Science's Fountain of Youth


Science has recently discovered how to reverse time… in quantum computers. This discovery, however, just reinforces the belief that reversing time is impossible in the natural world, largely due to the extreme manipulations required to rearrange the structure of just one particle. Besides, even if the technology were possible, there would be a near infinite amount of ways to rearrange the atoms of an object until you finally reached the desired arrangement.

A group of scientists were able to make 2-3 qubits go backwards in time using a quantum computer. Qubits are quantum bits – bits that can function as both a zero and a one when in binary language. The qubit time reversal process took four steps: setting up, nudging, pausing, and reversing. First, the team prepared their qubits in an atom-like fashion. They then nudged the qubits one millionth of a second forward. After one millionth of a second, the aging program was halted, and then the team reversed the qubits using a series of microwave pulses. The program was successful 85 percent of the time, and the team attributed the other 15 percent to faults in the computer, as well as the tendencies of the qubits.

It will be years before we come anywhere near to the aspirations of quantum mathematicians, though this is farther than many assumed was possible. The uncertainty principle has made discoveries like this one near impossible because it states that one can either know the velocity or the location of a particle, but not both. Dr. Valerii M. Vinokur, of Argonne National Laboratory, compared the principle to trying to hit a billiard ball back to its origin, the catch being that you either know the direction of the origin point, or how hard you have to hit the ball to get it there, creating an almost impossible task to achieve.

While the idea of being able to decrease your age, or ‘age backwards’ remains appealing to most humans, it is highly improbable to ever happen, and we are thousands of years away from theoretically being able to use this technology. Since science is so far off from creating a fountain of youth, we must all placidly accept that we can only move forward in time.

[Source: New York Times ]

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