Scientists Have Modeled Time Travel - Alternative View

Scientists Have Modeled Time Travel - Alternative View
Scientists Have Modeled Time Travel - Alternative View

Video: Scientists Have Modeled Time Travel - Alternative View

Video: Scientists Have Modeled Time Travel - Alternative View
Video: Time Travel in Fiction Rundown 2024, March
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Scientists have simulated time travel using a quantum computer.

If we touch on the topic of time travel, then in the modern scientific community there are a number of assumptions and theories. At one end of this series is a theory that can be characterized by the well-known term “butterfly effect”. According to this theory, everything in the Universe is a close interweaving of cause-and-effect relationships and events, and even the smallest changes in the past made by a time traveler should lead to large, one might even say cardinal, changes in the present, which is the cause of the so-called time paradoxes …

The most striking examples of this theory are science fiction films "Back to the Future" and "A Sound of Thunder", based on the story of the same name by Ray Bradberry.

At the other end of the series of time travel theories is the theory that our universe has powerful self-regulation and self-healing capabilities. The whole series of events that have taken place are already clearly defined and no changes in the past can affect the present. The Avengers series of sci-fi films, especially the most recent film in the Avengers: Endgame series, exemplifies this principle. The heroes of these films freely penetrated into the past, rescued their friends there, without destroying the present and the future with their actions. And the Universe itself corrected the temporary paradoxes arising in this case.

Unfortunately, no one can now jump into a time machine and test this or that theory. But researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have been able to get some answers using a quantum time travel simulator built inside the IBM-Q quantum computer. And, according to the data obtained, the second of the theories voiced above is correct, at least at the level of quantum time travel.

“Only a quantum computer, using the quirks of quantum mechanics, allows us to see what will happen in the world of a complex quantum system, if we go back in time, intervene in the state of this system and go back. Unfortunately, such a trick cannot be performed on a conventional computer of any computing power, "the researchers write." And we found that the state of the quantum system did not change with such a temporary intervention, which suggests that the butterfly effect does not manifest itself in any way on a quantum level ".

The system created in the depths of a quantum computer is based on two quantum bits, qubits, which can be conventionally called Ellis and Bob. These qubits are interconnected by chains of quantum circuits, which just allow you to move in time, using, most likely, the well-known principle of uncertainty.

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At the beginning of the experiment, the Ellis qubit is set into a certain quantum state, which is "sent back into the past." At some point in the past, the state of the Ellis qubit is measured with the help of the Bob qubit, which, according to all the canons of quantum mechanics, should destroy its fragile quantum state. And when the entire system returns from the past to the present, using the natural flow of time, the Ellis qubit checks its state for compliance with the established one.

If the butterfly effect theory were correct, then the state of the Ellis qubit returning from time travel would have to be different from the state established before the trip. But, many experiments have shown that the state of the Ellis qubit returns almost unharmed and contains quantum information recorded in it. Some guesses prompted scientists to the idea that the quantum information recorded in a qubit immediately "grows roots" of quantum correlations going back into the deep past. And this web of quantum connections cannot be easily shattered by "vandalism" performed by the Bob qubit.

Scientists also noticed a paradox - the further back in time Ellis's qubit travels, the less damage to the quantum state it receives from Bob's interference. By all appearances, the further in time a qubit moves, the larger and more durable web of quantum correlations restoring it, it creates in this case. “Thus, we found out that the concept of chaos theory in classical physics and in quantum mechanics is fundamentally different from each other,” the researchers write.

Finally, it should be noted that these experiments are more than fun for scientists. First, such an experiment is a very rigorous test for quantum computers, which confirms that these computers actually work using the principles of quantum mechanics. Secondly, similar principles of "quantum time travel" can be implemented in information security protocols of the next generations. These protocols will store the protected information in the past, restoring it as needed using a "web" of strong quantum correlations, and this will make the information inaccessible to intruders who are in the present.