Ivanov's Conundrum

"Only if it turns out that reality is actually nothing more than a holographic illusion created by the interplay of subatomic particles on a vast two-dimensional membrane." This article covers a subject that has been deemed non-canon by either the author or the Back to the Future licensees, and thus should not be taken as a part of the "real" Back to the Future universe.

Ivanov's Conundrum was a scientific logic puzzle that Emmett Brown struggled with in 1931.

Eventually, Emmett worked out that the solution was for the Hamiltonian operator to equal H, which meant that H to the A multiplied by the inverse of H could only be the same as the expectation value for A.

By 1986, Doc considered Ivanov's Conundrum easy to solve.

When Marty McFly traveled back to 1931 and needed to convince Emmett that he was interested in science, Doc told Marty the solution to Ivanov's Conundrum and told him to relay it to his younger self. Now convinced of Marty's authenticity, the younger Emmett agreed to help with the construction of the rocket-powered drill.

Behind the scenes

• The conundrum is fictional and does not exist in real life. Based on Emmett's description, the solution to the conundrum may have looked like this:

HA * H−1 = A

Appearances

• Back to the Future: The Game
  • Episode 1: It's About Time