- A new paper published
in the nature journal
"Quantum Information" explores the
quantum computing
potential of time travel.
It's a pretty heady, technical topic,
but allow me to explain
the basics in terms
we can all appreciate, time
travel science fiction.
(electronic music)
- Let's unpack this topic.
First of all, quantum
computing is a field that looks
to the computational potential
of quantum mechanical phenomenon.
All the weirdness of the quantum realm,
you know, that place that Paul
Rudd goes to in "Ant Man".
We're talking the realm of
super position and entanglement.
According to physicist David Deutsch
the superposition of qubits,
quantum bits of information
that can simultaneously
exist as a one and a zero
and everything in between,
can theoretically allow
a quantum computer to work on
a million computations at once.
Entangling those qubits
allows us to measure
each one's value without
disturbing the system's integrity.
Google says that they've
created a quantum computer
that can work 100,000,000
times faster than our laptops,
but why dream small?
Perhaps, as researcher Dave Bacon posited,
you could enable your quantum computer
to send particles backwards through time
along a closed timelike curve.
Think of it as a wormhole
that loops back around
to the same point in spacetime.
All totally in keeping
with general relativity.
It's like if the ship from "Event Horizon"
slipped into it's artificial black hole,
took a little jaunt through hell,
and then came back out at the
same moment that it went in.
What's the point of such a journey?
Well blasting information coded particles
through such a time
loop could super charge
a quantum computer enough to solve
some otherwise impossible computations.
But of course you're still talking about
sending something backwards through time,
and that's where the universe's
big timecop comes into play, causality.
In this universe cause always
comes before the effect,
not the other way around.
There's no killing your own grandfather,
and if you could travel back in time
to kill Hitler, then he never existed
and you had no reason to
go back in the first place,
thus negating your whole time traveling
murder vacation to begin with.
And critics argue that "Timecop" causality
would break up the
theoretical computing party
in this closed timelike curve
as the time traveling particle
interacts with it's past self,
takes it's own mother to the prom, etc.
And this is where we
get to this 2015 paper
from a team of international
quantum researchers.
They argue that by quantum entangling
a time traveling quantum
computation particle
you could lock it.
Resulting in an open timelike curve.
You wouldn't have to worry
about broken causality,
Marty McFly blinking out of existence
or two Ron Silvers
melting into a pile of goo
because they would never meet.
The curve is open, not closed.
It all reminds one of Ray
Bradbury's 1952 short story,
"A Sound of Thunder"
in which time traveling
dinosaur hunters have to
stick to a levitating walkway
and only shoot dinos that
are about to die anyway.
This latest batch of
quantum computing theory
would seem to suggest that
with proper manipulation
of quantum entanglement,
and the right grasp of general relativity,
an open timelike curve can operate
as our own levitating walkway
above the pitfalls of time travel.
You know, for particles at any rate.
So hey, I know this is
a really heady topic
so make sure you check out the links below
if you want a deeper dive.
And in the meantime if you want more
mind rending science weirdness
be sure to visit now.howstuffworks.com
each and every day.
(bell toll)
