Theory Of Second Universe Where Time Is Reversed

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31139, 16 August 1966, Page 9

Theory Of Second Universe Where Time Is Reversed

| r.V.Z P A-Reuter— Copyright! LONDON, August 14. ■ The universe may be sur- ' rounded by another invisible i one, in which time runs : backwards, says an article in the authoritative scientific journal “Nature,” quoted by the “Observer” today. The author. Dr. F. R. Stannard, a physicist of University College, London, argues that, while the known universe experiences time as a one-way process, this apparent lopsidedness could be illusory. | Nature, he says, could be’ deeply symmetrical, so that the universe is balanced by another, governed by the same physical laws, but in which time is reversed. This could account for some i

queer features of physical laws and explain some pecu- - liar phenomena emerging > in sub-nuclear physics. i Dr. Stannard suggests that i the postulated time-reversed ; universe could be called i Faustian, with undetected matter existing all around, - and with Faustian galaxies in - the sky—absorbing, rather i than emitting, light, and ■ therefore not observed by i astronomers. He says we might try to ; observe them by fitting a tele- ! scope with a heat-sensitive ’ device, searching the sky for t 1 “cold • spots”—places where ' energy is being sucked into a ‘ kind of cold hole, rather than being radiated outwards. • I Dr. Stannard suggests that

the existence of a Faustian universe could explain some peculiar behaviour of atomic particles called K-mesons currently a major mystery in physics, the “Observer” reports. These particles normally decay rapidly into other particles, but some seem to live much longer than they should. This could be explained by K-mesons doing a “time-flip” into the Faustian universe, where they would grow younger before time-flipping back again. If communication with the Faustian universe could be extended, some unnerving paradoxes would arise.

The inhabitants of a Faustian universe would appear to be getting younger. Their lives would be terminated by birth, and parents would always outlive their children. They could inform us of events lying in our future (which would be their past) and vice versa. Dr. Stannard concludes his paper by mentioning “the interesting possibility that if some means exists for the transfer of matter between the Faustian universe and ours, a perpetual state of mutual regeneration could be established." (In the Middle Ages Faust or Faustus was known by legend as the arch-magician, but in the nineteenth century, as in Goethe's drama, he symbolished the unsatisfied yearning of the human intellect for “more than earthly meat and drink.”)