Physicists simulate the end of time in the laboratory

The scientists worked with a metamaterial consisting of two types of components – a lattice of polymethyl acrylate plastic was applied over a gold film. Plasmons were passed through this material – objects that represent oscillations of an electron gas and, only for the convenience of calculations, endowed with the properties of particles.

Their passage through the golden part of the metamaterial is described in accordance with the same laws that work in the Universe, where there are two spatial and one temporal dimensions. The laws that work in the Universe with one spatial and two temporal dimensions are suitable for describing the movement of plasmons through plastic.

When scientists placed a plastic lattice on top of a gold film, in the universe they simulated, the temporal dimension turned out to be perpendicular to the spatial dimension, and the passage of plasmons through the entire structure turned out to be equivalent to the end of time.

Earlier, another team of researchers using metamaterials created in the laboratory a model of a microwave black hole – an object that absorbs all waves of the corresponding frequency range that hit it.