Is there such a thing as clairvoyance, or a vision of the future? This ancient concept is present in every religion, you can remember oracles of Greece and Rome and the old Testament prophets. But pay attention: in such subjects foresight often becomes a curse. In Greek mythology, there is a myth about Cassandra, the daughter of the king of Troy, which for its beauty attracted the attention of the sun God Apollo. To win liked him a girl, Apollo gave her the ability to see the future. But Cassandra had rejected the courtship of Apollo, who, in a fit of fury distorted his gift: Cassandra now could see the future, but no one she did not believe. Cassandra had warned the Trojans about their fate, but no one listened. She warned that a Trojan horse is a trap, she predicted the death of Agamemnon and even his own death, but the people of Troy, instead of listening to the Council, announced its crazy and locked in the tower. Nostradamus in the XVI century and later Edgar Case also claimed that can lift the veil of time. Often state that their predictions have come true (this is, in particular, about the prophecy of the Second world war, the assassination of President Kennedy and the fall of communism), but the confused allegorical form, in which many clairvoyants were put your predictions, allows for a variety, including conflicting, interpretations. The quatrains of Nostradamus, for example, is worded in a General form that everyone can read them anything [that is constantly happening). In one of the quatrains said:

Roaring fire from the center of the world, earth-shattering, the Land around the new city trembles. Two great will fight long and fruitless. Nymph sources will make new river blush.

Some argued that this quatrain can serve as proof that Nostradamus knew about the destruction of the twin towers trade center in new York on 11 September 2001, But over the centuries according to the same words were made dozens of other interpretations. Because the images are so uncertain that we can understand them as you like.

A vision of the future, among other things, is a favorite tool of playwrights, describing the doomed kings and fall of empires. In "Macbeth" by Shakespeare prophecy serves as the centre of the plot and focus ambitious aspirations of Macbeth - because three witches predict his exaltation and the throne of the king of Scotland. The witches ' prophecy even stronger fuels his painful vanity, and he begins bloody and terrible campaign, enemies to destroy them, kill innocent children and the wife of his opponent Macduff.

Having made a lot of horrible crimes and capturing the throne, Macbeth learns from the same witches that nobody can defeat him in battle, "until you move across to Dunsinane hill Bernadskii"; in addition, he reported that he "is protected by the fate of all who woman is born". The prophecy calms Macbeth, because the forest is not able to move, and all human beings are born from women. But in the end it all comes true - Birnam wood comes from place when the soldiers Macduff take the hands of the branches of the trees and secretly come to the camp Macbeth; in addition, it appears that the Macduff was not born, but cut out from his mother's womb.

So, the last prophecy too vague that they could reliably verify; but there is one class of predictions, to assess which quite simply,is the prediction of doomsday and the end of the world. In the Bible, in the book "Revelation" the last days of the Earth is described in colorful detail; the coming of the Antichrist and the final Second coming of Christ are accompanied by chaos and destruction. Christian thinkers always, since these texts, tried to predict the exact date of the described events.

One of the most famous predictions of doomsday was done by astrologers on 20 February 1524 on the basis of the positions of the planets (mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) on the celestial sphere; it was predicted that the world will perish in the great flood. Europe has swept the mass panic. In England 20,000 people desperate to leave their homes. Around the Church of St. Bartholomew was built the fortress stuffed with supplies, food and water for two months. In Germany and France, people began feverishly to build a large ark, which could survive during the flood. Count von Isleham, for example, was built in anticipation of this momentous event a huge three-storied ark. But on the appointed day from heaven just pokupal a slight rain. The mood of the crowd changed dramatically; instead of fear of people covered anger. Those who managed to sell off all the assets and completely broke his life, felt betrayed. Angry crowds began to smash everything. The count was stoned to death, and in a stampede killed several hundred people.

Of course, the prophecies are craving not only for Christians. In 1648 Shabbatai Zvi, the son of a rich Jew from Turkish Smyrna, declared himself the Messiah, and predicted that the world will end in 1666, Zvi was beautiful, charismatic and well knew mystical texts of Kabbalah; he was able to quickly gather a group of fanatical followers who spread the news across Europe. In the spring of 1666 Jews such remote places as France, Holland, Germany and Hungary, have started to put things and to meet at the call of their Messiah. But later in the same year, Zvi was arrested and thrown into prison in chains by order of Constantinople Grand vizier. Once in the face of mortal danger, he theatre shed their Jewish clothes, put on Turkish turban and appealed to the Islamic faith. Tens of thousands of his loyal supporters left the sect suffered a terrible disappointment.

The predictions of various prophets, and today have an impact on people, changing the lives of tens of millions of people around the world. For example, in the USA a certain William Miller announced that the day of judgment will come on 3 April 1843 News about this prophecy was spreading all over the country; coinciding with him is a random event, a spectacular meteor shower 1833, one of the most powerful in history, is also a very reinforced the impression from Millerovo prophecy.

To 1843 Armageddon was already tens of thousands of followers Miller; they even got the name of millerites. When a year to fulfill the prophecy began, and then ended, and as of the End of the world did not happen, the movement of millerites split into several large groups. Followers Miller was so much that each of these groups and visible today in the religious life and has considerable influence. One of the larger groups milleridge movement in 1863, has reorganized and changed its name; now it is called the Church of seventh-day Adventists and has in its ranks around 14 million baptized. Main advent is near and imminent Second coming of Christ.

Another splinter movement millerites later began to focus on the works of Charles Taza Russell, moving the date of the last judgment in 1874 and When this date has passed, Russell has revised his prophecy - it was based on the study of Egyptian pyramids and again moved the date, this time in 1914 Later, this group has received the name of Jehovah's Witnesses; currently, there are more than 6 million people.

Other segments milleridge movement also continued to prophesy and every time a split, after next prediction did not come true. One of the little groups of former millerites off of seventh-day Adventists in the 1930s, was named the Branch of David. A small community of this sect in Waco, Texas, fell under the influence of a young charismatic preacher by the name of David Koresh, who with great power and hypnotic power, talked about the End of the world. This sect ceased to exist in 1993, in a tragic collision with the FBI; when a roaring fire of hell engulfed the village was burned alive 76 members of the sect, including 27 children and himself sidekick.
Can we see the future?

Can you prove by rigorous scientific experiments that some people can see the future? In Chapter 12 we saw that time travel in principle does not contradict the laws of nature, but is available only for highly developed civilizations of the type III. But maybe foresight is available to us and on the Earth today?

Sophisticated and carefully organized tests conducted in the Centre Raina, seems to suggest that some people can really predict the future; and it may call cards before they are opened. But numerous repeated experiments have shown that this effect is very weak and often disappears if the result of trying to repeat other researchers.

In fact, the vision of the future is difficult to reconcile with modern science, because it breaches the causal link, or the law of cause and effect. The cause must precede effect, not Vice versa. The causal link is integrated into all the laws of physics, which has been found yet, and its violations of the whole building will collapse modern physics. Newtonian mechanics is firmly anchored in the law on cause-effect relationships, and Newton's laws are so pervasive that, knowing the exact coordinates and velocities of all molecules in the Universe, could be calculated and the future of the movement of these atoms. Thus, the future can be calculated. In principle Newtonian mechanics says that, having at its disposal a sufficiently powerful computer, you can calculate all futuree events. According to Newton, the universe is like a giant clock, which God started at the beginning of time and then go on to His laws. In Newton's theory there is no foresight.
Back in time

However, if we consider the Maxwell theory, the script will be much more difficult. When solving maxillofac equations for light, we get not one, but two solutions: not only "retarded" wave that is an ordinary movement of light from one point to another, but also a "leading" wave, which is a ray of light, going back in time. This advanced solution comes from the future and comes in the past!

For hundreds of years every engineer, meeting this "pre" the decision taken back in time, just cast it as a purely mathematical curiosity. As usual wave Maxwell extremely accurately predicted the behavior of radio waves of all ranges, the practice of cast-ahead decision as unnecessary and forgot about it. The usual wave was so good, beautiful and successful, that engineers simply ignored her ugly sister-twin: no good deed goes unpunished.

But physicists advancing wave all these hundred years was not allowed to sleep. Maxwell's equations is one of the pillars of the present, so to any of their decision should be taken very seriously, even if this would require to accept the existence of waves from the future. Completely ignore them it was impossible. Why nature has given us such a strange and bizarre decision - Yes, even at the most basic level? It is a cruel joke, or is there some deeper meaning?

Interest in advancing waves showed and mysticism; there have even been speculations that it can be a message from the future. Maybe if somehow to curb these waves, we could send messages back and report the previous generations of the coming events. For example, you could advise our great-grandfathers and great-grandmother in 1929 to sell all shares, without waiting for Black Friday. Of course, leading waves would not allow us to personally visit the past is still not a time machine, but would help to deliver the past messages with warnings about the key events that have not happened.

Leading waves remained a mystery until their study came from Richard Feynman, who was always occupied with the idea to return to the past. After participation in the Manhattan project, which created the first atomic bomb, Feynman left Los Alamos and left in Pristanskiy University to work under John Wheeler. Analyzing the first work Dirac on the electron, Feynman discovered something very strange. If you change the direction of time in the Dirac equation on the back and at the same time change the sign of the charge of the electron, then the equation will remain the same. In other words, Feynman turned out that the electron moving back in time, is the same thing that the positron, which is moving forward in time! In normal circumstances, Mature, established physicist could reject this interpretation, considering it simply focus, mathematical trick, with no values, no physical meaning. Actually, at first glance it seems that the movement back in time makes no sense, but of the Dirac equation in this regard absolutely clear. In other words, the Feynman managed to find the reason why nature allows the existence of these back in time solutions: they represent the movement of antimatter. Whether Feynman more experienced physicist, he quite possibly would have thrown this decision in the trash. But being just graduated, he decided to go on about their own curiosity and to explore the issue further.

Continuing to dig into this mysterious decision young Feynman noticed something even more strange. Usually if the electron and positron colliding, they both annihilate with simultaneous formation of the gamma-quantum. He drew a diagram of what is happening on the sheet: two objects collide and disappear, and instead of them there is a burst of energy.

On the other hand, if you change the charge of positron on the opposite, he will turn into a normal electron moving backwards in time. Then described the chart can be drawn again - but the timing will be sent to the other party. In General, it looks as if the electron moving forward in time, and then suddenly decided to change direction. He spun around in time and headed back, freeing up at the time of the reversal of some energy. In other words, it has turned out that it is the same one electron, and the process of annihilation of an electron and a positron is simply a point spread it in time!

Thus, Feynman was able to solve the mystery of antimatter: this is normal matter, moving backwards in time.

Simple observation immediately explained the mysterious fact that each particle certainly have a partner-antiparticle: this is because all the particles are able to move back in time and pretend antimatter. (This interpretation is equivalent to the already mentioned "Dirac sea", but it is easier, and today it is generally accepted.)

Now let's imagine that we have a chunk of antimatter, and we push him with ordinary matter, giving rise to explosion. At this point annihilate each other trillion electron and trillions of positrons. But if we change the direction of the arrow to positron and turn it this way in an electron moving back in time, it will turn out that all of our blast is the same electron which zigzagging and rushes back and forth in time trillions of times in a row.

From all of this could be another interesting conclusion: in our piece of the substance must be only one electron. The same electron rushed forward and backward, writing in a time of endless zigzags. Each time, turning in time, he turned into a positron; but he had to turn back in time as he again turned conventional electron.

(Talking to his supervisor John Wheeler, Feynman reasoned that in the Universe, probably, even just one electron, which is worn down over time. Imagine that out of the chaos of the Big Bang was born only one electron. Someday, after a few trillion years, this electron live to disaster and death of the Universe; then he will turn around and go back to the Big Bang, where again will change the direction of motion in time. We can assume that this electron is constantly traveling back and forth, from the Big Bang until the day of judgment. And our universe twenty-first century is simply a time slice of travel of the electron; we see both trillions of electrons and positrons, i.e. the visible Universe. Of course, this theory may seem strange, but it would explain a curious fact in quantum theory: why all electrons are the same. In physics it is impossible to distinguish between the electrons. It is impossible to read one of electrons green, and another, say, to give a name to johnny. For electrons with no personality. It is impossible to "tag" electron as scientists sometimes mark of wild animals, to them it was easier to monitor and study. Perhaps the reason lay in the fact that in the Universe there is only one electron, which just run to and fro in time.)

But if antimatter is a normal matter, moving backwards in time, you can use it to send a message to the past? Maybe you can make today's room Wall Street Journal in the past myself and how to capitalize on market speculation?

The answer is very simple: no, you cannot.

If we consider the antimatter as another exotic form of matter, and then spend with him experiments, in which case there is no violation of causality. Cause and effect remain in place. But if we change the direction of the time axis for positron and sent it in the past, it means nothing; we only perform some mathematical operation. Physics remains the same, and in reality nothing has changed. All experimental results remain in place. That is why we are fully entitled to consider that the electron was running back and forth in time. But every time it moves in the opposite direction, it just fills the past. So, it seems, for the existence of a consistent quantum theory really necessary leading solutions from the future, but by and large they do not violate the principle of causality. (In fact the opposite is true: if there were these strange leading of the waves, the principle of causality in quantum theory were violated. Feynman showed that if we introduce into the theory concepts of leading and lagging waves, those values that would be violating causality, very carefully reduced. Thus, antimatter necessary for the preservation of causality. Without antimatter causality may crash.)

Feynman continued to dig into this insane idea and he succeeded in that it has flourished and grown into a full quantum theory of the electron. His brainchild, quantum electrodynamics, managed to experiment until the tenth decimal place, making it one of the most accurate theories of all time. In 1965 she brought Feynman and his colleagues of Julian Schwinger, Sinitiro Tomonaga (Sin-Itiro Tomonaga) the Nobel prize.

(In his Nobel lecture Feynman said that in his youth fell in love without memory in the most advanced wave of the future - just as could fall in love with a pretty girl. Today the pretty girl grew up, now a grown woman and got a lot of children. Among these children - and his theory of quantum electrodynamics.)
The tachyons of the future

In addition to the "leading" of the waves from the future (which again and again prove its usefulness in quantum theory), in quantum theory there is still aboutbottom unusual concept that seems so crazy, but perhaps not so useful. This hypothesis is about tachyons, which regularly appear in the TV series "Star trek". Each time the script writers of "Star trek" you want some new form of energy for some magical operations, they attract the tachyons.

The tachyons live in a strange world, where everything is moving faster than light. Losing energy, tachyons start to move faster, which of course goes against common sense. Moreover, tachyon, completely bereft of energy, moving with infinite speed. Conversely, buying energy, tachyons slow down until they reach the speed of light.

Especially strange tachyons makes the fact that they have imaginary mass. (Speaking of "imaginary", we mean that their mass multiplied by the square root of negative one, or i.) If you take the famous Einstein's equations and replace m in im, the miracle happens. The velocity of the particles will suddenly be more than speed of light.

Because of this there is a strange situation. When tachyon flies through substance, it loses energy as collides with atoms. But, losing energy, he accelerated, causing collisions are getting stronger and more often. In theory, these clashes have to cause further loss of energy and, consequently, further acceleration. There is a vicious circle, and tachyon in and of itself, naturally, is gaining an infinite speed!

(Tachyons differ from antimatter, and from adverse substances. Antimatter has a positive energy moving slower light and can be obtained in our particle accelerators. According to the theory, antimatter obeys the law of gravity and, as expected, falling down. Antimatter corresponds to the usual stuff, moving backwards in time. Negative substance has negative energy, and also moves slower than light, but under the influence of gravity, falling up, i.e. away from the attracting body of normal matter. Negative substance in the laboratory are not seen. In theory in large quantities it can serve as a fuel for time machine. The tachyons are moving faster than light and have imaginary mass; how they behave under the influence of gravity, is unclear. They are also not managed to get in the lab.)

The tachyons, of course, very strange particles, physics but seriously they are studied; may be called, for example, the late Gerald Feinberg from Columbia University and George Sudarshan from the University of Texas at Austin. The problem is that no one has ever seen the tachyon in the laboratory. Reliable experimental evidence for the existence of tachyons would be a violation of causality. Feinberg even offered physicists to investigate the laser beam to activate the laser. If tachyons exist, it is not excluded that the light of a laser beam can be detected even earlier than the device is turned on.

In science fiction tachyons are regularly used as a means of sending messages in the past, the ancestors. But from the physics of the phenomenon it is unclear whether such at least in theory. Feinberg, for example, believed that the issue of tachyons, moving forward in time, precisely corresponds to the absorption of a tachyon with negative energy, moving in time ago (similar to the situation with antimatter), therefore no violation of causality is not happening.

If you leave fiction aside, currently physicists believe that the tachyons, perhaps existed at the moment of the Big Bang, breaking causation, but now they no longer exists. Moreover, it may be that the tachyon has played a significant role in the fact that the universe actually exploded. In this sense, they play an important role in some theories of the Big Bang.

The tachyons there is another fun feature. With the introduction of any theory they are destabilizing the "vacuum", i.e. the low-energy state of the system. If a system contains the tachyons, then status is set to "false vacuum", and therefore unstable and will decay to a state of true vacuum.

Imagine the dam that holds the water in the lake. This is a "false vacuum". Although the dam is quite reliable, there is a state with an even lower energy. And if the dam there is a crack, the water begins to flow out of the lake and draining to the sea level when the system reaches a state of true vacuum.

Similarly, it is believed that the universe before the Big Bang existed in a state of false vacuum, where were the tachyons. But their presence meant that it's not the low-energy state of the system, because the system is unstable. Then in the fabric of space-time appeared tiny "loose ends"that represents a true vacuum. A tear began to rise, appeared bubble. Outside the bubble tachyons still existed, but inside they were not. With the growth of the bubble appeared the universe we know, the universe without tachyons. This was a Big Bang.

One of the theories that cosmologists is taken very seriously, is that the initial process of inflation began one tachyon, known as "inflation". As we already mentioned, the inflationary theory of the Universe says that it originated as a tiny bubble of space-time survivor of ultra-fast expansion period (inflation). Physicists believe that initially the universe existed in a state of false vacuum, where inflationary field was tachyon. But the presence of tachyon destabilized vacuum, and formed a tiny bubbles. Inside one of these bubbles inflationary field was in a state of true vacuum. This bubble began to swell, until he turned into our Universe. In our bubble universe inflation disappeared, and therefore it fails to register in our Universe. It turns out that the tachyons are bizarre quantum state in which objects are moving faster than light, and, perhaps, even violates causality. But the tachyon has long since disappeared, having given this, perhaps the life of the Universe itself.

Probably all this is similar to speculation that it is impossible to check. But the first experiment to test the theory of false vacuum begins in 2008 with the start in Switzerland near Geneva, the Large hadron Collider. One of the main tasks TANK discovery of Higgs bosons, the latter is still not found particles of the Standard model, the final details of a scientific puzzle. (The Higgs is so important and so elusive that the Nobel laureate Leon Lederman called it "part of God.")

Physicists believe that the Higgs boson began its existence as a tachyon. In the false vacuum none of subatomic particles had no mass. But the presence of tachyon destabilized the vacuum, and the universe has moved to a new state, to the new vacuum in which the Higgs boson turned ordinary particle. After this transition - from a state of tachyon in the state of ordinary particles - subatomic particles acquire mass, which we now measure in the laboratory. Thus, the discovery of the Higgs boson not only will put in place the last missing piece of the Standard model, but also confirms that the tachyon state once existed, but later was transformed into an ordinary particle.

To summarize. Newtonian physics is completely reject the possibility of foreseeing the future. Iron rule of cause and effect is never disturbed. Quantum theory admits other States of matter, such as antimatter, which corresponds to the usual stuff, moving backwards in time, but the principle of causality is not violated. Moreover, antimatter in the quantum theory it is necessary to restore causality. The tachyons at first glance violate the principle of causality, but physicists believe that they had fulfilled their mission launched the mechanism of the Big Bang and disappeared from our Universe.

So a vision of the future seems to be excluded, at least in the foreseeable future, and this means that it should be referred to III class of impossibility. If you ever manage to prove by reproducible experiments that to predict the future is still possible, of modern physics will have to reconsider to its foundations.