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Letter: Time after time

Published 14 May 2008

From Garret Moddel, Department of electrical and computer engineering, University of Colorado

In a fascinating article, Michio Kaku errs in stating that “precognition… would represent a collapse of the foundations of physics.” In a paper I presented at an American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in California in 2006, I showed how such reaching back in time is not in conflict with physics and logic as we know it.

The issue is one of degree and uncertainty: the degree to which you can influence events in the past or have knowledge of future events depends upon how much uncertainty, or more precisely how much information entropy, there is in your initial knowledge.

Paradoxically, the more uncertainty, the greater the possibility for information and causation to leak backwards in time. This is fully consistent with the laws of thermodynamics in particular, and physics in general.

There’s enough uncertainty in my brain that I should have known in advance of Kaku’s error… but it drowned out my reception of this fact.

Boulder, Colorado, US

Issue no. 2656 published 17 May 2008

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