Let's play a recreation of dangerous information, excellent news, dangerous information.
Unhealthy information first: 2020. Actually all of it. Each second. Each waking second of 2020. It is grim, I do know. Bushfires, pandemic, murder hornets. When will it finish?
However the excellent news: Apparently, scientists have found a parallel universe, similar to our personal. It is a bit of totally different to ours although. On this mirror world, time runs backward. It is like a Benjamin Button universe. Meaning they're heading again to 2019, the nice ol' days, proper?
Nicely, now extra dangerous information: I am right here to spoil the parallel universe celebration. Scientists have not truly found a parallel universe, however you would possibly assume they've, based mostly on a number of stories from throughout the net.
In the previous couple of days a number of publications have prompt scientists "discovered proof" for a parallel universe the place time runs backward. These mind-bending articles posit that an experiment in Antarctica detected particles that break the legal guidelines of physics. All of the stories pull from the identical supply of data: A pay-walled report by New Scientist on April 8 titled "We might have noticed a parallel universe going backwards in time."
On the middle of the report are findings from the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna or ANITA, an experiment maintained by researchers at CNET_TAG" data-s-object-id="annotation">NASA. It includes an array of radio antennas connected to a helium balloon which flies over the Antarctic ice sheet at 37,000 meters, virtually 4 instances as excessive as a business flight. At such a peak, the antennas can "hear" to the cosmos and detect high-energy particles, often called neutrinos, which consistently bombard the planet.
These particles pose no risk to us and go by way of most stable objects with out anybody even noticing -- some estimates recommend 100 trillion neutrinos go by way of your physique each second! Not often do they work together with matter. But when they do smash into an atom, they produce a bathe of secondary particles we will detect, which permits us to probe the place they got here from within the universe. ANITA detects neutrinos pinging in from house and colliding with matter within the Antarctic ice sheet.
Over time, ANITA has detected a handful of "anomalous" occasions. As a substitute of the high-energy neutrinos streaming in from house, they appear to have come from a wierd angle, by way of the Earth's inside, earlier than hitting the detector. These findings cannot be defined by our present understanding of physics -- that a lot is true.
"The weird ANITA occasions have been recognized and mentioned since 2016," says Ron Ekers, an honorary fellow at CSIRO, Australia's nationwide science company. "After 4 years there was no passable clarification of the anomalous occasions seen by ANITA so that is very irritating, particularly to these concerned."
Though the New Scientist report was filed on April 8 -- and the ANITA outcomes are virtually two years outdated -- the speculation has solely just lately caught hearth. Ever extra pressing headlines have spurred its unfold throughout social media. "NASA uncovers proof of weird parallel universe the place physics, time function in reverse" reads one. One other says "Scientists might have simply discovered proof of a parallel universe."
As a result of the New Scientist piece is behind a pay wall, lots of the subsequent stories on the parallel universe are cribbed from the opening paragraphs and do not clarify the complete particulars behind the discover, by which one of many scientists admits "there are one or two unfastened ends" for the parallel universe principle. There's one other neutrino observatory on the South Pole, often called IceCube, which has been following up on the ANITA observations and suggests the usual mannequin of physics can not clarify these unusual occasions.
"In such a state of affairs you begin exploring much more excessive potentialities," says Ekers.
There's a actually fascinating science story right here, however it's not the one you are being offered. The ANITA experiment is mind-boggling in its personal proper. It appears for "ghostly" particles that go by way of most matter. It has undoubtedly detected one thing uncommon and sudden. There are many competing theories that are not explored within the fast information hits, like the idea the Antarctic ice may itself be giving rise to these anomalous events.
However there's a lot we do not learn about neutrinos that astrophysicists and scientists are nonetheless making an attempt to unravel. "We're completely positive that there's new physics on the market to be discovered," says Clancy James, a radio astronomer at Curtin College in Australia.
Leaping straight to "parallel universes" is a bit of over-the-top, and there are much less excessive theories that would clarify what ANITA has detected. Greater than that, stories regurgitating this principle with out thorough examination complicate the general public's relationship with science, which is already on shaky ground thanks to misinformation campaigns around climate change and the coronavirus pandemic.
If you see tales like these its good to recollect "the Sagan Commonplace", an adage uttered by the famed astronomer Carl Sagan. It goes "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."
At current, we have a terrific principle however we lack the extraordinary proof to again it up.
What we do have, Ekers says, is "a considerably cheeky clarification ... born out of the frustration of getting nothing else that labored." He says that is "good out-of-the-box considering" and a "fascinating" thought however not one which ought to be taken very significantly.
So, I am sorry. We did not discover proof for a parallel universe. Thankfully, if there is one, then over there this text does not spoil the speculation in any respect! It helps it! So please, direct all of your electronic mail towards the parallel universe Jackson Ryan.
No, I will not be taking questions.
