Posted on 02/08/2008 4:24:59 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
The world's first time machine? Tunnel to the past could open door to future within three months, say Russians
Last updated at 14:07?? on 07.02.08
Time travel could be a reality within just three months, Russian mathematicians have claimed.
They believe an experiment nuclear scientists plan to carry out in underground tunnels in Geneva in May could create a rift in the fabric of the universe.
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Life imitating art? Actors Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd in the movie Back to the Future. Scientists say that time travel could be a reality in just three months
The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) hopes its "atom-smashing" tests - which aim to recreate the conditions in the first billionth of a second after the "Big Bang'" created everything - will shed invaluable light on the origins of the universe.
But Irina Aref'eva and Igor Volovich, of Moscow's Steklov Mathematical Institute, say the energy produced by forcing tiny particles to collide at close to the speed of light could open the door to visitors from the future.
According to Einstein's general theory of relativity, any large amounts of matter or energy will distort the space and time that surrounds it.
If the energy or mass is large enough, it is claimed that time can be distorted so much that it folds back on itself - creating a wormhole, or time tunnel, between the present and the future.
But Dr Brian Cox, a member of CERN and one of Britain's leading experts in particle physics, is highly sceptical about the Russian claims, calling them "nothing more than a good science fiction story".
Wormhole: Scientists plan to carry out tests in underground tunnels in Geneva in May which could create a rift in the fabric of the universe
He said: "Cosmic ray collisions in the upper atmosphere are far more energetic than anything we can produce.
"They have been occurring for five billion years, and no time travellers have appeared.
"Stephen Hawking has suggested that any future theory of quantum gravity will probably close this possibility off, not least because the universe usually proceeds in a sane way, and time travel into the past isn't sane."
Cynics often point out that if time travel was really possible, we would have been visited by people from the future.
However, Einstein's laws of physics suggest that time travel is only possible into the past as far as the point when the first time machine was invented.
Just don’t kick the baby dinosaurs.
Oh! To be able to go back in time and buy IBM for $1.00 per share!
Fixed! Oh, and time travel into the future has always been possible and occurs routinely. It's traveling into the past that's a problem.
Foolishness. Time travel is impossible.
I thought Berkshire would be better.
Wow. That comment was pulled right off the page of DU.
This is a little game the scientists play to garner more funding from government.
They will no doubt do the experiment, and make the grandiose claim that they succeeded in causing a particle to travel backward in time. But no one will be able to explain how it happened, or how they know they succeeded.
I thought McCain was pulled right off the pages of DU!
"If my calculations are correct when this sucker reaches 88 mph, you’re going to see some serious sh!t!"
How do they know we haven't?......
There is no likelihood that man can ever tap the power of the atom. The glib supposition of utilizing atomic energy when our coal has run out is a completely unscientific Utopian dream, a childish bug-a-boo.
Robert Millikan - 1928
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
Thomas J. Watson, Chairman of IBM - 1943
This is the biggest fool thing we’ve ever done- the bomb will never go off- and I speak as an expert on explosives.
Admiral William Leahy - 1945
Television won’t last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.
Darryl Zanuck - 1946
Foolishness. Time travel is impossible
Unimaginative Anonymous Freeper - 2008
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