Could Large Hadron Collider be world’s first time machine?

The Large Hadron Collider could – just possibly – be capable of causing matter to travel backwards in time.

“Our theory is a long shot, but it doesn’t violate any laws of physics or experimental constraints,” says Tom Weiler, a physics professor at Vanderbilt University.

One of the main goals of the LHC is to find the Higgs boson, or ‘God particle’, necessary to explain why particles like protons, neutrons and electrons have mass.






Weiler and Ho’s theory is based on M-theory, a ‘theory of everything’ which can accommodate the properties of all the known subatomic particles and forces – but which requires 10 or 11 dimensions instead of our familiar four.


The team’s ideas have been taken up by science fiction writers: Final Theory by Mark Alpert and Joe Haldeman’s novel The Accidental Time Machine both involve time travel based on these theories.