Dad got me to listen to the Right Hook last night as there was a really interesting piece on the so-called “Atom Smasher” the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It is scheduled to begin operation in May of this year and will be the largest (27km long) and highest-energy particle accelerator in the world (until completion of an even bigger accelerator proposed – the International Linear Collider (ILC) which will be 40km long). Building bigger and more powerful accelerators seems to be considered the next major step for physics and there are some interesting reasons why.
Particle accelerators literally smash subatomic particles together (hence the name “Atom Smasher”). They do this by taking a particle, such as an electron, speeding it up close to the speed of light and colliding it with an atom, thus allowing for the investigation of the atom’s internal parts. This produces an explosion, which itself mimics the conditions in the moments after the Big Bang, though in a much smaller scale. The more powerful the particle accelerator, the further back in time it can effectively peer (albiet simulated), and the higher the chances are of discovering something new.
Russian mathematical physicists (video, article) are claiming that the secrets of time travel will be revealed by the LHC. Their central hypothesis is that the massive energies created by the subatomic collisions within the LHC could be powerful enough to rip space-time itself, thus creating wormholes. It has been theorised that wormholes not only create shortcuts between two positions in space, but also between two positions in time. This leads us to the secondary hypothesis that the LHC could be the first ever time machine. It is being theorised that 2008 could be “Year Zero”, for time travelers. Einstein suggested that it would only be possible to travel back as far as the first doorway in time. Thus allowing travelers from the future to have access to the past.
Less of this science was actually explained during the Right Hook, but some interesting commentary was made throughout, which brought my Dad and I to a conclusion of our own:
The moment the LHC is turned on someone from the future will go back in time and destroy it.
Time Travel would allow wars to be fought across time, rather than space. It would be too much of a temptation to go back in time and eliminate your opponent. This would be, of course, too chaotic for any society to flourish in. Ultimately the decision would be made to prevent time travel becoming a possibility all together, thus the destruction of the LHC.
Personally, I will only be convinced that time travel is at all possible if the LHC (or the even bigger ILC) explode in a grandiose fashion.
Another possibility is that microscopic black holes will be created within the LHC. Which, unlike time travel, would be NO fun whatsoever.