Thomas Weiler, right, Chui Man Ho, left. Credit: John Russell / Vanderbilt University

It’s been a while since we wrote something about the Large Hadron Collider, but this time, some researchers from the LHC come back with a jaw dropping theory – time travel. If this latest theory of Tom Weiler and Chui Man Ho is correct, than the LHC would be the world’s first machine able to send matter back in time.

“Our theory is a long shot,” admitted Weiler, who is a physics professor at Vanderbilt University, “but it doesn’t violate any laws of physics or experimental constraints.”

Among the most important goals of the particle accelerator is finding the elusive Higgs boson, one of the big missing puzzle pieces in modern physics. However, if the LHC does produce the Higgs boson, some physicists believe it will also produce a particle called the Higgs singlet, a theoretical particle with the ability to jump into an extra fifth dimension, thus being able to move forward or backward in time.

“One of the attractive things about this approach to time travel is that it avoids all the big paradoxes,” Weiler said. “Because time travel is limited to these special particles, it is not possible for a man to travel back in time and murder one of his parents before he himself is born, for example. However, if scientists could control the production of Higgs singlets, they might be able to send messages to the past or future.”

Why is this absolutely amazing ? Because someone not in Hollywood is seriously pondering the idea of time travel – and with some good reasons. Still, it is a long shot, and when it comes to modern physics, there are a whole lot of gaps that need to be filled, but this kind of theory just makes you love science (even more).

Enjoyed this article? Join 40,000+ subscribers to the ZME Science newsletter. Subscribe now!