PRECOGNITION 279
(With his thesis adviser, John Wheeler, Feynman then speculated
that perhaps the entire universe consisted of just one electron, zigzagging back and forth in time. Imagine that out of the chaos of the original big bang only a single electron was created. Trillions of years later,
this single electron would eventually encounter the cataclysm of
Doomsday, where it would make a U-turn and go backward in time,
releasing a gamma ray in the process. Then it would go back to the
original big bang, and then perform another U-turn. The electron
would then make repeated zigzag journeys back and forth, from the
big bang to Doomsday. Our universe in the twenty-first century is just
a time slice of this electron's journey, in which we see trillions of electrons and antielectrons, that is, the visible universe. As strange as this
theory may appear, it would explain a curious fact from the quantum
theory: why all electrons are the same. In physics you cannot label
electrons. There are no green electrons or Johnny electrons. Electrons
have no individuality. You cannot "tag" an electron, like scientists
sometimes tag animals in the wild to study them. Maybe the reason is
that the entire universe consists of the same electron, just bouncing
back and forth in time.)
But if antimatter is ordinary matter going back in time, then is it
possible to send a message into the past? Is it possible to send today's
Wall Street Journal back to yourself in the past, so you can make a
killing on the stock market?
The answer is no.
If we treat antimatter as just another exotic form of matter and
then perform an experiment with antimatter, there are no violations of
causality. Cause and effect remain the same. If we now reverse the arrow of time for the antielectron, sending it backward in time, then we
have only performed a mathematical operation. The physics remains
the same. Nothing has changed physically. All experimental results remain the same. So it is absolutely valid to view the electron as going
backward and forward in time. But each time the electron goes backward in time, it simply fulfills the past. So it appears as if the advanced
solutions from the future are indeed necessary to have a consistent
quantum theory, but they ultimately do not violate causality. (In fact,
(With his thesis adviser, John Wheeler, Feynman then speculated
that perhaps the entire universe consisted of just one electron, zigzagging back and forth in time. Imagine that out of the chaos of the original big bang only a single electron was created. Trillions of years later,
this single electron would eventually encounter the cataclysm of
Doomsday, where it would make a U-turn and go backward in time,
releasing a gamma ray in the process. Then it would go back to the
original big bang, and then perform another U-turn. The electron
would then make repeated zigzag journeys back and forth, from the
big bang to Doomsday. Our universe in the twenty-first century is just
a time slice of this electron's journey, in which we see trillions of electrons and antielectrons, that is, the visible universe. As strange as this
theory may appear, it would explain a curious fact from the quantum
theory: why all electrons are the same. In physics you cannot label
electrons. There are no green electrons or Johnny electrons. Electrons
have no individuality. You cannot "tag" an electron, like scientists
sometimes tag animals in the wild to study them. Maybe the reason is
that the entire universe consists of the same electron, just bouncing
back and forth in time.)
But if antimatter is ordinary matter going back in time, then is it
possible to send a message into the past? Is it possible to send today's
Wall Street Journal back to yourself in the past, so you can make a
killing on the stock market?
The answer is no.
If we treat antimatter as just another exotic form of matter and
then perform an experiment with antimatter, there are no violations of
causality. Cause and effect remain the same. If we now reverse the arrow of time for the antielectron, sending it backward in time, then we
have only performed a mathematical operation. The physics remains
the same. Nothing has changed physically. All experimental results remain the same. So it is absolutely valid to view the electron as going
backward and forward in time. But each time the electron goes backward in time, it simply fulfills the past. So it appears as if the advanced
solutions from the future are indeed necessary to have a consistent
quantum theory, but they ultimately do not violate causality. (In fact,