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Two Russian mathematicians have caused a stir in the normally staid world of theoretical physics.
Irina Aref'eva and Igor Volovich have not only proposed a mechanism for time travel, but they have given it a timetable as well. The pair, from the Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow, have been speculating on what might happen when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) goes operational in Geneva, Switzerland, later this year.
World's Biggest Particle Smasher Goes Live
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is expected to commission the LHC in May 2008. It will smash protons together at speeds previously unobtainable. Each proton will have the same kinetic energy as a flying mosquito, but that energy will be concentrated into one trillionth of the volume.
Collision like this can do very strange things to the fabric of the universe known as space-time. Space-time can bend and distort into loops that physicists call "closed time-like curves," known to sci-fi fans as "wormholes in space-time" or just "wormholes."
In the same way as two points on opposite ends of a piece of paper can be brought together by folding the paper in half, so a wormhole can provide shortcuts between distant points in space-time. It is these wormholes that Aref'eva and Volovich suggest the LHC may produce.
If, and it is a big "if," such wormholes are created, we are still a long way from building a time machine. Firstly, these mini-wormholes will only be big enough to allow sub-atomic particles through. Secondly, they will have the tendency to close up. Thirdly, we have no way to manipulate the mouths of the wormhole to act like a time machine.
But, future civilization may be able to solve these problems from their end. Hence, if the LHC creates wormholes later this year, it could present our descendents the earliest opportunity to come and say hello.
Irina Aref'eva and Igor Volovich have not only proposed a mechanism for time travel, but they have given it a timetable as well. The pair, from the Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow, have been speculating on what might happen when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) goes operational in Geneva, Switzerland, later this year.
World's Biggest Particle Smasher Goes Live
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is expected to commission the LHC in May 2008. It will smash protons together at speeds previously unobtainable. Each proton will have the same kinetic energy as a flying mosquito, but that energy will be concentrated into one trillionth of the volume.
Collision like this can do very strange things to the fabric of the universe known as space-time. Space-time can bend and distort into loops that physicists call "closed time-like curves," known to sci-fi fans as "wormholes in space-time" or just "wormholes."
In the same way as two points on opposite ends of a piece of paper can be brought together by folding the paper in half, so a wormhole can provide shortcuts between distant points in space-time. It is these wormholes that Aref'eva and Volovich suggest the LHC may produce.
If, and it is a big "if," such wormholes are created, we are still a long way from building a time machine. Firstly, these mini-wormholes will only be big enough to allow sub-atomic particles through. Secondly, they will have the tendency to close up. Thirdly, we have no way to manipulate the mouths of the wormhole to act like a time machine.
But, future civilization may be able to solve these problems from their end. Hence, if the LHC creates wormholes later this year, it could present our descendents the earliest opportunity to come and say hello.
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