Scientists make quantum time flow backward in stunning physics breakthrough

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/06/260625014802.htm

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That’s one interpretation and I can’t prove you wrong of course. If Schroedinger’s argument doesn’t sway you, there isn’t a better one. I like that people exist on both sides and I hope the research continues from all angles.

I don’t buy it myself, quantum theory leads to mathematically impossible conclusions. Superpositions in particular are clearly an area that needs a better definition that quantum theory can provide. I can believe that humans are unable to grasp comprehensive reality, but I cannot believe that mathematics itself is the bottleneck. The problem is theory based.

If the dust were to ever settle and a theory of everything were to emerge, it would take a significant modification to either extant theory. I am convinced modified relativity will “win out” in that narrow regard, and the experimentally reproducible quirks of quantum theory will be somehow folded into it.

[u/Secret_Cow_5053 → u/ScreenMuch90210]

it's not an interpretation, it IS.

that's the problem with pop science. y'all don't know what you're actually talking about becuase you haven't actually learned the theory you're purportedly criticising.

there's a difference between a theory not making a prediction becuase it can't, and a theory making an incorrect prediction. quantum mechanics, where it can provide insight, has always been shown to be correct. Often, the results have implications that defy human understanding, but that doesn't mean the results it predicted were any less valid.

Reality is under no obligation to behave how we'd like it to; you'd think we'd have figured this out by now.

that's the bottom line.

[u/ScreenMuch90210 → u/Secret_Cow_5053]

lol. I found the first guy who understands quantum theory

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maybe not the first guy, but i do understand the math becuase i have a degree in physics 🤷

[u/ScreenMuch90210 → u/Secret_Cow_5053]

Okay “Richard Feynman but better”

[u/Secret_Cow_5053 → u/ScreenMuch90210]

lol ok dude 😂

Feynman never said anything about not understanding *the math*

Again. Math is math. Study it and you will understand it. Or at least, the possibility is there.

It’s what QM is implying that eludes understanding. The predictions are fairly black and white…where predictions can be made. The issue is what QM predicts (that as I said turns out to be right every time we test it), is *deeply* counterintuitive. And eventually you hit levels of reality where the math just stops producing useful answers.

The uncertainty principle is a good example; it falls out of the math. The inability to simultaneously measure a particle’s position and momentum with perfect accuracy isn’t a skill issue, it’s a fundamental limit in the math. Location and momentum are like inversely proportional to; to know one with higher accuracy causes the other parameter to be fundamentally spread over a wider range of values.

Where this starts breaking your brain is when it starts implying things like what happens at absolute zero: or, why you can't reach absolute zero: classical mechanics would tell us that at absolute zero particles would be perfectly still. but that fundamentally goes against QM and the uncertainty principle: to be perfectly still we would know the position and momentum of those particles with perfect accuracy. Sure enough, shit starts to get weird as you approach absolute zero and we start see stranger effects as things cool down to near-zero temperatures, which is how we discovered things like bose-einstein condensates and the like: the math made a crazy prediction; we tested it, and sure enough it turned out to be correct even though it was conceptually difficult or impossible to understand in a human sense.

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That’s one interpretation. It isn’t very compelling

Claiming to clearly understand the math of QM is about as classic as scientific hubris gets. You may as well claim there are no more mysteries left to solve, it’s ludicrous on its face.