Scientists ‘reverse time’ with quantum computer in breakthrough study

Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. In a development that also represents a major advance in our understanding of quantum computers, by using electrons and the strange world of quantum mechanics researchers were able to turn back time in an experiment that can be likened to causing a broken rack of pool balls to go back into place. Lead researcher Dr Gordey Lesovik, who heads the Laboratory of the Physics of Quantum Information at the MIPT, said: “We have artificially created a state that evolves in a direction opposite to that of the thermodynamic arrow of time.” The “time machine” described in the journal Scientific Reports consists of a rudimentary quantum computer made up of electron “qubits”. But then another program modified the state of the quantum computer in such a way that it evolved “backwards”, from chaos to order. “Our algorithm could be updated and used to test programs written for quantum computers and eliminate noise and errors,” said Dr Lesovik.