Temporal paradox (also known as time paradox and time travel paradox) is a theoretical paradoxical situation that happens because of time travel. A time traveler goes to the past, and does something that would prevent him from time travel in the first place. If he does not go back in time, he does not do anything that would prevent his traveling to the past, so time travel would be possible for him. However, if he goes back in time and does something that would prevent the time travel, he will not go back in time. Thus each possibility seems to imply its own negation - a type of logical paradox.
A typical example of this kind is the grandfather paradox, where a person goes back in time to kill his grandfather before he had any biological descendant. If they succeed, one of their parents would never exist and they themselves would never exist either. This would make it impossible for them to go back in time in the first place, making them unable to kill their grandfather, who would continue to produce offspring and restart the situation. But if they fail, their grandfather would be alive and produce offspring, one of whom would eventually conceive the time traveler and the whole scenario would start over.
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Famous quotes containing the words temporal and/or paradox:
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