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“Time Travel” in the Gödel Universe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

David B Malament
David B Malament*
Affiliation:
The University of Chicago
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Extract

In the late 1940s Gödel (1949a) made a fundamental contribution to relativity theory by finding an important new solution to Einstein's equation. It represents a possible universe with quite remarkable properties. For one thing, the entire material content of the Gödel universe Is In a state of uniform, rigid rotation. For another, free test particles in it exhibit a kind of boomerang effect Most striking of all, the Gödel universe allows for the possibility of “time travel” in a certain sense. It is this third feature I want to discuss today.

Of course one can mean various things by “time travel“. In traditional science fiction stories a classical background time structure is presupposed, and the time traveler is described as jumping from the present to the past (or to the future). In a spacetime diagram his worldline would appear as discontinuous.

Type
Part II. Space and Time
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1984 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1984 , 1984 , pp. 91 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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References

Gödel, Kurt (1949a). “An Example of a New Type of Cosmological Solutions of Einstein's Field Equations of Gravitation.” Reviews of Modern Physics 21: 447-450.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gödel, Kurt (1949b). “A Remark About the Relationship Between Relativity Theory and Idealistic Philosophy.” In Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist. Edited by Schlipp, Pau. LaSalle: Open Court. Pages 557-562.Google Scholar
Hawking, S. W and Ellis, G. F. R (1973). The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malament, David (1985). “Minimal Acceleration Requirements for ‘Time Travel’ in Gödel Space-time.” The Journal of Mathematical Physics 26: 774-777.CrossRefGoogle Scholar