Popularised by Bryce Seligman DeWitt in the 1960s (from the seminal formulation of Hugh Everett), the many-worlds interpretation holds that an alternative pathway for every conceivable occurrence actually exists. Saving selected passengers from the water and replacing them with realistic corpses would not be impossible, however, as the historical record would not be altered in any way.Ī further possibility is that of parallel universes. Averting the sinking of the Titanic, for example, would revoke any future imperative to stop it from sinking – it would be impossible. It would be possible, however, to “affect” rather than “change” historical outcomes if travellers avoided all inconsistencies. Novikov argued that any event causing a paradox would have zero probability. For Igor Novikov, astrophysicist behind the 1980s’ theorem known as the self-consistency principle, time travel is possible within certain boundaries. Other possible routes have been offered, though. In other words, there is a paradox in circumventing an already known future time travel is able to facilitate past actions that mean time travel itself cannot occur. If this were to happen, however, the time traveller himself would not be born, which is already known to be true. Barjavel theorised that, if it were possible to go back in time, a time traveller could potentially kill his own grandfather. One such problem, posited by René Barjavel in his 1943 text Le Voyageur Imprudent is the so-called grandfather paradox. How anyone harnesses that to some kind of helpful end is far beyond the scope of any modern technologies, however, and will be left to future generations to explore.Ĭertainly, any prospective time travellers may have to overcome more physical and logical hurdles than merely overtaking the speed of light. If particles can travel faster than light, in theory travelling back in time is possible. So is time travel just around the corner? The prospect has certainly been wrenched much closer to the realm of possibility now that a major physical hurdle – the speed of light – has been cleared. Yet each prior challenge has come to no avail, and relativity has so far refused to buckle. According to Harvard University science historian Peter Galison, Einstein’s relativity theory has been “pushed harder than any theory in the history of the physical sciences”. Nevertheless, there’s plenty of reason to remain sceptical. The duration of the experiment also accounted for and ruled out any possible lunar effects or tidal bulges in the earth’s crust. Even allowing for a margin of error of ten billionths of a second, this stands as proof that it is possible to race against light and win. This is how much faster than the speed of light the neutrinos managed to go in their underground travels and at a consistent rate (15,000 neutrinos were sent over three years). The issue at stake is a tiny segment of time – precisely sixty nanoseconds (which is sixty billionths of a second). The neutrinos arrived promptly – so promptly, in fact, that they triggered what scientists are calling the unthinkable – that everything they have learnt, known or taught stemming from the last one hundred years of the physics discipline may need to be reconsidered. Researchers from the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva sent the neutrinos hurtling through an underground corridor toward their colleagues at the Oscillation Project with Emulsion-Tracing Apparatus (OPERA) team 730 kilometres away in Gran Sasso, Italy. The unassuming particle – it is electrically neutral, small but with a “non-zero mass” and able to penetrate the human form undetected – is on its way to becoming a rock star of the scientific world. Time travel took a small step away from science fiction and toward science recently when physicists discovered that sub-atomic particles known as neutrinos – progeny of the sun’s radioactive debris – can exceed the speed of light. You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28–40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below. This is the third section of your IELTS Academic Reading test. Our higher level partners and their success stories.IELTS registration partners and partnership programmes.How to become an IELTS recognising organisation.
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