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Polchinski's paradox

Polchinski's paradox proper noun: a potential paradox serving as a comment on the Novikov self-consistency principle, in which a billiard ball, sent back in time through a wormhole, is launched at such an angle that, upon exiting the wormhole in the past, it collides with its earlier self, knocking it off course and preventing it from entering the wormhole in the first place.

Proper noun

Polchinski's paradox

  1. A potential paradox serving as a comment on the Novikov self-consistency principle, in which a billiard ball, sent back in time through a wormhole, is launched at such an angle that, upon exiting the wormhole in the past, it collides with its earlier self, knocking it off course and preventing it from entering the wormhole in the first place.

Origin of Polchinski's paradox

Devised by Joseph Polchinski, American physicist.

Questions about Polchinski's paradox

What does Polchinski's paradox mean?
Polchinski's paradox means a potential paradox serving as a comment on the Novikov self-consistency principle, in which a billiard ball, sent back in time through a wormhole, is launched at such an angle that, upon exiting the wormhole in the past, it collides with its earlier self, knocking it off course and preventing it from entering the wormhole in the first place.
What part of speech is Polchinski's paradox?
Polchinski's paradox is a proper noun.

Words near Polchinski's paradox in the dictionary

  1. polatuzumab vedotin
  2. Polbathic
  3. polcalcin
  4. polcalcins
  5. Polch
  6. Polchinski's paradox
  7. Polchlopek
  8. Polcyn
  9. Polcyns
  10. Poldauf
  11. poldavis

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Polchinski's paradox (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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