{"id":578245,"date":"2010-05-25T18:20:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-25T22:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/discovermagazine.com\/2010\/apr\/01-back-from-the-future"},"modified":"2010-05-25T18:20:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-25T22:20:00","slug":"back-from-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/578245","title":{"rendered":"Back From the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/72.32.204.61\/2010\/apr\/01-back-from-the-future\/future1.jpg\" class=\"inline\" alt=\"\"><\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"external-link\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.chapman.edu\/CS\/PCSE\/faculty\/tollaksen.asp\">Jeff Tollaksen<\/a> may well believe he was destined to be here at this point in time. We\u2019re on a boat in the Atlantic, and it\u2019s not a pleasant trip. The torrential rain obscures the otherwise majestic backdrop of the volcanic Azorean islands, and the choppy waters are causing the boat to lurch. The rough sea has little effect on Tollaksen, barely bringing color to his Nordic complexion. This is second nature to him; he grew up around boats. Everyone would agree that events in his past have prepared him for today\u2019s excursion. But Tollaksen and his colleagues are investigating a far stranger possibility: It may be not only his past that has led him here today, but his future as well.<\/p>\n<p>Tollaksen\u2019s group is looking into the notion that time might flow backward, allowing the future to influence the past. By extension, the universe might have a destiny that reaches back and conspires with the past to bring the present into view. On a cosmic scale, this idea could help explain how life arose in the universe against tremendous odds. On a personal scale, it may make us question whether fate is pulling us forward and whether we have free will.<\/p>\n<p>The boat trip has been organized as part of a conference sponsored by the <a rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"external-link\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.fqxi.org\/\">Foundational Questions Institute<\/a> to highlight some of the most controversial areas in physics. Tollaksen\u2019s idea certainly meets that criterion. And yet, as crazy as it sounds, this notion of <a rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"external-link\"  href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Retrocausality\">reverse causality<\/a> is gaining ground. A succession of quantum experiments confirm its predictions\u2014showing, bafflingly, that measurements performed in the future can influence results that happened before those measurements were ever made.<\/p>\n<p>As the waves pound, it\u2019s tough to decide what is more unsettling: the boat\u2019s incessant rocking or the mounting evidence that the arrow of time\u2014the flow that defines the essential narrative of our lives\u2014may be not just an illusion but a lie&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b><i>The full text of this article is only available to DISCOVER subscribers. Click through to see how you can subscribe or log in.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/DiscoverMag\/~4\/caqFJDNuheo\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jeff Tollaksen may well believe he was destined to be here at this point in time. We\u2019re on a boat in the Atlantic, and it\u2019s not a pleasant trip. The torrential rain obscures the otherwise majestic backdrop of the volcanic Azorean islands, and the choppy waters are causing the boat to lurch. The rough sea [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-578245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}