SCIENTISTS have claimed they witnessed mysterious loops forming in the fabric of time.
The mind-blowing experiment involved a very cold gas and magnetism.
Heikka Valja/Aalto UniversityAn artistic impression of the Alice ring that has just been observed for the first time[/caption]
A research paper regarding the experiment has been published in the journal Nature Communications.
Experts from the US and Finland partnered for the project which was investigating a quantum physics subject called topological monopoles.
Magnetic monopoles are said to be particles that carry a single charge.
It’s thought they can theoretically be created with quantum machinery.
In the latest experiment, the researchers said they witnessed a topological monopole melt into a loop.
These loops have been nicknamed Alice rings after Alice in Wonderland.
Researchers say that looking through the small loop made the world take a different shape.
Physicist David Hall said: “From a distance, the Alice ring just looks like a monopole, but the world takes a different shape when peering through the centre of the ring.”
His colleague Professor Mikko Möttönen added: “It is from this perspective that everything seems to be mirrored, as if the ring were a gateway into a world of antimatter instead of matter.”
A statement from Aalto University said the experiment means “particle physics is quite literally turned on its head.”
This is said to be the first time researchers have observed a monopole in nature.
The statement continued: “Dubbed the ‘Alice ring’ after Lewis Carroll’s world-renowned stories on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the appearance of this object verifies a decades-old theory on how monopoles decay.
“Specifically, that they decay into a ring-like vortex, where any other monopoles passing through its centre are flipped into their opposite magnetic charges.”
The experiment could help us unravel some of the mysteries of quantum physics and reality as we know it.