Physicists are Playing with Time

In the process, they’ve learned what happens when traveling faster than the speed of light and created a new phase of matter

Hiya!

Curiosity is a funny thing. It’s one of the few times we seek the unknown with muted fear. Often, following our curiosities lead us to unexpected places or ends with something that changes everything. This is perhaps why curiosity is crucial in science. Some may even argue curiosity is at the heart of science.

Well, today, we’re talking about two recent discoveries in which physicists’ curiosities led to some incredible outcomes. One team formed a new phase of matter and accidentally kinda opened a once-only theorized portal to an “extra time dimension.” Meanwhile, a different group of physicists thought up a new theory to allow particles to travel faster than the speed of light, and the outcome might be even stranger than science fiction.

Going Faster than the Speed of Light

We will start with the easier one to explain first to warm your brain up before I launch into the more complicated discovery. This one involves a team of international researchers who created a new theory that would allow particles to travel faster than the speed of light — without breaking the laws of physics. The team published their theory in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity on December 30, 2022.

Their idea was simple yet ingenious, as all the best ones are. See, we know our shared reality consists of three spatial dimensions — height, width, depth — and one time dimension. So the researchers decided to flip it. Their theory uses a “1+3 space-time”, meaning one spatial dimension and three time dimensions.

The math is way, way over my head, but the result? Observers traveling faster than the speed of light would experience multiple timelines simultaneously. What would this mean? Well, according to co-author of the paper, Andrzej Dragan, from the University of Warsaw in Poland,

"From the point of view of an observer, the particle 'ages' independently in each of the three times."

I can’t even imagine what it might be like to watch something “age independently” within three different timelines. Granted, they’re talking about particles, and 3-dimensional objects wouldn’t work in their theory for obvious reasons—but still!

I mean, I can’t even imagine three ways something could age. All I can think of is either growing older or younger, so what would the third option be? Not…aging?

Oof.

I thought this would be an easy topic, but it sure does twist the mind. Then again, wait until you learn about this next discovery.