Description
In this episode of The Quantum Kid, Katia Moskvitch and nine-year-old co-host Kai explore one of the most fascinating frontiers in modern physics: time travel, and what quantum mechanics and relativity really say about it. Our guest is Scott Aaronson — one of the world’s leading experts in quantum computing, the Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin, and director of UT’s Quantum Information Center.Together, we dig into the science behind the movies — from Back to the Future to Interstellar — and unpack what physics actually allows. Scott explains:- Why traveling forward in time is real physics, not science fiction- What a closed timelike curve is, and why it matters for time travel- How relativity links wormholes and time travel to the past- Why stable wormholes would require negative energy, something never observed- How time-travel paradoxes like the Grandfather Paradox and Shakespeare Paradox challenge our understanding of reality- How quantum superposition and David Deutsch’s 1991 model introduce the idea of branching timelines- Why quantum computers interacting with their past selves would be unimaginably powerful — far beyond anything we expect real quantum computers to doAlong the way, Kai asks what every curious kid wants to know:Can you bring your homework back from the future? Could Marty McFly really fade out of existence? How much of Interstellar is true? And will we ever time-travel for real?To bring the cosmic perspective to life, this episode also features original footage from the ALMA Observatory in the Atacama Desert — one of Earth’s most advanced instruments for exploring the structure of space-time.Whether you're a kid discovering physics for the first time or a researcher wondering how quantum mechanics might resolve time-travel paradoxes, this conversation offers a clear and insightful journey through some of the biggest open questions in science — from wormholes to quantum gravity.Join us, subscribe, and follow along as we continue exploring the universe, one quantum idea at a time.