Novikov self-consistency principle
The Novikov self-consistency principle, also known as the Novikov self-consistency conjecture and Larry Niven's law of conservation of history, is a principle developed by Russian physicist Igor Dmitriyevich Novikov in the mid-1980s. Novikov intended it to solve the problem of paradoxes in time travel, which is theoretically permitted in certain solutions of general relativity that contain what are known as closed timelike curves. The principle asserts that if an event exists that would cause a paradox or any "change" to the past whatsoever, then the probability of that event is zero. It would thus be impossible to create time paradoxes.
(1980): A science-fiction time-travel movie in which the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz passes through a wormhole back to the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The anomaly returns and sends it back into the present, before it has a chance to affect the outcome.
The Final Countdown
The story (2007) by Ted Chiang explores the interplay between free will and self-consistent time-travel.
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate
(2009): Cited by Makise Kurisu during her presentation on time travel.
Steins;Gate
: In Eliezer Yudkowsky's exposition on rationality, framed as a piece of Harry Potter fanfiction, Harry attempts to use his Time Turner to influence the past and comes to the conclusion that the Novikov self-consistency principle applies.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
The Netflix series is largely based on the notion that the possibility of time travel tempts the characters to try change the past, which only leads them to cause the events they were trying to prevent in the first place.
Dark
(2016): A video game by Remedy Entertainment, centers heavily on the question whether the past can be changed or not. Some of the characters in the plot are driven to change it, whereas others, who have already tried doing so in vain, have resigned themselves to come to the conclusion that the Novikov self-consistency principle seemingly applies.
Quantum Break
(2019): A video game involving time travel which does not follow the principle, causing a game over if the player experiments to test it.
Outer Wilds
All time travel in the original series The Way Home follows the Novikov self-consistency principle. Two of the main characters can travel backwards in time by jumping into a pond, but they are unable to change anything in the past. All of their actions become part of history, and they actually end up causing the tragic events they were trying to prevent in the first place.
Hallmark Channel
Causal loop
Causality (physics)
Chronology protection conjecture
Cosmic censorship hypothesis
The chicken or the egg
Many-worlds interpretation
Grandfather paradox
Quantum mechanics of time travel
Time viewer
– speech by Novikov
Notion of the Past & Can We Change It?
which also addresses the Novikov self-consistency principle