Bootstrap paradox

Bootstrap paradox

The bootstrap paradox is the paradox arising, if time travel is possible, relating to the existence of information and objects not created at any specific instant of time but instead traveling in a time loop. In simpler terms, an object is brought back in time, and it becomes the object that was initially brought back in time in the first place. Numerous science fiction stories are based on this paradox, which has also been the subject of serious physics articles.

The term "bootstrap paradox" refers to the expression "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps", based on a Munchausen story; the term was popularized by Robert A. Heinlein's story By His Bootstraps.