It's official: time machines won't work

LAURA WESTBROOK
Last updated 15:06 27/07/2011
Back to the Future

IMPOSSIBLE?! Looks like it's back to the drawing board for Back to the Future's 'Doc'.

Relevant offers

Scientists have crushed the dreams of anyone who has ever tried to turn their car, Jacuzzi or a telephone booth into a time machine.

Physicists at the Hong Kong University of Technology and Science have ruled out the possibility of time travel by proving that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

You might think time travel always belonged in the world of fantasy, but 10 years ago some scientists began to believe time travel might actually be possible when superluminal - or faster than light - propagation of some specific medium were discovered. It was later found to be a visual effect, but the idea that a single photon could exceed the speed of light lingered, and with it, the possibility of time travel.

Until now, that is.

Einstein claimed that the speed of light was the traffic law of the universe - or, simply, that nothing can travel faster than light.

Shengwang Du and his team's research, which was published in the journal Physical Review Letters, sought to end the debate, and kill mankind's long-held dream of time travel, by measuring the ultimate speed of a single photon, which had not been done before.

Their study shows that even single photons, the smallest particle of light, travel at the same maximum speed.

"By showing that single photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light, our results bring a closure to the debate on the true speed of information carried by a single photon," Du said.

In other words, time travel looks to remain solely within the realm of Doctor Who.

Ad Feedback

- © Fairfax NZ News

181 comments
Post a comment
Moana   #181   02:07 pm Aug 10 2011

I wish i could get back the 2minutes I wasted reading something we already knew. I wonder if the scientists can get back the time and thousands of dollars they wasted trying to figure this out??

brendan   #180   10:29 am Aug 10 2011

impossible is nothing?

oocficjfc   #179   11:05 am Aug 04 2011

i love this movie

joe bloggs   #178   10:24 am Aug 02 2011

What a load of jip, Those scientists are just jealous they haven't figured out how to build the flux capacitor yet....proof..im posting this now at 10:27am..yet it wont get posted till sometime in the future, so my message has time travelled...like totally obvious bro's and brosettes!!!

rjt   #177   09:25 am Aug 02 2011

Both Einstien and Hawking put forward the possibility of time travel - though both stated that you couldn't travel back further than the time that the time travel (machine, device, whatever) creation date. One concept I read of was based in multiverse theories - movement through dimensional space to others where time moved differently (more slowly, backwards, etc). Most 'viable' methods are pretty well explored in science fiction writing.

In any case the concept of moving at either relativistic speeds, or 'warp speed' through folded space using concepts like Einstein-Rosenburg bridges has always seemed more important than time travelling to mans future as a species and colonising new worlds so I could live without time travel.

lee   #176   06:21 am Aug 02 2011

never mind time travel..I'm holding out for a tellyporter :)

Chris   #175   01:30 pm Aug 01 2011

1 - These scientists did not "prove" anything. They found out how not to observe a photon travelling faster than light.

2 - In the quantum world time travel is commonplace.

3 - China just banned time travel.. I'd expect nothing less than some instant scientific backing from their own.

pah   #174   05:13 pm Jul 31 2011

The idea that us observing a photon not ging faster than light speed somehow proves time travel to be impossible is terrible journalism (typical of stuff, which is one of the worst around) and unscientific idiocy. Stuff have an unethical habit of using deliberately misleading headings to get hits on stories these days. Then again they are fairfax based and fairfax don't hire real journalists.

Matthew   #173   03:56 pm Jul 30 2011

"Time is an illusion, lunch time doubly so."

Quantum physics states that we cannot know the location and speed at the same time (admittedly this is for an electron but who ever said that photons were the only way to time travel). This physicist my have measured the speed but who's to say it didn't time travel to get to that location? It could of gone back in time and arrived after it should have.

Yeahright   #172   12:03 pm Jul 30 2011

Everything is impossible until someone does it.


Show 122-171 of 181 comments

Post comment


Required

Required. Will not be published.
Registration is not required to post a comment but if you , you will not have to enter your details each time you comment. Registered members also have access to extra features. Create an account now.


Maximum of 1750 characters (about 300 words)

I have read and accepted the terms and conditions
These comments are moderated. Your comment, if approved, may not appear immediately. Please direct any queries about comment moderation to the Opinion Editor at blogs@stuff.co.nz
Special offers
Opinion poll

Do you agree with Stephen Fry's view that New Zealand broadband is rubbish?

Yes

No

Vote Result

Related story: (See story)

Featured Promotions

Sponsored Content