Wednesday, April 02, 2008





Time travellers from the future 'could be here in weeks'

Prof Irina Aref'eva and Dr Igor Volovich, mathematical physicists at the Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow believe that the vast experiment at CERN, the European particle physics centre near Geneva in Switzerland, may turn out to be the world's first time machine, reports New Scientist.

The debut in early summer could provide a landmark because travelling into the past is only possible - if it is possible at all - as far back as the point of creation of the first time machine.

That means 2008 could become "Year Zero" for temporal travel, they argue.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Prof Irina Aref'eva and Dr Igor Volovich, mathematical physicists at the Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow believe that the vast experiment at CERN, the European particle physics centre near Geneva in Switzerland, may turn out to be the world's first time machine, reports New Scientist.

But what if they're overestimated the size of the experiment by a factor of two? Does that make it, um, a half-vast experiment?

Anonymous said...

"Does that make it, um, a half-vast experiment?"

Heh! Now that's funny! I favor the postmodern term, ginormous, myself.

Oh, and Year Zero can't begin until someone, after the LHC is up and running for some time, figures out how to use the enormogantic device to affect spacetime in a very particular way, and then adds on the tech (which might be looked upon with some concern) required to use it as some kind of time portal. Only then will our future transhumanoid successors have the means to pop back into our time.

At which point, as they walk through (or float invisibly?) this Stargate-like avenue, the scientists on locale say, "WTF!?"

The visitors then calmly reply, "Hey, man, dig it--it's now Year Zero! We've come for your jalapeno-flavored Doritos! Oh, and Pam Anderson! Ummmmm.....Tasty!"

Anonymous said...

Hey, just thought of something...if the CERN LHC goes online this summer, and the tech for "time travel" ever gets attached and functional, does this mean that in oh, five to ten years from now or so, that that would be year Zero? If so, and the Mayan "calendarical predictions" of "time ending" in 2012 is correct, which it most certainly in actuality is probably not, that the end of our time (age of acquisitive Aquarians?) in 2012 would thus fit neatly into a new, time travelling based recalibration of time markers from that point forward, as it were, or from Year Zero consideration.

I tend to favor Nov., or Dec. 2017 AD as the dawn year of any such Year Zero, myself! No, don't ask me why--it's just that all the geometrically and logarithymically developing trends, in a Malthusiam manner, should actually be peaking over around 10 years from now, as opposed to five years, or 2012. I, for one, welcome our fellow spacetime travellors and potential alien / transhumanoid species successors, but not until 2017 AD, if you please! 8^}