There's a related idea called the "transactional interpretation" of quantum mechanics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_interpretation http://en.wikip

There's a related idea called the "transactional interpretation" of quantum mechanics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_interpretation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_interpretation The idea is that every event (eg. a particle collision) sends waves forwards and backwards in time, eg. if * is an event and </> are waves moving backwards/forwards in time: <- past future -> <<<<<<<<<*>>>>>>>>> The waves from multiple events can overlap and interfere, eg. <<<<<<<<<<<<*>>>>> <<<*>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The interference depends on the phase of the waves, but let's simplify and say that similar arrows are destructive (represented as a space) and opposite arrows are constructive (represented as a dash). In which case, the interference pattern of the example above would be: *--------* It looks like there is something which is created at the first event, travels through time to the second event, and is then destroyed. That "thing" is what we'd call a particle. This idea is called "transactional" because it treats the existence of a particle as not just depending on the event which creates it, but also on the event which eventually destroys it, and the interference of these "waves through time" is like a 'negotiation' between the two events.