The Unsolved Paradox
The human brain is one of the smartest on the planet. But there are some things we just can’t wrap our minds around. One of those is the paradox. We’ve evolved to think of reality in a specific way, but there are unsolved paradoxes out there that suggest reality doesn’t work the way we think it does. And now some physicists think they have solved a 50 year old paradox…but have they? And what are the other strangest paradoxes? Get ready to find out!
Fermi Paradox
Many of you might be familiar with the Fermi paradox, which is named after the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, known for creating the first nuclear reactor. This unsolved paradox raises the question: Where are the aliens? Considering that our star and Earth are part of a relatively young planetary system compared to the rest of the universe, and that it’s possible for a civilization to achieve interstellar travel during this time, it seems logical to assume that we should have been visited by some form of extraterrestrial intelligence by now. Some argue that it’s not a real paradox because we can only speculate about the existence of intelligent life out there. However, the Drake Equation is used to estimate the number of possible civilizations in our galaxy in this so-called unsolved paradox. The equation utilizes seven variables to estimate the number of detectable civilizations in the Milky Way, giving us an indication that there could be millions of Earth-like worlds with civilizations out there. This estimation dates back to 1961, a time when we had no knowledge of any worlds orbiting stars other than our own. It’s only recently that we have gained a better understanding. In 2020, astronomers, using data from the Kepler Space Telescope, discovered that there are over 300 million worlds with conditions similar to Earth scattered throughout the Milky Way. Their analysis concluded that approximately half of the galaxy’s sun-like stars host rocky planets in habitable zones where liquid water could exist on the surface. Furthermore, planets are extremely common and outnumber all the stars in our galaxy. The James Webb Space Telescope will soon be launched into space to search for new potentially habitable worlds. With knowledge of the abundance of worlds and the numerous possibilities for advanced civilizations, the question still remains: Why is the universe silent? Perhaps we are on the brink of finding out as technology advances, or maybe we have already been visited by a distant civilization without our knowledge. There have been numerous unexplained UFO sightings recently, and some believe that extraterrestrials are already here. Definitive evidence of this would bring an end to this unsolved paradox.
The Bootstrap Paradox
The Bootstrap Paradox is another unsolved paradox of time travel that questions how something that is taken from the future and placed in the past could ever come into existence in the first place. Many science fiction films use this recurring theme to inspire their plotlines, including the Bill and Ted movies, Terminator, and Doctor Who. The bootstrap paradox, to put it simply, warps our perception of cause and effect. As we can see, time moves in a straight line from A to C, from the past to the present, and then to the future, with each event leading to the next as demonstrated above. Let’s set up a linear timeline of events A (we hit a pool ball numbered 1), B (1 hits another ball numbered 5), and C (5 hits the next ball numbered 6 and so on). A leading to B, B leading to C. The future under this “normal” and rational scenario is unknown and contingent on our past and present actions, which is consistent with our understanding of the world. However, this loosely connected chain of events is twisted when a time traveler is introduced and uses knowledge from C to affect or cause A (6 hits 1). The bootstrap paradox, in summary, is the situation in which C causes A, i.e., future events, people, or items cause the past.
The Grandfather Paradox
This unsolved paradox is well-known and involves the concept of going back in time to eliminate your grandfather’s existence. Although we all have a deep affection for our grandparents, this is simply an illustration. Once again, you find yourself as a time traveler, traveling back in time to carry out this act and erase your grandfather’s existence. After doing so, you return to the present only to realize that without your grandfather, your father was never born, and consequently, you were never born either. This means that everything about you, including your family, friends, possessions, and personal history, no longer exists. Therefore, it would have been impossible for you to exist in the first place, making the act of erasing your grandfather’s existence impossible. Some scientists theorize that in this scenario, you would have created an alternate timeline or entered a parallel universe.
Polchinski's Paradox
Joseph Polchinski, a renowned theoretical physicist, authored the book on String Theory. He also proposed a thought experiment involving a billiard ball traveling through a wormhole and potentially causing an unsolved paradox. In this scenario, the ball is aimed to exit the wormhole in the past and collide with its earlier self, altering its course and preventing it from entering the wormhole. However, solutions have been proposed by physics students to avoid inconsistencies. These solutions involve the ball emerging from the future at a different angle, delivering a glancing blow to its younger self instead of completely altering its trajectory, thus ensuring that it will travel back in time with the required angle to deliver the glancing blow to its younger self. This situation may seem very peculiar to you.
The Double-Slit Experiment
The double-slit experiment presents another unsolved paradox for observers and is renowned as the most famous physics experiment of all time. Visualize a wall containing two slits and then project tennis balls at the wall. Some of them will bounce off the wall, but some of them will travel through the slits. If there is a wall behind the first one with slits, some of the tennis balls that made it through will hit it. Now if you mark where the tennis balls hit the second wall, you should expect to see two strips of marks roughly the same size as the slits. Sounds pretty straightforward. But in the double slit experiment, something awfully strange happens when you shine a light through the slits. Light isn’t just a wave, it’s also a particle called a photon. When a single photon is directed at the double slits, it creates an interference pattern on the back wall, as though it is interacting with itself. It’s like the photon went through both slits at the same time. But this is where it gets stranger. When you observe the double-slit experiment, the photons’ behavior changes, almost as if the photons are conscious and aware of being observed! We know this because if the experimenter tries to find out which slit the photon is going through, the interference pattern doesn’t show up at all. The bottom line is that observing a photon can change events that have already happened. How is that possible? No one has figured it out yet.
An unsolved paradox is a logical or conceptual contradiction that resists resolution despite efforts to solve it. These paradoxes challenge our knowledge of reality, mathematics, or philosophy. Notable instances include the “Grandfather Paradox” in time travel, which poses a paradox when past events are changed, and the “Fermi Paradox,” which asks why, in spite of the universe’s vastness, we haven’t come across extraterrestrial life. These paradoxes draw attention to the boundaries of human understanding and encourage further research.
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