New Quantum Time Order Discovered

“Imagine two space ships, asked to fire at each other at a specified time while dodging the other’s attack,” she said.

“If either fires too early, it will destroy the other.”

“In Einstein’s theory, a powerful enemy could use the principles of general relativity by placing a massive object – like a planet – closer to one ship to slow the passing of time.”

“Because of the time lag, the ship furthest away from the massive object will fire earlier, destroying the other.”

Dr Zych said the second theory, of quantum mechanics, says any object can be in a state of “superposition”

“This means it can be found in different states – think Schrodinger’s cat,” she said.

Dr Zych said using the theory of quantum mechanics, if the enemy put the planet into a state of “quantum superposition”, then time also should be disrupted.

“There would be a new way for the order of events to unfold, with neither of the events being first or second – but in a genuine quantum state of being both first and second,” she said.

UQ researcher Dr Fabio Costa said although “a superposition of planets” as described in the paper — may never be possible, technology allowed a simulation of how time works in the quantum world – without using gravity.

“Even if the experiment can never be done, the study is relevant for future technologies,” Dr Costa said.

“We are currently working towards quantum computers that – very simply speaking – could effectively jump through time to perform their operations much more efficiently than devices operating in fixed sequence in time, as we know it in our ‘normal’ world.”

Stevens Institute of Technology and the University of Vienna scientists were co-authors on Bell’s Theorem for Temporal Order, published in Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-019-11579-x.

Contacts and sources:
Magdalena Zych
University of Queensland

Citation: Bell’s theorem for temporal order Magdalena Zych, Fabio Costa, Igor Pikovski & Časlav Brukner Nature Communicationsvolume 10, Article number: 3772 (2019) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11579-x http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-11579-x