Scientists trying to take advantage of the unusual properties of the quantum realm say they have successfully simulated a method of backward time travel that allowed them to change an event after the fact one out of four times. The Cambridge University team is quick to caution that they have not built a time machine, per se, but also note how their process doesn’t violate physics while changing past events after they have happened.
Ok, so, this is in the context of closed timelike curves. This is a thing which appears in the math of general relativity. It has never been observed in real life, and may disappear if we ever have a reconciliatian of quantum mechanics and gravity.
The study was a computer simulation of “what if we had some particles in a closed timelike curve and could mess with them”, and there is no suggestion of this being applicable or even possible in the real world.
But how do they know they’ve changed the past because that past will be the established past. But then they’d try and change it again thinking they’d failed but then…oh no I’ve gone cross eyed.
Ok, I have a proposal to test the theory. I’ll buy a lottery ticket the day before a drawing, then let’s go back and change the numbers I picked. Even if it only works 25% of the time, I’m willing to buy 4 lottery tickets.
So the universe has rollback netcode?
Well, that sounds completely insane. If that works outside of simulations, the first group to unlock it could take over the world. Or do whatever they want.