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posted by martyb on Thursday June 11 2015, @10:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the will-this-help-me-win-the-lottery? dept.

A team in Australia turned thought experiment into lab reality by using lasers. Their subject matter was not a photon but a helium atom. The lasers they used served as a pair of grates, one before the other, with the second grate randomly dropped in.

What they found is weirder than anything seen to date: Every time the two grates were in place, the helium atom passed through, on many paths in many forms, just like a wave. But whenever the second grate was not present, the atom invariably passed through the first grate like a particle. The fascinating part was, the second grate's very existence in the path was random. And what's more, it hadn't happened yet.

In other words, it was as if the helium particle "knew" whether there would be a second grate at the time it passed through the first.

More here: http://secondnexus.com/technology-and-innovation/physicists-demonstrate-how-time-can-seem-to-run-backward-and-the-future-can-affect-the-past/

Also covered at: phys.org. An abstract is available; full report is pay-walled. The original news article is at Australian National University


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2015, @11:41AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2015, @11:41AM (#194917)

    So Roko's basilisk may be possible after all. Time to start taking my meds again...

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2015, @01:07PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2015, @01:07PM (#194936)

    Time to stop badmouthing System D, you mean!

    • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday June 11 2015, @03:17PM

      by wonkey_monkey (279) on Thursday June 11 2015, @03:17PM (#194988) Homepage

      Hey, that's my schtick!

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2015, @04:04PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2015, @04:04PM (#195013)

        Hey, that's my schtick!

        But it's such GREAT stuff, hope you don't mind some imitation-as-flattery.