Resolution Criteria

This market resolves YES if a scientifically verified instance of backward time travel (sending matter or information to a point in the past) is demonstrated and accepted by the mainstream scientific community before market close. Otherwise, it resolves NO.

Background

Backward time travel remains theoretical and has not been demonstrated experimentally. Current scientific understanding includes several theoretical frameworks that might allow for backward time travel:

• General Relativity and Wormholes: Einstein's theory suggests spacetime could be connected through wormholes, potentially allowing travel between distant points in spacetime. However, traversable wormholes would require exotic matter with negative energy density, which has not been observed in nature.

• Closed Timelike Curves: Theoretical constructs like rotating black holes or dense spinning cylinders might create closed timelike curves that could enable backward time travel, but the conditions required are beyond current technological capabilities.

• Time Dilation: While well-documented in physics, time dilation only allows for relative differences in the passage of time (as in the twin paradox) rather than actual backward travel. DEMONSTRATION OF TIME DILATION IS NOT SUFFICIENT FOR POSITIVE RESOLUTION.

Considerations

Backward time travel faces significant theoretical obstacles, including:

• The causality paradoxes (like the grandfather paradox)

• The need for exotic matter or energy conditions not known to exist

• Quantum mechanical constraints that may prevent macro-scale time travel

• The absence of time travelers from the future in our present

Most physicists consider backward time travel highly improbable, though not completely ruled out by current physical laws.