BREAKING NEWS
A physicist at the world’s biggest scientific experiment – the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva – is speculating that the failure of the collider soon after it was switched on in September was caused by intervention from the future to stop the experiment happening.
While the speculation, by CERN-based Harvard physicist Kevin Black, is partly tongue-in-cheek, he is raising a serious issue.
The $US 10 billion LHC is a massive particle accelerator that is designed to fire tiny parts of atoms at each other to explosively but on a tiny (quantum) scale recreate the very moments after the Big Bang that began our present universe.
When turned on in September, its first trials firing protons one way round the 27-kilometre tunnel at the CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) laboratory beneath the Swiss city of Geneva worked well, but after a few days of trials, a helium leak shut the collider down, with repairs now expected to take till the middle of 2009.
According to Kevin Black, who is one of the thousands of scientists working on the project, it is possible that the shutdown was caused by interference from the future attempting to shut down an experiment that should not go ahead.
Don’t laugh. As I wrote in an article in May, time travel is possible (however unlikely) under Einstein’s theories of relativity. However, according to those theories, time travellers from the future would not be able to visit us until the creation of the first time machine, which theoretically the LHC is.
This is why, according to the theory, time travellers have not appeared among us yet. But the September trial firing-up of the LHC may have been the moment that would theoretically have allowed a visit from our future.
You can read all of Kevin Black’s speculation here and given its complexity I won’t go into the details, but in brief, and quoting other research he was initially sceptical of, he suggests that the expected creation by the LHC of the fabled Higg’s Boson might have created the possibility of Higg’s Bosons from the future coming back to 2008 to stop the creation of multiple Higg’s Bosons upsetting the universe by being created by the LHC. Whew!
This is the ultimate time travel paradox. If you could go back in time and while doing so killed your grandfather, you would cease to exist because you would not be capable of being born. Could the Higgs kill the Higgs by coming back in time to stop its beginning?
Current standard physics theory teaches that the Higgs Boson is the most fundamental particle of matter and is what gives atoms mass and gravity. But its existence is totally theoretical.
The LHC experiment will prove whether or not the Higgs exists. What Kevin Black is postulating is that the Higgs may exist, but has come to us from the future to stop us finding it, for reasons best known to itself.
If true, this would be an astonishing discovery.
Of course, finding the Higgs is far from the only reason for the LHC. The atom-smashing it is designed to do will almost certainly create anti-matter and discover why there seems to be no anti-matter in the visible universe, even though it must have been created in abundance at the Big Bang. It’s possible the experiment will create mini-black holes (which the scientists say cannot possibly swallow the Earth as they will be too small). And find new dimensions and parallel universes. And allow time travel. And much more.
Truly is the LHC project the greatest scientific experiment in all of human history, and how fantastic it is to be alive to experience it.
- I have long meant to add this link to the fabulous YouTube clip Large Hadron Rap by CERN publicist Katherine McAlpine (Alpine Kat). Not only is it fun to watch, she explains lyrically and simply how the LHC works.
Footnote: A “hadron” is a technical term for a tiny particle of an atom. A proton is one such particle, and the LHC is designed to fire protons round the tunnel, to see what happens when they collide with each other or atoms of a heavy material such as lead.
19 Comments
November 24, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Poneke, while the theory that something in the future caused something in the present to occur and relating this to the breakdown of the Large Hadron Collider does require more than 5 minutes thought, it is far easier to appreciate the pun in your sub-title.
November 24, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Thinking a little more on the speculation that some future event has influenced the malfunctioning of the LHC and the fact that the breakdown occurred on 19 th Sept. less than 10 days after the successful start of the project on 10th Sept. while the Collider was being synchronized with the LHC’s operators gaining experience and confidence with the new machine, and from my understanding, before any protons had been brought into collision, it would seem reasonable that these sorts of time-violating interactions associated with whatever new particles are created could not have eventuated as no new particles, as yet, have been created at the LHC.
The more likely mundane reason for this malfunction, common to all new machinery is just plain and simple teething problems.
It is unfortunate that with NZ’s historic involvement in particle physics that it is not associated with CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, the world’s leading laboratory for particle physics. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.
November 25, 2008 at 8:19 am
The more likely mundane reason for this malfunction, common to all new machinery is just plain and simple teething problems.
The simplest explanation is usually more likely to be correct.
However what the learned physicist is saying is that it is possible that the collider, in our near-future, will create a huge number of Higgs Bosons that cause chaos in the more distant future, and that either some of these Higgses, or something else from that distant future, have come back in time to stop the collider creating the Higgses in the first place.
It requires some mental dexterity to grasp, but it’s rather fun to imagine!
November 25, 2008 at 8:32 am
This is starting to sound like the Japanese kids’ show Doraemon, where the inept boy-protagonist is given a helpful protective robot-critter by his descendants from 200 years in the future. The reason they have for doing this is purely selfish – he’ll grow to be such an inept adult that they’ll still be paying off his debts generations hence, and they’d like to minimise the damage.
November 25, 2008 at 9:23 am
>either some of these Higgses, or something else from that distant future, have come back in time to stop the collider creating the Higgses in the first place.
Wouldn’t have been easier for them to send a Terminator?
November 25, 2008 at 9:58 am
I hope all the Sarah Conner’s are now ex-directory.
November 25, 2008 at 10:28 am
Slate covered the possibility that the elusive Higgs Bosun wont be found ( because it doesnt exist!!) just before the LHC started operating.
http://www.slate.com/id/2199573/
The nature of these experiments is that massive volumes of data are collected and then analysed statistically which then proves what ever you want it to – however high energy physics is a lot more meticulous than epidemiology by a factor of 10^4
November 25, 2008 at 12:01 pm
If the Higgs invasion happens, does that mean they are anti higgs (or bosons?) which will wipe out all the other higgs, and cause everything to fall apart?
November 25, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Thanks for alerting us to this article Poneke, it’s great fun if nothing else.
You may find this link interesting, it’s a video produced by some Australian university students for a science competition the ABC ran earlier this year and concerns the Higgs particle. There’s some other great links on the site also – including a secondary school entry on the Copernican system.
November 25, 2008 at 2:14 pm
But if they know firing up the Collider leads to disaster in the future, how is there still a future to send something back from?
Great concept though and I’m sure a movie will follow in short order.
Maybe it’s like the Dr Who story Inferno and in an alternate universe they do fire up the damned thing and it destroys the planet but someone is able slip across and save us.
November 25, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Actually, Serum, New Zealand scientists are heavily involved in the LHC. The University of Canterbury, Massey, and Auckland are all involved.
There’s a nice article on it here [pdf]: http://www.comsdev.canterbury.ac.nz/chronicle/2008/ChronVol43-8.pdf
The beautiful nature of modern science: international collaboration is intimately woven into all research – particularly in physics/astronomy.
Plus, the New Zealand part of the LHC research is not just in particle physics – it has broader applications in medical physics, and could soon be through to commercial hospital applications.
November 25, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Similar stuff is happening, for battier reasons in the old US of A.
Dr. Ronald L. Mallett has apparently developed basic equations and a prototypical experiment for Time Travel.
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/69961-Space-cowboy/?page=1#TOPCONTENT
and
http://www.phys.uconn.edu/~mallett/main/funding.htm
November 25, 2008 at 5:06 pm
I find the reverse time travel theory about as plausible as Higgs theory (not).
What concerns me is the general lack of concern for the possibility that science might be capable of damaging Earth.
Safety requires acknowledgment of the possibility of danger and taking reasonable measures to reduce the risk.
Have you read Dr. Habil Rainer Plaga’s proposal for feasible risk mitigation procedures at the LHC?[1] Part 6, Page 9
LHCFacts.org
[1] http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.1415v2 On the potential catastrophic risk from metastable quantum-black holes produced at particle colliders, Dr. Habil. Rainer Plaga (26 Sep 2008)
November 25, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Its easy to go back in time….
…just send an email to someone in London, just takes a few milliseconds to arrive but they will read it before you sent it !!
November 25, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Sounds just like the central concept in the novel “Timescape” by Gregory Benford – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timescape
Punchline fair blew my mind.
November 26, 2008 at 3:31 am
Believe me that I come from Usida galaxy, I’ll safe you all from a dangerous day-dreaming. Believe me, or you will lose your earth…
November 26, 2008 at 6:03 am
Thanks! This is a great post, explaining what might have happened very simply. Keep up the good work.
http://www.gonzogeek.com
November 26, 2008 at 2:30 pm
“Its easy to go back in time….
…just send an email to someone in London, just takes a few milliseconds to arrive but they will read it before you sent it !!”
Not necessarily, your ISP might be Xtra.
November 8, 2009 at 11:44 pm
future past and present, yes email or phone London from America and its’ past or present or future. Flying does the same thing. I can fly to Calgary and be in Vancouver, yet arrive at the same time. Yet the other direction a lose. Same with stupid annual daylight savings time which costs millions. For farmers to get more daylight. Then we switch back, we didn’t save nada. It’s an expense. A function. Same with flying into the future and past. The, past is past. I won’t be standing in my robe and chincilla with crown of encrusted emeralds for ever for you to pass by. Nor you at your computer in PJs waiting for a saint to hop into your home/apt. because you lit another candle and said another prayer or faced mecca – yet typed messages on the computer, or handwrote a note for mail – to a world audience – or individual. It’s all very simple. We have a line, each parent to child passes it on and on and on we go. Hopefully in peace and invention not destruction and war. but that happens too. There are a lot of lines out there. I also beleive in Darwin it’s all relative and we change by habit and environment.
We’re all fat cows in the city, useless to making our own way should an emergency befall us and we could never live in the cold castles of lore try build a fire and kill a bird or beast or grow a veggie, let alone build a house of mud or thatch the roof or make leather or pick up horse cake instead of stench of diesel and auto or plane. We’re the end of the genetic line when we have sniff and need a day off because we’re cold. or having an alergic reaction. Sewing our own clothes and baking all day… gone. TV Beer and Internet. Amuse me forever or it’s your fault and I’ll sue you, can’t possibily bake a cake or mow the lawn or sheer sheep or cut up bacon or fry an egg. We got the future. It’s now. LHC is upon itself. Greater things will come of it. Carry on. Life’s short. Use the string – line – well. Bemoan what? Existance is all we have. No beginning and no end. Suck it up, be all you CAN be and WANT to be. It is no one else’s or nature. You are part of nature and nuture and must ineteract and you must just be. Start eating and growing and learning. No more hand outs or excuses.
The conspiracy theory will never go away… just exist and eat and be. DO NOT JOIN A CLUB.