{"id":469943,"date":"2025-12-25T03:04:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T03:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/469943\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T03:04:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T03:04:16","slug":"chinese-team-tackles-a-century-old-puzzle-in-physics-can-we-travel-back-in-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/469943\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese team tackles a century-old puzzle in physics: can we travel back in time?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Chinese researchers have proposed a simple yet powerful theory to explain one of physics\u2019 oldest puzzles: why time only moves forward and why travelling to the past remains impossible.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Physicist Cai Qingyu and his team at Hainan University in southern China have developed a fresh explanation at the quantum level for why we cannot unscramble an egg or grow younger, even though the laws of physics perfectly allow time to go backwards.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Unlike earlier theories, their framework does not rely on observations, measurements or external disturbances, the scientists explained in a study published this month by the peer-reviewed journal Annals of Physics.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Instead, it shows that time\u2019s arrow can emerge naturally from how quantum parts become interconnected, a process built into the fabric of microscopic physics itself, they reported.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"In the cinema classic Back to the Future, Emmett \u201cDoc\u201d Brown, played by Christopher Lloyd (left), transported Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly to 1985 in a modified DeLorean sports car. Photo: Universal Pictures\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/d1d8f478-219f-43b4-8d59-d41127ed7e0d_af4b4aeb.jpg\" title=\"In the cinema classic Back to the Future, Emmett \u201cDoc\u201d Brown, played by Christopher Lloyd (left), transported Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly to 1985 in a modified DeLorean sports car. Photo: Universal Pictures\"\/>In the cinema classic Back to the Future, Emmett \u201cDoc\u201d Brown, played by Christopher Lloyd (left), transported Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly to 1985 in a modified DeLorean sports car. Photo: Universal Pictures<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In the late 1800s, Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann proposed that time moves forward because isolated systems tend to evolve from order to disorder \u2013 an idea known as entropy \u2013 rather than the other way round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese researchers have proposed a simple yet powerful theory to explain one of physics\u2019 oldest puzzles: why time&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":469944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[213510,213507,213505,74,9191,152413,213512,213509,492,4587,213508,159,213506,6620,213511,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-469943","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-annals-of-physics","9":"tag-austrian-physicist-ludwig-boltzmann","10":"tag-cai-qingyu","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-chinese-academy-of-sciences","13":"tag-dark-matters-newsletter","14":"tag-hainan-university","15":"tag-newtons-laws","16":"tag-physics","17":"tag-quantum","18":"tag-schrodinger-equation","19":"tag-science","20":"tag-sun-changpu","21":"tag-time","22":"tag-times-arrow","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}