Time throughout the universe is like a giant ‘flicker book’ which can be broken into an almost infinite number of separate moments, scientists said today.
Historically physicists and philosophers viewed time as a constant, flowing like a river from the past to the present and into the future.
More recently quantum physicists suggested this view was wrong and introduced the purely theoretically idea of the shortest length of time possible – the almost infinitesimally small Planck Constant, named after German theoretical physicist Max Planck.
However, new research carried out at the University of Waterloo and University of Lethbridge, in Canada, and Alexandria University in Egypt, suggests there is a genuine measureable minimum unit of time beyond which it is not possible to go.
These ‘static’ minimum units of time then align to give the impression of time flowing – just as a schoolboy flicker book, or a movie does.
The development opens up new hope for Dr Who style time travel as it introduces the notion of a discrete fixed moment in time – perhaps continually existing - which it may be possible for time travellers to pinpoint and go back to, or indeed forward to.
The findings also suggest the head-spinning possibility of countless earlier versions of yourself trapped forever in a particular time-frame.
A paper, called Time Crystals and Minimum Time Uncertainty, has been drawn up by researchers Mir Faizal, Mohammed M. Khalil and Saurya Das.
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