Has Time Travel Been Scientifically Proven?

Photons To The Past

Back in June 2014, it was announced that scientists had proven that time-travel into the past, at the quantum level, is indeed possible.

An article, entitled Experimental simulation of closed timelime curves was published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature. The article explained how scientists at the University Of Queenland had successfully simulated quantum particles traveling through time using photons. For those that don't know, a photon is an elementary subatomic particle, the quantum of light and every other form of electromagnetic radiation.

In two different cases of simulating the behaviour of two photons interacting with each other, in the first case a photon passed through a wormhole and then, rather amazingly, started interacting with it's older self. In the second instance, a photon traveling through normal space-time interacted with a photon that was permanently trapped inside a closed timeline curve.

The results of the experiment demonstrate how the 'grandfather paradox' could be resolved at a quantum level. The 'grandfather paradox' says that if someone went back in time and did something to prevent their own grandparents from meeting, then they would never have been born and therefore would never have set out to travel through time in the first place.

The theory that time-travel is possible at the quantum level was first predicted in 1991, due to the fact that quantum particles almost behave beyond the realms of physics. Whilst the results show that time-travel to the past is only possible at the quantum level, it does prove that time-travel at a large scale is not an impossibility, though is still considered improbable at this point.

Mental Time Travel

There have only been a few studies into the psychological phenomena of mental time travel (chronesthesia) and the ability to move objects in another time and place (chronokinesis).

However, such studies do seem to acknowledge that such phenomena exist and scientists are now beginning to understand why it is that such complex phenomena are possible.

Despite chronesthesia and chronokinesis being proven by multiple modern fields including quantum mechanics, the noetic sciences (studies on consciousness) and (para)psychology, many people are still of the opinion that such topics are simply the subject of science fiction and are not scientifically plausible.

What many people may not realize is that certain movies such as Limitless, whilst having fictional storylines, are often based on real-life scientific discoveries. ESP and psychic abilities are indeed a reality and chronesthesia and chronokinesis prove it.

Chronesthesia (Mental Time Travel)

fMRI studies have shown that the left hippocampus and posterior visuospatial regions of the human brain are largely responsible for, or at least largely involved in, neural differentation; the construction of both past and future events. However, the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, the right frontopolar cortex and the right hippocampus have been shown to be largely responsible for, or at least largely involved in, future event construction specifically.

Mental time travel may also be an ability which is present in many animals. According to the Bischof-Kohler hypothesis, animals are unable to anticipate future needs. However, in a scientific study that was carried out, when presented with the choice of either food or a utensil which could be used to eat that food, the apes chose the utensil instead - they anticipated the need for such a utensil in the future and therefore chose it rather than choosing a food reward.

Studies on children aged between three to five years old have also shown that children as young as four years old are capable of mental time travel. However, supposedly due to limited knowledge of linguistics, the older children seemed to be capable of handling the task(s) more appropriately. The tasks involved episodic recollection, prospection, third-person theory of mind and navigation and showed that the most activated areas of the brain in children were the hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, retrosplenial cortex, posterior parietal cortex and the ventro-medial pre-frontal cortex.

Chronokinesis (control time)

Whereas telekinesis is the ability to move objects with the power of the mind, Chronokinesis is the ability to not only mentally time travel but to also be able to manipulate time relevant to one's self.

The only scientific studies that have been carried out into the phenomenon of Chronokinesis tend to be studies into Chronokinesis as a result of using pharmaceuticals, in an attempt to explain Chronopharmacodynamic phenomena. There is therefore currently very little scientific information available about the phenomenon but we know it exists and that it's real.