Santa Fe
Institute
  • Research
    • Themes
    • Projects
    • SFI Press
    • Researchers
    • Publications
    • Library
    • Sponsored Research
    • Fellowships
    • Miller Scholarships
  • News + Events
    • News
    • Newsletters
    • Podcasts
    • SFI in the Media
    • Media Center
    • Events
    • Community
    • Journalism Fellowship
  • Education
    • Programs
    • Projects
    • Alumni
    • Complexity Explorer
    • Education FAQ
    • Postdoctoral Research
    • Education Supporters
  • People
    • Researchers
    • Fractal Faculty
    • Staff
    • Miller Scholars
    • Trustees
    • Governance
    • Resident Artists
    • Research Supporters
  • Applied Complexity
    • Office
    • Applied Projects
    • ACtioN
    • Applied Fellows
    • Studios
    • Applied Events
    • Login
  • Give
    • Give Now
    • Ways to Give
    • Contact
  • About
    • About SFI
    • Engage
    • Complex Systems
    • FAQ
    • Campuses
    • Jobs
    • Contact
    • Library
    • Employee Portal

Science for a Complex World

Events

Here's what's happening

Give

You make SFI possible

Subscribe

Sign up for research news

Connect

Follow us on social media

© 2026 Santa Fe Institute. All rights reserved. This site is supported by the Miller Omega Program.

Home / News

Video: Watch Seth Lloyd's talk 'Is time travel possible? Testing the Grandfather Paradox'

InSightFoto
July 30, 2014

Time travel is a science fiction staple, inspiring the plots of countless books, movies, and Star Trek episodes. But while basic physics allows for the possibility of moving through time, practical concerns like the “Grandfather Paradox” (in which a traveler jumps back in time, kills his grandfather, and therefore prevents his own existence) seem to stand in the way.

In a July 16 SFI Community Lecture in Santa Fe, MITs Seth Lloyd proffered a mode of time travel that eliminates any events that could later prove paradoxical, making this phenomenon both theoretically possible and creatively irresistible, whether you’re an astrophysicist, a science fiction writer, or a daydreamer.

Watch Seth Lloyd's lecture (84 minutes, July 16, 2014)

Hear an interview with Lloyd on the Santa Fe Radio Cafe (22 minutes, July 16, 2014)

Read the article in the Santa Fe New Mexican (July 15, 2014)

SFI Community Lectures are broadcast live online. To watch a lecture as it happens, visit SFI's YouTube page. You can participate in the live Twitter discussion at #sfi_live or @sfi_live.

SFI’s 2014 Community Lectures are made possible through the generous support of Thornburg Investment Management.

For a complete listing of upcoming SFI community events, please check here.





Share
  • Sign Up For SFI News
News Media Contact

Santa Fe Institute

Office of Communications
news@santafe.edu
505-984-8800



  • Tags
  • SFI News Release
  • Research
  • Events
  • Education


  • Related Themes
  • Complex Time - Adaptation, Aging, Arrow of Time


More SFI News

View All News

Why noise may be the key to understanding cell group patterns

Reinventing democracy before it breaks

Do deep learning models recognize 3D shapes in the same way humans do?

Upending assumptions about learning, inspired by an AI phenomenon

Looking at AGI through the lens of natural intelligence

A simple baseline for AI forecasting in machine learning

Constantino Tsallis to co-chair the 2027 Nobel Symposium on Statistical Mechanics

How novelty arrives: Review of “The Origins of the New”

Working group asks, what’s the benefit of a brain?

Measuring irreversibility in gene transcription

ACtioN Academy engages industry leaders on AI and complexity

Arguing for a complex adaptive power grid

Mark Newman Awarded 2026 SIAM John von Neumann Prize

Review: Nonesuch, by SFI Miller Scholar Francis Spufford

Laurent Hébert-Dufresne to receive Young Scientist Award

What does it mean to compute?

Reassessing the scientific method

SFI External Professor Santiago Elena elected to the American Academy of Microbiology

From cells to companies: Study shows how diversity scales within complex systems

SFI Press launches “The Economy as an Evolving Complex System IV”