Andrey Kananin,philosopher-cosmologist and author of the book "Unreal Reality" on the air of the Pravda video studio.R u spoke about the new technical principles on which the time machine will operate, which is already being built in several laboratories abroad. The principles of operation of the device and the drawings are not a secret, and the technical possibility of creating the device already exists.

Physicists are building a time machine

The scientist led research expeditions and missions to more than 50 countries of the world. The author of books and articles in the field of cosmology, anthropology, philosophy, Andrey Kananin worked for several years in the Far North. The cosmologist also talks about ways to avoid chrono-paradoxes and about some features of the theory of time in the context of Einstein's theory.

— Andrei, what is cosmology?

— Cosmology is the science of our Universe and the place of intelligent beings in it. Of course, a lot of interdisciplinary knowledge intersects here, everything related to space, its origin, its evolution, cosmic mysteries, black holes, wormholes, the quantum physics…

And since there are intelligent beings in it, we are with you, then, accordingly, cosmologists are also interested in the problem of human consciousness, the problem space travel. Including the topic of time travel is also, of course, in the sphere of our attention.

- You say that time travel is possible, it is possible to create a time machine?

— Yes, absolutely true. It's just that the crude logic of relativity tells us that since time is one of four dimensions, moving back and forth in time is just as possible as walking left and right. Naturally, this is not so simple, but it is fundamentally important to understand that such travel does not contradict the laws of physics.

- That is, you set yourself such scientific task?

— Quite right. This does not contradict the fundamental laws - this is the first key point. Travel to the future is possible for sure. In general, the principle of the time machine for traveling to the future is extremely simple. It also follows from Einstein's theory of relativity.

If we accelerate the apparatus to near-light speed, then the clock on this apparatus will go much slower than on Earth. That is, having made such a space flight, you will automatically find yourself in the future. That is, the problem arises purely technological.

You just need to build one spaceship and calculate the exact time of departure, arrival, in order to understand how and where exactly you want to be. Therefore, here, in general, it is not even worth chewing for a long time, discussing the topic of traveling to the future.

— But I would like to understand whether it is possible to travel to the past? Because a one-way trip is not interesting, you always want to go back.

— Everything is much more complicated here, although there is a fundamental understanding of how to technologically solve this problem. For example, such an elementary apparatus that helps to move into the past is a fairly handicraft thing. It is necessary to design a very long, very strong cylinder and spin it around its axis.

Then, moving around this cylinder, you can get into the past. The problem is that the length of the cylinder must be the size of our galaxy, comparable in strength, and it must also be accelerated at about the speed of light. Therefore, I assume that even the most highly developed civilizations are not able to create such a structure, although it looks rather primitive.

But the very idea that this is possible inspired scientists to further research. And when they began to understand, it turned out that the easiest way to travel through time in our space occurs if you penetrate the so-called wormholes or wormholes. These are such strange cosmological objects.

They formed when our universe was small, right after the Big Bang. It was such a foaming substance, and these small tunnels were present there. It is absolutely possible, it does not contradict the laws of physics, that when our Universe began to expand, these tunnels, at least some of them, also became large.

If you learn to find them and manage them, then travel to the past is possible through these wormholes. A lot of nuances arise there, primarily due to the fact that monstrous energy is needed to penetrate wormholes, however, there is a general understanding that this is possible.

It was developed by theorists. But of course, I would like to talk not about fantasy, but about real models, real devices. There have been several breakthroughs in recent years. For example, I will give two or three models that are the most promising.

The first of these was developed by physicist Richard Goth. Today, one of the cutting-edge areas of space exploration and physics research is associated with the assumption that at the microscopic level there are some kind of separate points - atoms or strings. String theory is vibrating little substances that are the essence, the basis of our entire universe.

And the strings, after all, were also microscopic at the time of the big bang, and after the expansion of the Universe, they also acquired cosmological scales. And Richard Goth considered that if these strings are somehow isolated from space, learn to control them and push one string against another at a sufficiently high speed, then time around them will begin to flow backwards.

Then the apparatus moving around the two colliding strings in the opposite direction automatically falls into the past. This is already a calculated model, and not some general theoretical reasoning. This model has, as it were, one big plus and one big minus.

The big disadvantage is that it is very difficult to imagine how it is possible to manage such a model. The author himself considered that in order to move only two years ago, it is necessary to use energy equal to the energy of our entire galaxy Milky Way. So far, this is completely inaccessible to us, but we do not know what is available to highly developed civilizations, which, perhaps, are at a very distant level from us.

And the main plus is that, unlike all the hypothetical ideas related to antiparticles and other incomprehensible phenomena, nothing of this kind is needed here. Ordinary matter is used, and the apparatus itself does not move at the speed of light, but lower, so there is no need to use any fantastic ideas. The question is precisely how to implement this project technologically.

The second idea developed by Kip Thorne is related to the fact that a time machine can be created if one learns to control negative energy and negative matter. Physicists are sure that this and that is, but this is a material with a very unusual properties. Negative matter tends not to approach ordinary matter, but to move away, so it is very difficult to catch it.

Negative energy can be obtained, and in an engineering way that is quite understandable to us, if two very smooth metal, best of all silver, plates are placed as close as possible - at a quantum distance from each other. Then between these plates, if they are brought as close as possible to each other, negative energy is formed.

I will not explain the complexity of the theory, but this is an objective fact. Kip Thorne created a fully functional model by sliding these plates into spheres and placing one sphere within another. It turned out that if one of the spheres is directed at the speed of light in relation to the other, then it automatically falls into the past due to negative matter and negative energy.

It turns out that the sphere moves and collapses, time is out of sync, which means that this is already a device, because a crew can be placed inside the sphere. Moreover, Thorne's model already has blueprints. That is, the principle of creating a time machine is clear even to modern engineers.

- Well, the speed of light is unattainable ...

- Not yet. We are talking about the fact that the entire history of scientific thought, the history of mankind shows that if some workable device or apparatus was born in someone’s head, some drawings appeared, then sooner or later they manage to create it. Let's remember the Archimedes steamship or Leonardo Da Vinci's helicopter, the plane...

Of course, such a complex device as a time machine is millions of times more complicated, but nevertheless, if engineers have an understanding of how to create it, they can create drawings, that is, they can be sure that sooner or later it will be done. That is why, by the way, the Thorne model is used in all advanced popular science films.

Well, I will give the last example, from my point of view, the simplest and most implementable. Perhaps it is correct when they say that everything ingenious is simple. The device was developed by physicist Robert Mallet, and the principle of its operation is, indeed, quite primitive.

If you take two high-energy laser beams and disperse them along the tunnel in opposite directions at near-light speed, then inside time begins to twist like a funnel and, having penetrated this funnel, you can get into the past. The Mallett model is perhaps the most realistic apparatus that can be created.

The difficulty is that in order for the machine to work well, allow you to travel far into the past, you need to slow down the speed of light. It seems that this is an unsolvable task. Nothing like this! Experiments are already being carried out, for example, by passing light through a very dense condensate, it was possible to achieve a decrease in the speed of light.

— Indeed?

“These are real experiments. The speed of light is 300 thousand km / s, that is, eight times per second it goes around the globe. In the laboratory, it was possible to achieve a slowdown in the speed of light in condensate by 1 m/s. And if further experiments are successful, then perhaps the Mallett model is the most promising.

But all the workable time machines that I talked about have one minus, one small nuance. The fact is that all of them do not allow time travel before the moment when the machine itself was created. But we want to visit the Jurassic Park, but there are also some breakthroughs.

And here is the main idea related to the fact that if instead of a portal, then time travel is possible before the period when the time machine was created. Many scientists believe that when entering a black hole, any material object is destroyed, but not a fact. We still don't know enough about the physics of black holes to be so sure about it.

Interviewed by Alexander Artomonov

Preparedfor publicationYuri Kondratiev

He launched the Question to the Scientist project, in which experts will answer interesting, naive or practical questions. In the new issue, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Alexei Rubtsov talks about whether we can build a time machine.

Is it possible to create
time Machine?

Alexey Rubtsov

Physicist, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor of the Department of Quantum Electronics, Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University, external researcher of the RCC

The question of the possibility of creating a time machine is a question of the universal applicability of the principle of causality and the closely related second law of thermodynamics. Speaking plain language, the principle of causality tells us that always and everywhere, in any frame of reference and for all phenomena, the effect cannot precede the cause. First, thunder rumbles, and then a peasant is baptized. The second law of thermodynamics, again deliberately oversimplifying, states that closed systems always change in the direction of increasing disorder. (entropy). For example, sugar dissolves in water over time because the syrup has more entropy than the sugar and water that make it up separately. It takes energy to separate sugar and water again. (for example, heat the solution).

It is clear that the possibility of time travel would violate both of these laws: a man jumping a few seconds into the past could cross himself before a flash of lightning, and sending sugar syrup into the past, we would see how unmixed water and sugar arise from it on their own. .

Interestingly, no other physical laws establish a difference between the past and the future. Most of the equations do not change their form at all when the direction of the flow of time changes, the rest remain unchanged with a simultaneous change in the direction of the time axis and the signs of a few more physical quantities (the simplest example of this kind - systems with magnetism, in which it is necessary to simultaneously change the sign of the time axis and the direction of the magnetic field).

It may well turn out that in the future we will hear about some kind of “quantum time machine”. But time travel will not be possible from this, unfortunately.

Thus, the principle of causality and the second law of thermodynamics in the modern picture of knowledge are isolated statements - if it suddenly turns out that they are not executed, the rest scientific knowledge will remain unchanged. One can draw an analogy with the fifth axiom of Euclid: based on the postulate of non-intersection of parallel lines, the theory correctly describes the geometry on the plane, but the cancellation of this axiom does not lead to a catastrophe - a non-Euclidean geometry is obtained that describes, for example, the properties of figures on the surface of a sphere.

The difference between physics and mathematics, however, is that mathematics is interested in any theory, while physics is only interested in describing our real world, which exists in a single copy. And in this real world the principle of causality, apparently, is not violated. Of course, one can always think that we do not notice these violations, but the probability of such a state of affairs is extremely small - like all fundamental laws, the principle of causality manifests itself in the most different aspects observable reality, and it would be difficult to ignore its violation.

One more thing needs to be said. Scientists are no less fond of catchy names than newspapermen, and recent times it has become fashionable to borrow terms from science fiction for new discoveries in order to draw the attention of the community to them. One of clear examples- the term " quantum teleportation”, corresponding to an absolutely real and very beautiful quantum information technology, which, however, has nothing to do with teleports from books and computer games. It may well turn out that in the future we will hear about some kind of “quantum time machine”. But time travel will not be possible from this, unfortunately.

For thousands of years, humanity has been at war with time. To prevent the aging process, to know the future - all this pushes humanity to think about how to make a time machine. The brightest minds of mankind have worked on this issue both in the past and in the present. Writers famous for fantasy stories, filmmakers who make films about time capsule travels, make people believe in the idea of ​​creating a machine that can transport people through time.

The history of attempts to create a time machine

Physicists, in particular Albert Einstein and Kurt Gödel, have been working to create a machine that can transport a person through time space into the past or future. The theory that Einstein put forward is based on the control of the universe. Or rather, to derive the equation of its gravitational field. The scientist believed that the Universe is a rotating body. And light is an element that enters the trajectory of its rotation. Thanks to this, you can fly through the space-time rings that are created during the rotation of the Universe and light particles, thereby seeing your past.

The theory of relativity has always been controversial among mathematicians and physicists. After all, if scientists believe in its veracity, accept it, they will automatically agree that time travel is by no means a fairy tale, but a very real possibility.

There is another opinion that exists among scientists who want to conquer time. It consists in the fact that time can be affected, like everything else. The fact is that time is the same component of our world as space. It can be changed or distorted by the pressure of gravity. At the same time, time turns from a straight line into a loop through which you can travel. You just need to pick up a certain speed.

But then it is a theory that is not confirmed by practice. And the question of how to invent a time machine remains just a question, although there are many not entirely substantiated claims that such a machine has existed for a long time.

Modern attempts at creation

Temporary tunnel projects have been carried out in the United States of America. All of them were developed in order to confirm the possibility of time travel. Although some sources confirm that in the course of such experiments it was possible to get into the future. The paradox is that all the subjects who confirmed such "breakthroughs" were recognized as simply crazy. This begs the question of why experiments were carried out that were previously recognized as invalid? For example, secret project called "Phoenix", during which it was established that time loops exist. The participants wanted to find out how the theory of temporal movement is possible in practice. Unfortunately, those who answered yes were assigned to places for the insane.

No one knows if a time machine will be invented. Or maybe it already exists. Some mysteries always remain unsolved. It is possible that even a positive answer to this question will not be able to satisfy scientists, it will only let them understand that they have put their whole life on the altar of science, solving a riddle that has already been solved in the distant past or future.

The theories of time travel are perhaps the most impressive of all, following developments in teleportation, torsion fields, and anti-gravity. However, time travel was not so lucky - there are still not only no eyewitnesses of time travel, but also a universal definition of time. In a sense, each of us is a time traveler, however, this is not impressive, especially since in this understanding one can only move "forward". 32

Before Einstein, only writers talked about time travel, and the idea of ​​“reversing time” does not belong to H. G. Wells at all, but to Edward Page Mitchell, the publisher of the New York Sun newspaper, who, 7 years before the Time Machine, published the story “The Clock that Went Back ". In physics, it has become fashionable to think about the possibility of such displacements following Einstein. The phenomenon of time travel from that moment began to be explained in terms of the operation of the space-time continuum. Einstein's "shadow" to this day "lies" on all more or less serious discussions on this topic. 32

According to the theory of relativity, it turns out that at a speed approaching the speed of light, time should slow down. However, the speed of light is practically unattainable, unlike, say, the speed of sound, the barrier of which was overcome in the last quarter of the last century. Further, according to Einstein's theory, it follows that when a body develops a speed close to the speed of light, its weight begins to increase and at the point of reaching this speed it is practically infinite. Another axiom that also accompanies theories about time is that the first journey, if it is to take place, will not be associated with the invention of superfast transport, but with the discovery of a special environment in which any vehicle could accelerate to the desired speed. A corridor in time can also be formed by purely "natural" phenomena: black holes, tunnels, cosmic strings, and so on. 32

The most likely contender for the "corridor of time" is called black holes, the nature of which is still very little known. It is generally accepted that when stars with at least four times the mass of the Sun die, that is, when their "fuel" burns out, they explode due to the pressure caused by their own weight. As a result of the explosion, black holes are formed, the gravitational fields in which are so powerful that even light cannot leave this area. Any object that reaches the border of a black hole - the so-called event horizon - is sucked into its bowels, and it is not visible from the outside what is happening "inside". 32

black hole surrounded gravitational field, in which the bodies reach the speed of light. It is assumed that in the depths of a black hole - presumably in the center, at the so-called singular point - the laws of physics cease to apply, and space and time coordinates, roughly speaking, are reversed, and travel in space becomes travel in time. In addition, physicists have suggested that if there are black holes that suck in everything that is in the zone of influence, then somewhere there, in the "core" of the hole, there must be some kind of "white hole" that pushes out matter with an equally crushing force. 32

At the center of a black hole is a corridor where space and time change their characteristics. However, there is one "but": before the body reaches the zone where the laws of traditional physics cease to operate, it will be destroyed. This point of view was expressed by the physicist of the California Institute of Technology Kip Thorne, the author of the monograph "Black holes and the warp of time". 33

Thorne suggested another way to achieve the necessary acceleration for time travel. He, based on the same theory of Einstein, according to which space and time is constant everywhere, studied other "gaps" in the space-time continuum. These burrows-tunnels are allegedly capable of appearing between distant objects due to the casual twisting of space. Tunnels can link distant points in space that exist in fundamentally different time planes. Kip Thorne, quite seriously, on the eve of the opening of these tunnels, proposed to keep them open by covering the surface of the tunnel with some substance with a negative energy density. Gravitational forces will tend to destroy the tunnel, slam it shut, and the coating will push the walls and keep it from collapsing. 33

Another curious theory about the ways of time travel belongs to Richard Goth, a physicist from Princeton. He suggested the existence of some cosmic strings that were formed in the early stages of the formation of the universe. According to string theory, all microparticles are formed by tiny strings closed in loops and are under a monstrous tension of hundreds of millions of tons. Their thickness is much less than the size of an atom, but colossal gravitational force, with which they act on objects that fall into their zone of influence, accelerates them to tremendous speed. The combination of strings or the juxtaposition of a string and a black hole can create a closed corridor with a curved space-time continuum, which could be used for time travel. There are other, less exotic ways to "cheat" time. It will be easiest for astronauts to do this. Staying, for example, on Mercury for 30 years means that the astronaut will return to our planet younger than if he had stayed on Earth, since Mercury revolves around the Sun a little faster than the Earth. However, here the linear course of time is preserved, and in its pure form, this phenomenon should not be called time travel. Moreover, it has been recorded that the astronauts who are put into orbit by the Shuttle are already ahead of Earth time by several nanoseconds, although, to put it mildly, they are far from the speed of light. 33

In addition to problems of a technical nature, physicists discuss and possible conflicts time. The real problem that may await travelers is the paradoxes of time. There will be many of them, and all of them will be associated with a possible impact on the course of already completed events - the "grandfather's paradox", for example. Most theorists agreed that any impact on the course of the perfect creates a new, parallel reality or another "world line" that does not in the least interfere with the existence of the "original" one. And there will be exactly as many such "parallels" as necessary for the consistent existence of each of them. In general, it should be noted that reasoning, discussions and lectures on the nature of time and the possibility of time travel are still a favorite pastime of serious physicists - a kind of intellectual fun. At one time, NASA astrophysicist Carl Sagan, in response to Stephen Hawking's statement that if time travel were possible, there would be a lot of "kids from the future" among us, retorted that there are at least a dozen ways to disprove this statement. 33

Firstly, a time machine, for example, can only transfer to the future. Secondly, the time machine will be able to transfer only to the recent past, and we - again, for example - "too long ago." Thirdly, our descendants from the future can only move to those ancestors who already have a car, and so on. Be that as it may, the hypothetical possibility of such travels remains, and the most caustic skeptics are unable to refute it. Moreover, theories are theories, but practical developments are still underway. And with some success. 34