Novikov Self-Consistency Principle

Warning: Time travel can be hazardous to your health. Or not.

The Novikov Self-Consistency Principle states that any effect of a time traveler's actions can never appear before the cause. In other words, you can't go back in time and kill your own grandfather, but you can go back in time and give your grandfather a really bad haircut.

Learn more about causality loops and the perils of predestination

Counterexamples:

Novikov's Nonsense (a time traveler attempts to go back in time and make everyone in a small town wear funny hats)

Temporal Tinfoil (a time traveler tries to prevent the invention of the tinfoil)

Related Pages:

Time Paradoxes

Predestination Pitfalls