Latest / The Quark Side - Quantum Physics Podcast / The Experiment That Could Change Our Understanding of Time

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The Experiment That Could Change Our Understanding of Time · The Quark Side - Quantum Physics Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Core side Quantum Physics podcast, an exploration
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: of the fundamental structure of reality, where quantum laws govern matter, energy,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and information. Here, uncertainty is a feature, not a flaw,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: and understanding begins at the smallest scales.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: I want you to.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: Imagine something for a second. Picture a clock sitting on
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: the desk right in front of you.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm picturing it right.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: So you were watching the second hand tick forward, tick tick.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Tick, Just a normal clock exactly.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: But now I want you to imagine that exact same
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: clock sitting in the exact same spot, but the second
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: hand is moving at a well, a completely different speed.
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: Wait what Yeah, it is ticking faster, and at the
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: exact same moment, it is also ticking slower.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: That is I mean, that's incredibly hard to even visualize, right.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: It entirely defines everything you know about how reality is
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: supposed to work. You are looking at a single object
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: experiencing two completely different timelines literally at the same time.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: It sounds like a riddle honestly, or maybe like a
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: broken piece of machinery, but it is actually the absolute
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: bleeding edge of modern physics.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: Which is just wild. So what we're doing today is
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: figuring out how physicists are attempting to combine the flexible,
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: bendable nature of time from Einstein's relativity with the absolutely
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: bizarre multi state nature of quantum mechanics.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, colliding two totally different rule books exactly.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: And the ultimate goal here is to prove that time
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: itself can exist in a quantum superposition. Okay, let's unpack
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: this because to understand how a single clock can ticket
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: two different speeds simultaneously, we kind of have to look
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: at the underlying mechanics governing reality, and.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: That conflict between those mechanics is exactly where modern physics
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: is currently stuck. I mean, time plays very very different
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: roles depending on which rule book you are reading.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: From, like relativity versus quantum theory.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Right in Einstein's relativity, time is a physical malleable fabric.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: It bends, its stretches, it reacts to gravity, press, yeah, gravity, speed,
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: all of that. But then you look at quantum theory,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: which is the rule book governing the tiniest building blocks
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: of our universe, and time is completely rigid.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Just a background ticker exactly.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: It acts as the static background metronome that just ticks
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: away steadily. While particles do all sorts of strange things.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: So forcing these two fundamentally opposed concepts together is what
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: reveals these hidden quantum signatures of time flow that classical
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: physics simply cannot explain.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: We already know from macroscopic relativity that time bends with speed, right,
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: and we know from quantum mechanics that particles can exist
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: in superpositions.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Right like Schrodinger's cat exactly, the.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Cat is alive and dead at the same time. But
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: what happens when you smash those two realities together. Because
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: when I was trying to wrap my head around Einstein's relativity,
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: I realized it is kind of like a personalized algorithm.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, I like where this is going.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, think of it like a Spotify rapped but for time.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: A Spotify rapped for time.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You don't just log into like a universal music
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: stream that everyone on Earth listens to. You get a
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: completely customized experience based on your specific behaviors, right, your speed,
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: your location in a gravity.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Well, that is a remarkably good analogy.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Thanks, So every single object in the universe is basically
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: experiencing its own, unique, personalized flow of time. But to
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: really grasp the mechanics of why that happens. You almost
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: have to picture space time as a dense medium, like
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: a fluid.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: And that fluid analogy actually works perfectly for the mechanics
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: of time dilation. So well, think about it. If you
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: are moving through a dense fluid, the faster you move,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: the more resistance are like drag you.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Encounter, right, it's harder to push through.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. In physics, as an object moves faster through the
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: fluid of space time, the internal mechanisms of that object,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: it's atoms, it's chemical reactions, biological aging, all of it
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: literally encounter a form of temporal drag. Temporal drag, Yeah,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: they slow down relative to an object that is just
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: standing still. So you sitting there listening to this right now,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: are experiencing a slightly different flow of time than someone's
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  Speaker 2: standing on top of Mount Everest.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: Because of the distance from Earth's gravity.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The difference is completely microscopic in our daily lives,
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: but it is entirely real and it's measurable.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, don't GPS satellites have to account for this?
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: They absolutely do. The satellites orbiting the Earth have to
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: constantly adjust their internal clocks because they are further away
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  Speaker 2: from Earth's gravity. Well, and they're moving at orbital speeds.
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  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: If they didn't mathematically account for that temporal drag, the
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: navigation app on your phone would literally have you driving
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  Speaker 2: into a lake within a single afternoon.
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  Speaker 3: That is terrifying but also amazing. But okay, to measure
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: a time difference that minute. To actually observe this happening
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: in the laboratory, you can't just use a rolex, right,
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: or even a standard digital clock.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: No, definitely not.
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  Speaker 3: You would need a clock that operates on the scale
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: of individual atoms, which naturally forces us right down into
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: the quantum realm. Right, So take the classic twin paradox.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: Usually the story goes one twin stays on Earth, the
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: other travels at near light speed and comes back younger.
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  Speaker 2: The standard thought experiment, Right.
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  Speaker 3: The math checks out. Yeah, but let's look at the
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  Speaker 3: staggering subtlety of this at lower speeds. If you had
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  Speaker 3: a clock moving at just ten meters per.
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  Speaker 2: Second, which is what like twenty miles an hour, Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: About twenty two miles per hour, essentially just a casual
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: drive through a suburban neighborhood. If it kept moving at
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  Speaker 3: that speed, for fifty seven million years, fifty seven million,
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  Speaker 3: fifty seven million years, it would fall exactly one second
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  Speaker 3: behind a stationary clock that.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Is just fifty seven million years just to lose a
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  Speaker 2: single second. It is a fantastic demonstration of how incredibly
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: subtle the warping of time is at everyday human speeds.
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  Speaker 3: It's almost imperceptible, but not quite.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Scientists have actually confirmed effects exactly like this using highly
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: precise aluminum ion clocks. But what's fascinating here is what
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: happens when we push this macroscopic paradox into the quantum domain.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, brace yourselves, right.
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  Speaker 2: Because instead of two separate clocks moving at different speeds,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: we take a single clock and put it into a
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: quantum superposition.
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  Speaker 3: So we force the clock itself into a state where
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: it is simultaneously moving and not moving exacts. So it
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: becomes its own twin.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: It becomes its own twin. According to the mathematics of
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: quantum theory, that single clock must simultaneously experience two entirely
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: different rates of time.
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  Speaker 3: That is so weird.
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  Speaker 2: It is aging at two different speeds, occupying the exact
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: same space.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: Okay, but wait, if this is a natural consequence of
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: combining quantum mechanics and relativity. Physicists must have known about
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: this theoretical lostibility for.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: A while, right, Oh, absolutely, Physicists like Igor Pikowsky propose
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  Speaker 2: the math for this idea over a decade ago.
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  Speaker 3: So why are we only talking about physically testing this
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: in a laboratory right now? Like what shifted in the
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: landscape of physics that allows us to finally move this
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  Speaker 3: from a whiteboard into the real world?
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Well, simply put, our technology finally caught up to our theories. Okay,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: to measure an effect this unbelievably subtle, where a single
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: particle is experiencing a microscopic time dilation while in a superposition,
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: you need the most precise measuring tools in the history
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: of human civilization, no pressure, right, And that brings us
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: to the work of experimental teams like those led by
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Christian Center at Colorado State University and Dietrich lb Fred
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: at NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: What are they building over there?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: They have developed ultra cold ion clocks. We are talking
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: about trapping a single atom of aluminium or ter bum
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: using intersecting lasers, single atom, a single atom, and then
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  Speaker 2: they cool that single atom down to temperatures hovering billionths
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  Speaker 2: of a degree above absolute zero.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, wait, I got to push back here for a second,
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  Speaker 3: or at least ask for a sanity each other on
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: the mechanics sure come bad because if I remember my
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: high school chemistry correctly, temperature is essentially just a measurement
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: of kinetic energy. Right. Heat is movement, That's right. So
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: if you cool a single atom down to absolute zero
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  Speaker 3: or functionally near absolute zero, that means all thermal movement stops.
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  Speaker 3: Is the theoretical ground state of the universe.
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  Speaker 2: Correct.
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  Speaker 3: If the atom is completely frozen in place, how can
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  Speaker 3: it function as a clock? I mean, how does an
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  Speaker 3: atom tick or measure time if there is zero energy
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  Speaker 3: for movement.
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  Speaker 2: That is a highly logical objection, and it gets to
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  Speaker 2: the very heart of why quantum mechanics is so wonderfully weird.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, lay it on me.
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  Speaker 2: In classical physics, your high school chemistry definitely holds up
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: at absolute zero, all thermal energy is gone and the
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: system basically freezes completely solid. But an atomic clock doesn't
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  Speaker 2: use gears or physical pendulums to tick. It uses the
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: internal energy states of the atom itself. Oh interesting, Yeah,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: and these ultracold clocks. A laser fires at the tra
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: The electron orbiting that ion will only jump to a
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: higher energy level if the laser hits it with an
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  Speaker 2: incredibly precise frequency of light.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: How precise are we talking.
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  Speaker 2: We are talking about a frequency of over a quadrillion
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  Speaker 2: oscillations per second.
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  Speaker 3: A quadrillion, that's a million billion.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Exactly, And that precise frequency required to make the electron jump.
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  Speaker 2: That is the actual tick of the clot ah.
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  Speaker 3: So the atom doesn't need to be physically bouncing around
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  Speaker 3: the room to measure time. The ticking is happening inside
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  Speaker 3: the architecture of the atom itself exactly.
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  Speaker 2: But there is an additional quantum layer.
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  Speaker 3: Here, of course, there is.
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  Speaker 2: Even when you remove all the heat, reaching that absolute
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  Speaker 2: zero ground state where thermal movement stops, there is a
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  Speaker 2: fundamental rule. Nothing in the universe can ever be completely still.
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  Speaker 3: No, even at absolute zero.
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  Speaker 2: Not even then. There are microscopic inescapable vibrations, called quantum fluctuations.
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  Speaker 2: They are basically the inherent jitter of the universe, bubbling
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  Speaker 2: up from the quantum vacuum itself.
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  Speaker 3: The inherent jitter of the universe. I love that phrasing
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  Speaker 3: it's true.
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  Speaker 2: Gabriel Sourcey, a researcher at the Stevens Institute of Technology,
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: points out that atomic clocks have become so incomprehensibly sensitive
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: that their internal ticking rate is actually affected by these
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: inherent quantum fluctuations. Wow, it is like a faint hum
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  Speaker 2: in the fabric of space time that you can never
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  Speaker 2: quite turn off, and the clock feels it.
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  Speaker 3: Here's where it gets really interesting, because the scientists aren't
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: just trapping an atom, freezing it and passively listening to
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: that quantum hum rung.
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  Speaker 2: Oh. No, they are way more active than that, right.
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  Speaker 3: They're actively manipulating the vacuum of space around the atom
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  Speaker 3: to create something called squeeze. States Yes, and if we
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: are manipulating uncertainty, we are basically forcing the atom to
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: forget its exact speed. And if it doesn't have a
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: single defined speed, relativity dictates it can't have a single
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: defined timeline either. Am I tracking the logic? There?
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: You are tracking it perfectly. It relies on a fundamental
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: quirk of nature, which is in the quantum world, you
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: can never know both the exact position and the exact
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: velocity of a particle. With perfect precisions simultaneously.
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  Speaker 3: Right Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, it is a strict physical impossibility, So a squeezed
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: state is essentially a physic sloophole. The researchers use lasers
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: to intentionally squeeze the uncertainty of the ion's position, making
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: it extremely like unnaturally precise in space. They pin it down,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: they do, but nature demands balance to compensate for knowing
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: exactly where the ion is. The ion's velocity becomes wildly uncertain.
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  Speaker 3: It freaks out.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Basically, it doesn't just become unknown to us. The velocity
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  Speaker 2: literally smears out. The atom enters a superposition of moving
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: at multiple different speeds at the exact same time.
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  Speaker 3: Let me just anchor the scale of this for a second,
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  Speaker 3: because it is staggering. We were talking about a single
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: solitary ion. It is less than a nanometer across kiny.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: It is trapped in a cage of pure light, cool
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: to a fraction of a degree above the absolute zero
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: floor of the universe, and by squeezing its physical position,
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: we force it to travel at multiple speeds simultaneously. Yes,
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: and because as we established earlier, speed governs the flow
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: of time due to temporal drag, while the clock must
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: be experiencing multiple time flows.
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  Speaker 2: The clock becomes entangled with its own velocity because the
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: ion is in a superposition of moving and not moving.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: The internal ticking of the clock, the passage of time
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: experienced by that electron jumping between energy levels, becomes intimately
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: tied to that uncertain motion that is mind bending. The
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: result is a single physical object aging at two distinct
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: rates at the exact same moment. The clock is literally
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: both older and younger than itself.
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  Speaker 3: And this isn't just a mathematical thought experiment anymore. As
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: Christian Saner or Kloro State pointed out, we now actually
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: possess the laboratory technology to generate that required squeezing.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: We do. We have a clear engineering path right now
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: to reach the clock precision needed to observe these effects
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: in the real world. For the very first time, we.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: Are standing on the precipice of watching time literally split
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: into two simultaneous realities in a physical laboratory.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: And if we connect this to the bigger picture, it
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: becomes clearer why thousands of hours and millions of dollars
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: are being poured into trapping single ions.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: It's not just a parlor trick.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Proving time superposition is definitely not just about winning a
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Nobel prize for making a microscopic clock act weird. These
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: incredibly sensitive quantum technologies are forging new tools to solve
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: the absolute deepest mysteries of the universe.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: We are building the scaffolding for the next great revolution
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: in physics. Absolutely, and the biggest mystery of them all,
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: like this stubborn outlier in all the physics, is gravity.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Gravity is the big one. In the standard model of
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: particle physics, we have beautifully identified the fundamental particles that
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: carry almost all the forces of nature. We know that
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: photons carry electromagnetism. We have gluons for the strong nuclear
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: force and w and z boses for the weak nuclear force.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: We can measure them, we can predict them. They fit
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: perfectly into the quantum rule book.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: But gravity refuses to cooperate.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: It refuses. Einstein described gravity as the smooth, continuous warping
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: of space time, but quantum mechanics demands that everything is chunky, discrete,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: and quantized. We have never been able to prove how
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: gravity works at the quantum.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Level, but theoretically there must be a discrete particle that
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: carries the force of gravity right exactly, the graviton, the
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: elusive white whale of modern physics.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: It remains completely hypothetical, but Igor Pokofski's work has shown
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: that these exact same quantum technologies, these ultra coold entangled
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: squeeze state clocks, might be the key to finally seeing it.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: Wait, really, how well?
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: If we can prove that time can exist in a superposition,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: we prove that the fabric of relativity can operate by
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: quantum rules, we prove that space time itself can be chunky. Oh,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: I see a clock sensitive enough to measure a superposition
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: of time could theoretically be sensitive enough to detect the
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: minuscule discrete kick of a single graviton passing by or
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: interacting with the atoms mass.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: So if space time can play by quantum rules, then
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: gravity must play by quantum rules.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Too, exactly. It's the missing link.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: It is the ultimate bridge between the two rule books.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, we started with Einstein's flexible, personalized fluid of time.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: We moved into the microscopic world of atoms existing in
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: multiple states simultaneously yep, and we ended up with ultra
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: coold laser trapped ions at the absolute zero floor of
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: the universe, manipulating the vacuum itself to squeeze uncertainty. It's
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: a journey, all of this just to prove that a
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: single clock can exist in two different timelines simultaneously, which
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: might just give us the tools to finally uncover the
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: particle that holds the entire cosmos together.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: It is a profound reminder that knowledge is most valuable
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: when it forces us to question our deepest assumptions about reality.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: You know, we take the forward, steady universal march of
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: time as an absolute given.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: I really do.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: This isn't just abstract math happening on a whiteboard somewhere.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: This is the fundamental fabric of the reality you were
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: sitting in right now. The mechanics that govern the universe
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: are so much stranger and more intricately connected than our
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: everyday human perception allows us to see.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: So what does this all mean? We know that our
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: bodies are brains. The very neurons firing as you listen
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: to this right now are made up of the exact
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: same quantum particles we've been talking about.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: They're governed by the same rules of uncertainty and relativity.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: So I want to leave you with the thought to
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: chew on.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Let's hear it.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: If time can flow at different simultaneous rates for a
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: single quantum particle, well, what does that mean for human consciousness?
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: What does it mean for our perception of the present moment?
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: That's a deep question.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: If the particles inside us are constantly shifting through these
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: microscopic superpositions of time dictated by their own chaotic quantum velocities,
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: are we truly experiencing a single, unified reality, or, as
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: our human experience, our deeply held feeling of right now
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: simply the clumsy, smooth out average of countless different quantum
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: time flows, all happening at once inside our own bodies,