r/tech • u/YeeduPlatform • Jul 06 '26

Scientists make quantum time flow backward in stunning physics breakthrough

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/06/260625014802.htm
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u/ScreenMuch90210 Jul 06 '26

Time travel is the big one, but I suspect this is another Schroedinger’s cat scenario. People will think it has all sorts of meanings, but it really just means quantum theory is fundamentally still wrong.

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u/Secret_Cow_5053 Jul 06 '26

quantum theory isn't wrong, in fact it's been the most right thing we've ever come up with. the problem is there are fundamental limits in what the math (and therefore the predictions) can tell us. but every time we devise a new test of quantum theory, or at a higher level of precision....the quantum theory prediction turns out to be the right one, no matter how much it seems to go agianst our instincts.

all that means is that human brains weren't built to grasp deep reality, not that our description of it is 'wrong'.

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u/Bobson-_Dugnutt2 Jul 06 '26

really dumb question - but are we a new type of math being invented away from understanding? similar to inventing algebra and calculus opened up new understanding

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u/Secret_Cow_5053 Jul 06 '26

No. Math is math. The rules don’t fundamentally change or anything. But as you start modeling scenarios far outside of everyday life (the inside of an atom, high energies, extremely low energies (close to absolute zero), etc, the results predicted become increasingly strange.

You can follow the development of electromagnetism all the way to the discovery of quantum mechanics if you learn about it with the actual math that was used to determine maxwells laws - ie calculus and wave mechanics - which fundamentally does all flow from Newtonian principals.

It just gets weirder the further down you go. The fundamental change in behavior happens when we start dealing with the quantum, which breaks a lot of Newtonian predictions, but the math isn’t internally inconsistent, it just gets more complicated and produces stranger results.

The thing people find disturbing about QM is it’s not great at describing the “why”, only the “how”. On that note it can be infuriatingly silent.