Toward a Formal Foundation for Time Travel in Stories and Games
Research areas: | Year: | 2016 | |||||
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Type of Publication: | In Proceedings | ||||||
Authors: |
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Editor: | Erika Ábrahám, Marcello Bonsangue, Einar Broch Johnsen | ||||||
Book title: | Theory and Practice of Formal Methods | Number: | 9660 | ||||
Series: | Lecture Notes in Computer Science | Pages: | 261-276 | ||||
ISBN: | 978-3-319-30733-6 978-3-319-3073 | ||||||
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Abstract: | Time-travel is a popular topic not only in science fiction, but in physics as well, especially when it concerns the notion of “changing the past”. It turns out that if time-travel exists, it will follow certain logical rules. In this paper we apply the tools of discrete mathematics to two such sets of rules from theoretical physics: the Novikov Self Consistency Principle and the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics. Using temporal logic, we can encode the dynamics of a time-travel story or game, and model-check them for adherence to the rules. We also present the first ever game-engine following these rules, allowing the development of technically accurate time-travel games. |
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