University of Washington physics professor John Cramer couldn't get research grants to fund his work on a very weird fundamental paradox of quantum physics. Then an article about his ideas ran in the newspaper and more than $35,000 from donors nationwide began to stream in. Unlike Stephen Hawking and almost every other physicist, Cramer doesn't believe that time can only move forward. He thinks that's how quantum entanglement, in which the quantum states of two objects can be linked no matter the distance between them, is possible. According to Cramer, "It could involve signaling, or communication, in reverse time." From The Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
He has proposed a relatively simple bench-top experiment using lasers, prisms, splitters, fiber-optic cables and other gizmos to first see if he can detect "non-local" signaling between entangled photons. He hopes to get it going in July. If this succeeds, he hopes to get support from "traditional funding sources" to really scale up and test for photons communicating in reverse time…
"I'm not crazy," he confirmed. "I don't know if this experiment will work, but I can't see why it won't. People are skeptical about this, but I think we can learn something, even if it fails…"
…When word of his funding plight went out across the Internet a few months ago after a Seattle P-I article, people…began contacting the UW to see if they could lend some support.
"Heck, if it works we can go back in time and get our money back," laughed John Crow, a (donor of $3000) who splits his time between his gas-and-oil business in Shreveport and a home in Port Angeles.
Link (Thanks, Jason Tester!)
