Scientists Successfully Simulate Time Travel

Using particles of light, scientists have achieved success in simulating time travel. The particles of light acted as quantum particles and the scientists were able to first send them away and then bring back to their original space-time location. This is a big step forward being taken to find a point of convergence between general relativity and quantum mechanics in lab conditions.

Australian researchers from the UQ's School of Mathematics and Physics wanted to bridge the gap between two most commonly accepted physics theories. The task was not as easy as it may sound because Einstein's theory, on the one hand, predicts how massive object like planets and galaxies behave. But on the other, theory of quantum mechanics is based on the, molecular-level description of our world, which is a clear contradiction to the one by Einstein.

The study saw the use of light particles known as photons. These particles stood in for actual quantum particles, which helped the researchers to see how they behaved while moving through space and time. The team made it possible to simulate the behavior of a single photon capable of traveling back into time through a wormhole and meeting its older self - an identical photon.

"We used single photons to do this but the time-travel was simulated by using a second photon to play the part of the past incarnation of the time traveling photon", said UQ Physics Professor Tim Ralph as quoted by The Speaker.

Findings of the study have been published in the journal Nature Communications. It was suggested by Einstein that it is possible to travel back in time and return to the starting point. But, Kurt Godel theorized in 1949 that the classical laws of physics will not allow anyone to prevent their grandparents from meeting by traveling back in time, because it will not allow the person to born.

However, Tim Ralph suggested in 1991 that quantum mechanics' flexible laws could avoid such situations.

This poem cleanses air of pollution

This poem is printed on a material that according to the researchers can eradicate the air pollution caused by 20 cars per day.

The material is devised by the researchers from University of Sheffield. The material is capable of removing harmful nitrogen oxide from the atmosphere.

Well-known poet Simon Armitage, professor of poetry at the University, and pro-vicechancellor for science Tony Ryan have joined hands to create a poem called 'In Praise of Air' and this poem is printed on material which can purify the air.

The researchers said that this technology is quite cheap and it could be applied to billboards and advertisements in order to bring down pollution.

The material is coated with microscopic pollution-eating particles of titanium dioxide which uses sunlight and oxygen to react with nitrogen oxide pollutants and purify the air.

"This is a fun collaboration between science and the arts to highlight a very serious issue of poor air quality in our towns and cities," Ryan, who came up with the idea of using treated materials to cleanse the air, said.

The poem will remain on display at the Alfred Denny Building, Western Bank, for a year.