this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024
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Science Memes

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Please be patient. (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 month ago by FlyingSquid to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 month ago (6 children)

So if I can destroy 1 electron I destroy every electron?

[–] Duamerthrax 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

You would need a positron to do that and all you might have done is reflect it backwards in time.

If you could "remove" it by placing it into another dimension, it might disprove the theory, but the causal domain might be larger then previous assumed.

This is one of those Math Theories that isn't technically a Science Theory. We can make a mathematical model, but it's untestable.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Only in its future. Probably you’d have to find the electron precisely at the end of its timeline.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

So I have to destroy 2 electrons to fuck over causality.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

How could you destroy 2, if there's only one?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

That's why it would fuck over causality. If I destroyed 1 that could be the natural end of the electrons "life" of bouncing back and forth through time. I would need to destroy a 2nd which would then have to be the same electron from earlier in it's timeline.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Ah, you're viewing it as a timetravellers' dilemma.

My view was more that we're an observer in the lagrangian solution to the differential equation we call life. The electron, being a constant in the equation. Remove the electron, you alter the equation, therefore destroying known life.

[–] Buddahriffic 1 points 1 month ago

Careful, reality might just destroy you instead to avoid the paradox. I suspect that's how it avoids all of the paradoxes if time travel is possible in a single timeline universe. And this idea isn't compatible with the multiple timeline time travel idea (otherwise the electron will end up in a different timeline each time it jumps backwards).

[–] pyre 4 points 1 month ago

If you destroy it, that will be the end of its timeline

[–] AngryCommieKender 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

To destroy every other quantum state of the single electron, wouldn't you need to destroy it at its beginning state? The end state would be at/just after the heat death of the universe, so it wouldn't really make any difference then.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

The end state doesn't have to be at the end of time if the electron can travel backwards in time. It can go to the end, head back towards the beginning, and get destroyed somewhere in between.

Strictly speaking it would have to get destroyed at some point, or at least have something stop it from going back and forth, otherwise the universe would be all electron.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Thanos should have picked a better strategy

[–] Mango 7 points 1 month ago

Do it.

[–] FlyingSquid 6 points 1 month ago

Let's try it and find out!

[–] NikkiDimes 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I mean...if energy can not be created nor destroyed, it kind of lends to this hypothesis... 🤔

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

E=mc2 is the equation for how much energy is created by destroying a given amount of mass.

[–] NikkiDimes 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

No, E=mc^2^ demonstrates that mass and energy are one in the same. When converting mass to energy, nothing is being destroyed, merely changing state. As far as we are aware, the absolute destruction or removal of energy, and thereby matter, from the Universe is not possible.