Specialists in quantum physics have made a surprising discovery that shows that time is not unidirectional. Their research suggests he can flow in the past.
Time can flow in two directions, suggests research results. Photo shutterstock
A research team at the University of Surrey (in southeast England) has discovered, using quantum physics, that time can flow equally in both directions, without any difference between past and future, writes corriere.it.
Our relationship with time has always been a little strange. We always feel that he is flowing, but we can never agree with how, faster, more slowly, like a river that moves from the memories of the past to the uncertainties and expectations of the future.
The daily experiences confirm this: a glass that falls and breaks, for example, cannot be put back in its intact form. In other words, we have always been tempted to believe that there is a “Arrow of time” with a very precise direction and that it is a fundamental feature of nature.
What does physics say?
The laws of physics do not indicate the existence of a single direction of time and then, what is the reason for this different perception of ours, why does time seem to run before?
This is one of the questions that the team of researchers from the University of Surrey, in the United Kingdom, of which Italian Andrea Rocco, was also answered.
According to Nature’s Scientific Reports, which published the results of the research, scientists focused on the problem of time in quantum systems, that complex subatomic world that responds to the laws of quantum mechanics and which is still largely enveloped in mystery.
In general, it is believed that the interaction of a quantum system with its environment has an inevitable waste of time information, thus generating a preferred temporal direction. But by applying specific mathematical models, the researchers noticed that the loss of information takes place in both directions, back in time and before, suggesting that, at least at the quantum level, time could not only have a direction, but two opposite directions.
In other words, the arrow of time appears only when we consider specific systems, characterized by as specific conditions of departure and in a certain interaction with the environment. An example is the speed of light in a vacuum, which always remains the same even when the observer’s point of view changes.
Another example is the electric task that an electron has, which does not vary according to the experiment.
The research team has also shown how the equations underlying the quantum mechanics (Pauli, Lindbland and Langevin equations) and which, therefore, describe the subatomic world, are symmetrical in relation to time, thus allowing the system to evolve both before and back in time, without losing their physical validity.
Why is it important to discover that time could flow in two directions
The results of the team research at the University of Surrey are certainly fascinating, but it remains to be seen how wide their angle of application can be, writes the source.
It remains to be seen, therefore, if these discoveries can be applied in the macroscopic world, where the second law of thermodynamics reigns, according to which the level of entropy is doomed to increase over time.
The researchers hope that, thus, they will understand if the universe also moves in two opposite temporal directions: if yes, our journey through the cosmos would be half completed.
