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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, @10:59AM (4 children)
So there is perhaps retro causality, but is that such on a timescale larger than a plank time 5e-44 s or less? because such theories I have read before and they seem plausible. But they have also very little impact on practical physics. Even nuclear reactions appear extremely slow in comparison.
It may however affect uncertainty ie randomness and phenomena like single photons pathway choice through a diffraction filter. I'll suspect.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday July 08 2017, @11:45AM
Due to China [soylentnews.org], yes it it nowadays much larger than Plank time, something like hundred of milliseconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 08 2017, @12:58PM (2 children)
Randomness has always seemed like a cop-out, a way of modeling details that the modeler does not know.
Peel back the next layer of the onion and you get to see why the dice fall as they do.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(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...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end