Time-Inversion

Time travel has been in popular fiction for decades, from H.G. Wells The Time Machine, Doctor Who, Back to the Future and Terminator, each has played their part in what harnessing time travel could like. Whether possible or not. However, time-inversion could be the closest thing we have to utilising time travel in reality.

Get ready to be mind-boggled!

What is time-inversion?

A theoretical hypothesis, is that if ones entropy (of either an object or living being) were to be flipped or “inverted”, they could travel backwards in time.

Entropy is a measure of disorder within a system. Heat death, one of the theoretical endings of our universe- heat death is when all available energy has been used. In a sense, our universe will become literal nothingness.

Further information on Entropy

Potential spoilers below

Tenet, directed by Christopher Nolan (Interstellar, Inception, Dunkirk), released in 2020; showcases the mechanics of what time-inversion may look like.

This is also the inspiration for this post (the concept has been such a fascination for me as of writing this). Within the movie they make use of a construct called a turnstile, wherein it lies between two walled-off rooms. One room is for normal time whereas the other is for inverted time. These rooms are usually distinguished by a colour, red for normal and blue for inverted.

If you entered the turnstile in the red room, the device will be powered by a type of nuclear fission that will invert your entropy. You’ll exit the turnstile and will be in the blue room. From your perspective, you will still be moving forward as if you would normally. However, because of the inversion, everything around you would be in reverse, although from the world’s view, you will be going in reverse.

In another line of words, you will be going forward into the past. People will be walking (and talking) backwards along the path they’d just walked, birds will soar as if they had eyes at the back of their bodies, the shores shall be throwing back waves as if they had never came from the sea, and the air will be moving the opposite direction it would have normally been- a potential danger time-inversion poses. In the movie they wear special breathers to counter this, as inverted people cannot inhale oxygen as we do. This includes suits to as if you come into contact with yourself somehow, annihilation would happen. Annihilation is when two opposite particles touch, in this case, your past and future self, or in a different format, your negative and positive charges.

Tenet 4K HDR IMAX | Reverse Fight — YouTube

A clip from the movie showcasing a fight between the protagonist and an unknown, inverted enemy. Further potential spoilers (And headaches, if you don’t have one already)

Unlike time travel where it involves a flick of a switch, a DeLorean, a machine that jumps you to a specific time. If you wanted to go back to the 1950s for example via time-inversion, you will have to remain inverted and live for 72 years. Whether you’ll grow old or younger is a matter of the unknown. And if you wish to live normally again then that’s if the 50s have a turnstile somewhere, unlikely. Another obstacle is if you live that long, and depends on what age you inverted at.

Reality or fiction?

With all this of course comes with its paradoxes and contradictions such as the grandfather paradox, annihilation upon meeting yourself or whether it’ll create a separate timeline. Tenet briefly mentions paradoxes. Anyhow, the movie encapsulated (in my opinion) a good visualisation of what it would be like. We can not really know for sure what exactly happens as it still lies in the realm of fiction and beyond our technological capabilities. The power usage alone must be extraordinary.

Nevertheless, it certainly is an interesting concept to play with as well as to propose your own interpretations.

Thanks for reading!

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