Biochemist Dr. Isaac Asimov was joking, of course, when he came up with the substance (it came up in his orals for his doctorate, and it terrified him), but some theoretical physicists have suggested that something similar to Asimov's fictional chemical actually exists at the quantum level.
Phys Org reports that "Physicists provide support for retrocausal quantum theory, in which the future influences the past."
(Phys.org)—Although there are many counterintuitive ideas in quantum theory, the idea that influences can travel backwards in time (from the future to the past) is generally not one of them. However, recently some physicists have been looking into this idea, called "retrocausality," because it can potentially resolve some long-standing puzzles in quantum physics. In particular, if retrocausality is allowed, then the famous Bell tests can be interpreted as evidence for retrocausality and not for action-at-a-distance—a result that Einstein and others skeptical of that "spooky" property may have appreciated.
It's a long and informative article that I found fascinating.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:29PM (1 child)
If it takes more energy and mass to compute than exist in the universe it may be we can peel, but not make use of it. It may simple be practically impossible.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 08 2017, @06:11PM
That is a possible limit, more likely it's just a few orders of magnitude higher than we currently can muster, like the relationship between energy released by 100kg of TNT and 100kg of plutonium...
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