Light moves back and forth simultaneously!
Recommended for Secondary Grades
The “quantum time flip” is a phenomenon in which light moves in both the forward and backward directions of time at the same time.
The time-flipped photon can’t be used to reenact “Back to the Future,” but it might be able to explain some of the strangest things that happen in the universe.
Scientists have made it seem for the first time that light can travel in both directions through time at the same time.
Scientists might be able to improve quantum computers and learn more about quantum gravity with this new way of thinking.
Key facts!
- A special optical crystal was used to split a photon, which is a packet of light.
- So, a photon can be in both the forward and backward time states at the same time.
- The effect is caused by ideas in quantum physics that explain how very small things behave.
- Superposition is the name of the first rule of quantum mechanics.
- It says that a subatomic particle can exist at the same time in many different states, or as many copies of itself until it is seen.
- Another rule of quantum mechanics states that particles will follow the same physical laws even if the charges, space position, and movements through time are reversed, like in a mirror.
- This states that fundamental physical laws apply to any system with particles.
- Scientists made a photon by putting these two ideas together.
- It looked like it was moving both forward and backwards along the arrow of time at the same time.
- “The arrow of time” is a term for how it seems like time moves in only one direction in the world we live in.
- This would give scientists a chance to look into some of the strangest things that happen in the universe.
Watch a video
Here’s an animation on the fundamental ideas behind quantum mechanics for kids.
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