless loop. But as she stared at the clock, another thought
         | struck her--a chilling possibility. What if breaking free meant
         | unraveling the ship, herself, and the delicate balance of this
         | universe?
         | 
         | Would she risk the fabric of existence for freedom? Or was she
         | merely another iteration of herself, destined to face the same
         | question, time and time again?
         | 
         | ---
         | 
         | Alyssa decided to test the clock further. She placed it next to
         | the ship's chronometers and watched their synchronization fail.
         | The _Voyager's_ clocks dutifully reset as the loop neared its
         | close, but her device ticked on, untouched by the curve's
         | bizarre physics.
         | 
         | "This isn't just a clock," she whispered, her voice trembling.
         | "It's an anchor."
         | 
         | For weeks--or what she perceived as weeks--she studied the
         | ship's systems, using the clock to track the curve's progress.
         | The _Voyager_ was designed to be self-sustaining, powered by
         | the same quantum mechanics that bound it to the loop. But
         | Alyssa discovered a flaw: a subtle energy fluctuation near the
         | engine core. It was faint, like a whisper of resistance against
         | the curve's grip.
         | 
         | She theorized that if she amplified this anomaly, she could
         | destabilize the ship's entanglement with the curve. The ship
         | might escape. But the consequences were unknowable. What
         | happened to matter and entropy outside the loop's boundaries?
         | Would the ship be torn apart? Would she cease to exist, or
         | would she find herself in a world where time flowed freely?
         | 
         | Her journal, with its fragmented entries and cryptic diagrams,
         | offered no answers. But one entry stood out, written in bold,
         | shaky letters:
         | 
         |  _" If you're reading this, you've made it further than I ever
         | did. Trust the clock. Trust yourself.""_
         | 
         | Alyssa clutched the journal to her chest, her heartbeat echoing
         | in the silent cabin. "I've tried this before," she murmured.
         | "But this time, it's different. The clock proves it."
         | 
         | She worked tirelessly, modifying the engine core to channel the
         | energy fluctuation. She rerouted quantum stabilizers,
         | recalibrated entropic dampeners, and rewired the naviga tion
         | array. Each adjustment brought the ship closer to instability,
         | the hum of the engines growing erratic.
         | 
         | As the loop approached its endpoint, the _Voyager_ shuddered
         | violently. Alyssa strapped herself into the captain's chair,
         | the clock clutched in her hand. "If this fails," she said to no
         | one, "I won't remember. But if it works..." She couldn't finish
         | the thought.
         | 
         | The engines roared. The ship's lights flickered. The clock
         | ticked faster, its hands spinning wildly. A deafening crack
         | reverberated through the _Voyager_ as reality itself seemed to
         | fracture.
         | 
         | And then...
         | 
         | Silence.
         | 
         | ---
         | 
         | Alyssa opened her eyes to find herself floating in a void. The
         | ship was gone, the stars replaced by an endless expanse of
         | swirling light. The clock lay in her hand, its hands still, yet
         | glowing faintly.
         | 
         | A voice echoed through the void, neither male nor female, yet
         | familiar. "You have broken the loop."
         | 
         | "Who are you?" Alyssa asked, her voice shaking.
         | 
         | "I am the possibility you created, the sum of all your choices.
         | You have untethered yourself from the curve, but at great
         | cost."
         | 
         | "What happens now?" she whispered.
         | 
         | The light around her coalesced into a single point, growing
         | brighter. "You may step into the unknown or return to the loop.
         | Choose."
         | 
         | Alyssa hesitated, the weight of countless lifetimes pressing
         | down on her. She looked at the clock, its faint glow a reminder
         | of her defiance. "I've spent eternity trapped in the same
         | cycle," she said. "I'll take the unknown."
         | 
         | The light enveloped her, and for the first time in as long as
         | she could remember, Alyssa felt truly free. Where she emerged,
         | she did not know. But she carried with her the knowledge that
         | she had broken free of eternity's loop--and that, for now, was
         | enough.
        
           | novemp wrote:
           | _Here's what Mr. Gippity came up with_
           | 
           | If we wanted ChatGPT's opinion we can ask it ourselves.
        
       | carabiner wrote:
       | Time is a flat circle.
        
       | rtxgucci wrote:
       | Is this not inherently circular reasoning? "For X to happen, the
       | laws of physics must allow X to happen". It seems totally
       | obvious. Am I missing something? Of course entropy must be
       | discrete and reversible in order to reverse entropy, it just
       | doesn't work that way as far as we know in the real universe.
        
       | neonate wrote:
       | https://web.archive.org/web/20241223001630/https://iopscienc...
        
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