(ORDO NEWS) — Who managed to stop time in a saucepan and why was Einstein afraid that his theory would allow scientists to “play with time”?
“American physicists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory stopped time” – on May 21, 2021, a good hundred journals around the world came out with this headline.
The Western press, choking with delight, convinced gullible readers: the triumph of mankind had come. And they did not sin against the truth.
Even a schoolboy knows: time management provides truly fantastic opportunities – flights to distant stars and other galaxies, travel to the past and future, immortality, finally.
The US Department of Energy’s National Laboratory in Livermore, California is an apparently harmless facility. Stands, computers, employees keen on science. There is even a small collider here. But let’s dig into history.
The laboratory was founded on the initiative of Edward Teller himself, “the father of the American hydrogen bomb.” Co-founder of the laboratory – Ernest Lawrence. Famous physicist, creator of the first American “cyclotron”. Installations for the acceleration of elementary particles.
Have you guessed what research is being done in this laboratory? Moreover, the money is given not by the Department of Energy, but by the US Department of Defense. Let’s say more. This is one of two American laboratories whose main task is to develop nuclear weapons.
Since 1952, active scientific work has been carried out here.
In the program, you can see unique videos of secret nuclear tests conducted by American physicists. The boxes of films were safely hidden in the cellars of the Livermore Laboratory.
“We managed to get about 65,000 boxes. The film is in a terrible state. Dampness.
Nobody opened the boxes for many years. Nevertheless, we have already digitized and started analyzing more than 4,000 fragments,” said Greg Spriggs, a military physicist at the Lawrence Liermore Laboratory.
It is incomprehensible to the mind, but, according to Greg Spriggs, there are more than 100,000 more jars in the archives with evidence of the work of American scientists on nuclear military orders.
And within the walls of the laboratory, meanwhile, there are studies that the whole world is talking about. But, if you look, they are also not very unambiguous. Here are just a few facts that lie on the surface:
Livermore is developing technologies to repel asteroid attacks. The only trouble is that together with NASA they are working on the HAMMER spacecraft, which will be equipped with hypersonic and nuclear warheads.
It is planned to be sent into orbit on a seemingly peaceful mission. Patrol. But there is no guarantee that the HAMMER guns will be aimed at asteroids and not at the Earth.
Livermore receives multi-million dollar grants to build 2 supercomputers. One – and this is known for certain – for fundamental scientific research. But the appointment of the second Americans do not intend to advertise.
In the laboratory, using laser technology, an international team of physicists has been working for 10 years to create a source of eternal energy. We are talking about a new generation fusion reactor called NIF. Scientists have already achieved incredible results.
Last year, the reactor reached a record power of 1.3 megajoules. What happened after is amazing. The scientists were told: thank you all, everyone is free. And Kim Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, went on record that the reactor will now serve “national security.”
“Unfortunately, the results of all scientific research are primarily used for some militaristic tasks,”.
The former director of the laboratory, Bruce Tarter, does not hide the truth of the purpose of building a laser fusion reactor.
“NIF (NIF) will not be able to replace nuclear testing, but with its help we are going to learn much more about these weapons than we knew so far. And this is our chance to make a reliable nuclear weapons program by reducing the number of nuclear tests,” he said. .
So do not flatter yourself: no cheap energy. No breakthroughs for peaceful science. The laboratory was created to improve military nuclear technologies, and it is successfully doing this.
“When scientists are paid, they make some discoveries and studies, but, unfortunately, all these discoveries and studies are, of course, primarily related to military issues,” commented the expert.
Scientific journals wrote that physicists managed to disperse particles of light – photons – to superluminal speed. And there is not a single reason not to believe this, because the problem has been dealt with in Livermore for more than 10 years. The reports speak of incredible success.
The particles exceeded the speed of light by 30 percent, which in itself looks like a miracle. Until now, the speed of light has been considered the maximum possible in our universe. But, if this milestone was really passed, could time stop?
“Yes, we can imagine this, at the speed of light, time stops. Light that moves at the speed of light does not have a clock at all,” said physicist Belotsky.
Was it a side effect of the crazy speed? Or was the stoppage of time the goal of the scientific experiment? Let’s figure it out. Fast forward from sunny California to business New York.
Stop Time in the Pot: The Syracuse University Experience
Syracuse University has nothing to do with the American defense industry. But he is famous for the experiment, which was recognized as the most ridiculous study of the year.
A group of physicists led by Professor Shalabh Maru stopped time. But not in the universe, but in a pot of boiling water. Why they did this is unknown. But in the reports the result of the experiment is formulated in this way. And now about everything in order.
We all know how water boils in a pot. First, bubbles appear at the bottom, then the water begins to boil, the bubbles rise to the surface, burst and steam rises above the pan.
In scientific terms, this is exactly how the phase transition between the liquid and gaseous state of water occurs. But the fact is that the process of the appearance of bubbles with vapor inside a boiling liquid is still a mystery to physicists.
“This is the only substance that can simultaneously, under normal conditions, be in three states of aggregation – water, steam, and ice. This is a substance in which many characteristics have an anomalous course.”
Find out what and how Professor Shalabh Maru and a group of like-minded people came up with. Armed with a laser and pots, the scientists set to work.
For several hours, scientists boiled sparkling and non-carbonated water, poured it from pot to pot, adjusted the temperature and meticulously analyzed the state of the bubbles. Nothing foreshadowed trouble, when suddenly the impossible happened. Time stopped.
The program has a genuine recording of the experiment! On the frames, a bubble with steam moves, grows in the thickness of boiling water. There is no doubt that some processes are taking place in it.
A brief laser exposure and – oh, a miracle! – he is motionless. Both the boiling water and the steam above the pot froze.
Something incredible and strange has happened. The boiling of water stopped, while its temperature remained the same – 100 degrees Celsius.
The clock on the laboratory wall was still ticking the minutes and seconds. The sun continued its course across the sky. The Earth was still spinning, and the Galaxy was flying towards its destiny.
Nothing more ridiculous and impossible to think of. But the paradox is that it was this experiment that aroused the excitement of research among physicists.
If you stop time, the movement will freeze. Nothing bad happened in Professor Shalabh Maru’s pot. And what will happen if time stops on the scale of the universe? Everything that moved, changed, lived must pause. Stars and planets, rockets and turbines, molecules and atoms.
And even our hearts… And that’s not all. Stopping time will instantly plunge the world into pitch darkness. After all, without time, the particles of light – photons – will also stop. It will be the end of the world in the truest sense of the word. Scientists call this phenomenon the Temporal Apocalypse.
To date, there is no reason why time in our universe can stop by itself. But physicists are looking for a way to control time. If such an opportunity arises, then the world will receive the most terrible weapon that has ever existed on Earth, and in comparison with it, a thermonuclear bomb will look like just a child’s toy.
Saves humanity, oddly enough, his own ignorance. After all, even physicists do not really understand what time is.
Magic “time crystal”: what is it
“It’s just a certain coordinate, a coordinate that characterizes changes, a change of states. That’s probably all I can say,” expert.
But did you know that behind these words lies a deep meaning and genuine scientific curiosity? Back in 2012, Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek calculated the formula for a “time crystal” that can pulsate forever without expending energy, like a mechanical watch that does not require winding.
The scientist said: if the internal structure of ordinary crystals has symmetry, then there may be objects that have symmetry in time. And such a crystal was created.
The program showed how the experimental “time crystal” created by a group of physicists led by Mikhail Lukin looks like. It looks like an ordinary diamond. Grown artificially and filled with many defects.
To understand how it works, let’s take a piece of ice. It also has a crystalline structure. If we direct a stream of hot air at it, the ice will begin to melt.
That is, its crystal lattice will begin to change. If we lower the temperature, the water will turn back into ice. Physicists will say that we have observed how water changes its state of aggregation under the influence of energy.
The “Time Crystal” works in exactly the same way, only it does not need energy for changes. Change of states is caused by time.
“Well, time itself is such an incomprehensible thing.
Why time flows forward all the time, does not obey our will in any way – and, of course, all great physicists thought about this, gave some of their judgments, but the theory is such that it – something there described, predicted, I don’t know such.
Of course, no one even had a close idea in mind that time might not be what it was, that is, some such Absolute, given always as a given.”
Theory of relativity
The foundations of the universe were shaken in 1905, when Albert Einstein doubted Newton’s theory. He published the theory of relativity. In it, time could move at different speeds. Slow down, accelerate, and even – theoretically – stop. And so that colleagues understood, he explained on his fingers.
An hour in good company always seems shorter than five minutes on a hot stove. It was difficult to argue with such an argument. And yet, it seemed to many that Einstein’s ideas had nothing to do with reality. Soars, they say, a physicist in the clouds. Therefore, the theory of relativity had to be confirmed experimentally.
And here it is, indisputable proof – a unique picture, which is more than 100 years old. But it was not Einstein who did it, as you might think, but Eddington. An English astrophysicist, a fan of the theory of relativity, entered the history of science by proving Einstein’s theory. And for this he had to go to the African continent.
May 29, 1919. Total solar eclipse. At the right time, in the right place, Eddington conducts an amazing experiment that was written about in all London newspapers. He photographs the stars near the sun.
The idea is simple. If the theory of relativity is correct, then the light of stars passing near the Sun should be deflected by gravity. That is, in the photographs they will not be in their usual places, but will be slightly shifted. As a reference, Eddington took photographs of the same area of the sky taken at night.
The experiment was a success. The stars have shifted. So, the theory of relativity turned out to be correct.
“Revolution in science! Einstein’s theory triumphs!” newspapers wrote. Einstein instantly became a world celebrity.
200 years of Newtonian physics went to waste. Albert Einstein turned the idea of the Universe upside down and spoke about a wonderful world that mankind had not known before.
Everything we study today, from the Big Bang and black holes to string theory and dark matter, is a consequence of the theory of relativity. But where does the time, you ask. And we will tell. How often do we think: the theory of relativity – what? Let’s figure it out.
Mid 16th century. The astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus proclaimed the relativity of position. Why consider the Earth as the center of the world, if instead of it the Sun can be placed in the center of the world?
But if you think that he argued with religion, then you are greatly mistaken. The goal was purely practical. If the Sun is in the center, doing any mathematical calculations is much easier.
Early 17th century. Physicist Galileo Galilei proclaimed the relativity of motion. If you move at a constant speed, then the movement is imperceptible. Get on a train or in a car and don’t look out the window.
Do you feel the movement? And when you fly in an airplane, do you feel the speed of 900 km per hour? Of course not.
20th century. The theoretical physicist Albert Einstein proclaimed the relativity of time. Its course entirely depends on the speed with which the observer is moving.
“Before the construction of Einstein’s theory, we spoke about time exactly as if it were some kind of unshakable given, but here now it seems to have become a changing dynamic quantity.
That is, you can create some conditions for time to change,” expert.
Albert Einstein suggested that time be the fourth dimension. Our universe has three dimensions: length, width and height. One more thing to add to this is time. And then, with the help of 4 numbers, you can describe any event in the Universe – both the Big Bang and the first date.
“If you want to meet someone, you say, ‘Let’s meet at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 41st Street on the 50th floor.’ And you add: at noon,” said physicist Michio Kaku.
Einstein was one of the few who seriously investigated time and gave it a place in his theory of relativity.
“Space and time are the principles of our thinking, not the conditions in which we live,” he liked to tell students at Princeton University.
Modern physicists have learned the lesson of genius and consider time as an abstract and even technical characteristic.
“It’s not as if the object of study is as direct as any other phenomenon, it’s, I say, a coordinate, it’s a means of describing the process, not the object of study itself,” said expert.
Physicists talk about the space-time continuum. By this incomprehensible term they called all the same four dimensions. Space: height, width and depth, and time, which always moves forward and guarantees continuity.
But let’s be honest. Scientists are increasingly interested in the paradoxes of time. Does time always flow in one direction? Is it possible to change its course? And is it possible to travel in time?
When Einstein published his theory in 1915, he was very worried that his equations would allow scientists to “play with time” and penetrate into the past. And so it happened.
Back to the Future: Is Time Travel Possible?
Flatiron Institute, America. In 2016, physicists fired laser pulses at the qubits of a quantum computer in a pattern inspired by the Fibonacci number sequence.
Thus, an amazing phenomenon for our world was discovered. Quantum objects were simultaneously in two time dimensions – in the past and in the future. And it’s still flowers! Physicists believe that in nature there is a quantum of time that affects its course.
“If the step changes by one time quantum, and the time quantum is a very short time – 10 minutes 43 seconds.
And within this small interval, roughly speaking, the speed will change randomly there: sometimes the clock is twice as fast, then two times slower.
The course of time will change so chaotically, “expert.
Despite these fantastic discoveries, scientists remain skeptical about time travel.
“There are some assumptions that it is still possible to go back in time, but we ourselves understand that this is unrealistic, that it is impossible to imagine it.”
Writer Ray Bradbury was convinced that the very presence of creatures from the future in the past changes history dramatically. The hero of his story kills a butterfly in the Stone Age, and when he comes back he finds that the world has become completely different.
And economist Edward Lorenz proved that everything in the world is so interconnected that “the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas.” And it did not give a single chance for time travel.
However, physicist Barak Shoshany of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Waterloo has proven that despite the paradoxes, time travel is possible.
True, there is one condition. The traveler can only travel in parallel timelines. There he can do whatever he wants, while the events in the original timeline remain unchanged.
“Yes, quantum theory allows the existence of many worlds in which there are small quantum differences. All this corresponds to the laws of physics,” said theoretical physicist Michio Kaku.
The American physicist Hugh Everett was the first to speak about the existence of parallel worlds. Back in 1954, in Princeton, at a party on the occasion of the visit of the “father of quantum physics” Niels Bohr, physics students discussed the paradoxes of quantum mechanics.
They were seriously worried about the discrepancy between the quantum world and the real world.
How does an electron pass through two holes at the same time? Why is Schrödinger’s cat both alive and dead at the same time?
“After a heated discussion and a few sips of sherry,” Hugh Everett’s bright head came up with a brilliant idea.
But what if all the possibilities of the quantum world are realized in the real world?
What if quantum paradoxes give rise to alternative universes, in one of which the cat will be dead, in the other – alive?
In one, the electron will fly through the right hole, in the other through the left hole…
Hugh Everett defended his doctoral dissertation on this topic in 1957, but the scientific community did not show any interest in his work.
Read and forget. And the theory of parallel worlds became popular only among science fiction writers and Hollywood directors. But few people know that Everett was not the only one, and not even the first one, who started talking about parallel worlds.
In 1938, the English theoretical physicist Paul Dirac suggested that there are universes that are different from ours. It is in them, according to physicists of the 21st century, that time travelers will go.
1949 America. Princeton University. Mathematician Kurt Godel is at the department, he makes a sensational report: he presents to his colleagues a new model of the Universe, in which the impossible is possible. It’s about time travel.
The scientific community is in shock. The mathematician ignores all the principles of physical science. However, Godel is not at all embarrassed.
He was a strange man – Albert Einstein’s only friend. The first scientist to prove the existence of God. The man who dreamed of going to the past. It is worth noting that only time prevented him from making this breathtaking voyage.
And he came up with the “Gödel Universe”. A world where time is cyclical, where the difference between past, present and future is just an illusion. Time in it does not move in a straight line, but in a circle. Periodically returns to its original state, and replays the cycles already completed. And try to prove otherwise.
Life is a kind of cycle. And in any cycle there is development, there is aging and there is dying and again a new rebirth. Our whole life is subject to these cycles,” said Alexander Tolmachev, Vice President of the Living Planet International Ecological Movement.
The idea is not new. The sages of antiquity also thought that time is cyclical. And the Mayans did not perceive time as a sequence of minutes, hours, days and years.
“This is their idea about the cyclicity of the world. The cyclicity of time. But everywhere you need to look for a balance, including on a historical scale.
And if this balance is disturbed, everything ends and you need to start over.
There are stories written by Mayan scribes about the creation of the world and its destruction,” said Gerardo Aldano, a historian of science in the Department of Mexican Sciences at the University of California.
Time is just an endless repetition that reflects the cosmic order established by the gods on earth. We asked the masters of science if this is possible?
“Is it possible to move in time?
Forward – yes, you can. Back – I would say that it is impossible.
Evolution back is impossible,” expert said.
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