Did Science Just Prove Multiple Realities? Oh, And Now Time Can Run Backwards. Seriously.

Twenty-four hours of epic weirdness in the world of quantum physics

I’ve been waiting for a good opportunity to post this picture, an obvious homage to Heavy Metal!

Two great strides in quantum physics have been reported in the past twenty-four hours: one, MIT Technology Review reports that reality may not be objective, that different observers may witness the same event and both be 100% right about what they witnessed (thus possibly proving the existence of multiple realities), and two, Nature reports that scientists in America and Russia have demonstrated that time can run backwards.

Ow! Yes, my brain hertz, frequently.

Let’s tackle the less momentous event first, the demonstration that time can run backwards, thus presenting an existential threat to the Second Law of Thermodynamics:

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the state of entropy of the entire universe, as an isolated system, will always increase over time. The second law also states that the changes in the entropy in the universe can never be negative.

The article in Nature is a bit of a slog for non-scientists like myself, so Newsweek thoughtfully made things clearer for the rest of us:

In a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, scientists from the U.S. and Russia have…