Real life imitates art, whether you want it to or not. The evil scientists in Stranger Things are constantly trying to open a portal to the Upside Down, which is a parallel dimension that mirrors our own, except in a really like evil, icky way.
And now, scientists in Oak Ridge National Laboratory in eastern Tennessee have completed building the equipment required to give us our first glimpse of a parallel universe. *Cue eery intro music*
This parallel universe would be pretty much identical to our own, with mirror particles, mirror planets and possibly even mirror life.
According to The Independent, they plan to test out the contraption this summer, and it’s got all our sci-fi senses tingling.
The discovery of a hidden shadow world has been frequently suggested by physicists as a way to explain anomalous results.
The new experiment will fire a beam of neutrons at an impenetrable wall. A neutron detector will be set up on the other side of the wall, which would normally be expected to detect nothing.
However, if the detector does register the presence of neutrons, the theory is that they may have gone through the wall by ‘oscillating’ into the mirror world – becoming mirror neutrons – and reappearing in this universe.
Leah Broussard, the physicist behind the project, said,
The attempt is pretty wacky. I fully expect to measure zero.
If they do detect neutrons on the other side of the wall however, that could totally change the game. All I really care about is if there’s a younger and more successful version of me on the other side though.