No, NASA didn’t find a parallel universe where time runs backward

Let’s play a game with bad, good, and bad news.

Bad news first: 2020. Everything in the truest sense of the word. Every second. Every waking moment of 2020. It’s dark, I know. Brush fire, pandemic, Murder hornets. When will it end?

But the good news: Apparently, scientists have discovered a parallel universe, just like our own. However, it is somewhat different than ours. In this mirror world, time runs backwards. It’s like in a Benjamin Button universe. That means they’re returning to 2019, the good old days, right?

Well, now more bad news: I am here to spoil the parallel universe party. Scientists don’t have indeed discovered a parallel universe, but you could superior You have, based on multiple reports from across the web.

In the last few days a number of Publications have suggested that scientists have found “evidence” of a parallel universe in which time is running backwards. These stunning articles assume that an experiment in Antarctica has discovered particles that violate the laws of physics. All reports come from the same source of information: A Pay-Walled report from New Scientist on April 8 titled “We may have discovered a parallel universe that goes back in time.”

The focus of the report is the results of the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA), an experiment carried out by NASA researchers. It is a series of radio antennas attached to a helium balloon that flies at 37,000 meters over the Antarctic ice sheet, almost four times as high as a commercial flight. At such a height, the antennas can “listen” to the cosmos and recognize high-energy particles, so-called neutrinos, that constantly bombard the planet.

These particles are not a threat to us and pass through most solid objects without anyone noticing – it is estimated that 100 trillion neutrinos pass through your body every second! They rarely interact with matter. However, when they hit an atom, they create a shower of secondary particles that we can recognize, which allows us to examine where they come from in the universe. ANITA recognizes neutrinos that penetrate from space and collide with matter in the Antarctic ice sheet.

Over the years, ANITA has discovered a handful of “abnormal” events. Instead of the high-energy neutrinos streaming in from space, they seem to have entered the earth from a strange angle before hitting the detector. This knowledge tilt are explained by our current understanding of physics – that much is true.

“The unusual ANITA events have been known and discussed since 2016,” said Ron Ekers, honorary member of CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency. “After four years there was no satisfactory explanation for the abnormal events ANITA saw. This is very frustrating, especially for those involved.”

Although the New Scientist report was filed on April 8 – and the ANITA results are almost two years old – the theory has only recently caught fire. Ever more urgent headlines have driven the spread on social media. “NASA discovers evidence of a bizarre parallel universe in which physics and time work in reverse,” says one. Another says, “Scientists may have just found evidence of a parallel universe.”

ANITA’s chief investigator, Peter Gorham, said it was “an unfortunate tabloid journalism” and notes that an early Daily Star report “only invented a few things about me and our experiment.”

Because the New Scientist piece is behind a wage wall, many of the subsequent reports on the parallel universe are deleted from the first few paragraphs and do not explain the full details behind the find, in which one of the scientists admits that there are one or more loose lots Ends “for parallel universe theory. There is also another neutrino observatory at the South Pole, known as IceCube followed up the ANITA observations and suggests that the standard physics model cannot explain these strange events.

“In such a situation, you start to explore even more extreme possibilities,” says Ekers.

There’s a really interesting science story here, but it’s not the one you’re selling. The ANITA experiment itself is stunning. It looks for “ghostly” particles that pass through most matter. It has definitely discovered something unusual and unexpected. There are many competing theories that are not explored in the quick news hits, such as: The idea that the Antarctic ice itself could lead to these abnormal events.

Pat Scott, an astroparticle phenomenologist at the University of Queensland, explains the idea as “plausible” and suggests that there are many, many other theories responsible for the abnormal ANITA discoveries. “There is nothing that necessarily makes it the discovery of a parallel universe,” he says.

What matters is simple: we don’t know so much about neutrinos that astrophysicists and scientists are still trying to decipher it. “We are absolutely safe that there is new physics out there, “says Clancy James, radio astronomer at Curtin University in Australia.

Jumping straight to “parallel universes” is a bit overkill, and there are fewer mind-blowing theories that could explain what ANITA discovered. “There are a number of potential candidate particles that could be responsible for ANITA’s results,” said Geraint Lewis, astrophysicist at the University of Sydney.

“While parallel universes sound exciting and sexy when discussing the ANITA signal, alternative ideas are still on the table,” notes Lewis. He also says that this doesn’t mean the idea is wrong – but the weight of the evidence is currently against it.

Unfortunately, most reports that expose this theory without a thorough examination of the evidence complicate the relationship between the public and science Already on shaky ground thanks to misinformation campaigns on climate change and the coronavirus pandemic.

When you see such stories, it is good to remember “the Sagan standard”, a saying by the famous astronomer Carl Sagan. It says “extraordinary claims require exceptional evidence.” We currently have a great theory, but we lack the exceptional evidence to support it.

What we have, says Ekers, is “a somewhat cheeky explanation … born of the frustration of not having anything else that worked.” He says this is “good out-of-the-box thinking” and a “fascinating” idea, but it shouldn’t be taken very seriously.

Gorham has asked the New York Post to withdraw its version of the story, but it remains available.

So I’m sorry. We have found no evidence of a parallel universe. Fortunately, if there is One, then this article over there doesn’t spoil the theory at all! It supports it! So direct all of your email to the Jackson Ryan parallel universe.

No, I will not ask questions.