The
Novikov self-consistency principle, also known as the
Novikov self-consistency conjecture, is a
principle developed by Russian physicist
Igor Dmitriyevich Novikov in the mid-1980s to solve the problem of
paradoxes in
time travel, which is theoretically permitted in certain solutions of
general relativity (solutions containing what are known as
closed timelike curves). The principle asserts that if an event exists that would give rise to a paradox, or to any "change" to the past whatsoever, then the
probability of that event is zero. It would thus be impossible to create
time paradoxes.