<i> [Zachary Quinto]
One of the most mysterious
parts of our human existance</i> <i> is the nature of time.</i> <i> What exactly is time?</i> <i> How does it work?</i> <i> Moving from past to present
and into the future.</i> <i> Does time only move forward?</i> <i> Or can we manipulate it
and go back?</i> <i> The potential for time travel
has been entertained</i> <i> in our wildest imaginations,
and in ancient texts.</i> <i> But some believe
it's more than fantasy.</i> I know that
time travel is possible
because I've done it. <i> When I traveled,
I jumped through
an elliptical boom</i> <i> between a shimmering curtain
of radiant energy.</i> <i> A bluish-white tunnel
opened up.</i> <i> Moving forward in time
at a great rate of speed.</i> It was both awe-inspiring
and terrifying. <i> Contemporary physicists
don't realize</i> <i> that time travel
was achieved 50 years ago,</i> <i> because the file
were kept back from science.</i> And I aim to change that. <i> [Quinto]
Is time flexible,
can it be manipulated,</i> <i> and is it actually possible
to travel through it?</i> <i> My search begins now.</i> <i> My Name is Zachary Quinto.</i> <i> As an actor,
I've played many
supernatural characters</i> <i> that blurred the line
between science and fiction.</i> <i> I'm drawn to the unknown,
the otherworldly,</i> <i> and those experiences
so beyond belief,</i> <i> they call everything
into question.</i> <i> I'm exploring some of
the most enduring mysteries</i> <i> that continue to haunt mankind
in search of the truth...</i> <i> wherever it leads me.</i> <i> [metronome clicking
rhythmically]</i> [ticking] <i> Ever since humans
first began tracking time,</i> <i> we've been obsessed
with understanding
and trying to control it.</i> <i> With early Egyptian devices
like sundials and shadow clocks</i> <i> to later advancements
like the hourglass,</i> <i> pendulum clocks,
and now the modern smartwatch,</i> <i> time has always been
a central topic in religion,</i> <i> philosophy, and science.</i> <i> But what exactly is time?</i> <i> Is it a purely human construct?</i> <i> Or is it
an independent dimension</i> <i> that can be explored
and even traveled?</i> <i> Movies and literature
have only have only
stoked our curiosity.</i> <i> But what if you could
move freely between past,
present, and future?</i> <i> Where would you go?
What would you see?</i> <i> And if you could
travel back in time,</i> <i> would you be able
to alter our present reality?</i> [ticking] <i> I'm meeting with a man
who claims to have answers
for many of these questions,</i> <i> because he says he's actually
traveled through time.</i> I understand that you not only
believe time is movable and that you
can travel through it,
but you've actually done this. Yes. By the mid-1960s, my father was the nation's
leading expert in teleportation when he was
a special projects engineer <i> at the Thomas A. Edison
Research Laboratory</i> <i> in West Orange New Jersey.</i> And I was primarily
active in the program from the fall of 1969 until the end
of the summer of 1972, with DARPA serving
as the umbrella agency. It's a government agency.
Right? Right. DARPA is the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency. <i> Mm-hmm.</i> <i> The primary</i> technical development laboratory
for the US military. So how do you explain
the disparity between the scientific
point of view, right, which is that we understand
time only exists
in a forward-moving pattern-- <i> that there's no other
dimension of it--</i> <i> and your experience,
being able
to travel through time?</i> Because that information
was kept as official
state secrets. And so, for example,
an important discovery was Nikola Tesla's discovery
of radiant energy-- <i> an energy he found
that is latent and pervasive</i> <i> in the entire universe</i> <i> and has,
among its capabilities,</i> <i> the capability to bend
the fabric of time space.</i> Let me show it to you. Okay. Sure. There was two
elliptical booms, about ten feet high and about
ten feet apart. The device
is a Tesla invention? Yes. Mm. Between these two booms was a shimmering field
of radiant energy-- energy that can bend
the fabric of timespace. My father explained that we
were gonna jump through
this field of energy. We would go through
a blueish-white tunnel
of light. <i> [Quinto]
It sounds like science fiction.</i> On one hand,
I feel like this is an incredibly compelling,
fascinating, dramatic story. <i> I would love to believe.
That would be amazing.</i> But it's like,
I'm interested in the tangible. <i> I'm interested in the thing
that we can look at and say</i> that that's what
this is irrefutably. <i> I mean, there's so many
questions that I have.</i> Tesla was
a well-documented scientist, <i> and his experiments
were chronicled catalogued.</i> So, if there was a scientific
advancement that he discovered, wouldn't that have been
information and knowledge that would've been shared
with the scientific community
at the time? There was a Tesla cover-up. <i> It was perpetuated
by Tesla himself
to protect the technology.</i> Contemporary physicists
do not understand how and why we achieved
time travel <i> because the information
was kept back from them.</i> They deserve to be told
what everybody
deserves to be told, and that's the truth. Andrew presents it like,
"This is what I did, and it was a secret
government program. You know, there are obviously
other people
that you can talk to <i> about things
in our government's history</i> <i> that are top secret
and are classified.</i> <i> But there's not
that many people like Andrew</i> <i> who are asserting that
they've actually traveled
through space and time.</i> So, I-I don't know. <i> I feel really conflicted
about this one.</i> <i> What he's talking about
would be revolutionary</i> <i> and change the world
and how we move through
this universe.</i> <i> And that, to me,
is really worth exploring.</i> <i> Andrew is not
the only one who claims</i> <i> to have experience
with time travel.</i> <i> There are many other
incredible stories</i> <i> about people supposedly
going back in time.</i> <i> Some even have evidence.</i> <i> Like this 1928 film</i> <i> of a woman who appears
to be holding a cell phone</i> <i> decades before
that technology existed.</i> <i> Or this modern-looking man
in a photograph from the 1940s.</i> <i> But if people have learned
how to time travel,</i> <i> why don't we all know about it?</i> <i> For years,
there have been rumors
of time travel research</i> <i> being conducted in secret,
like the Montauk Project,</i> <i> an alleged
U.S. government program</i> <i> experimenting with
time travel to use in warfare.</i> <i> Putting all
this evidence together,
is it possible</i> <i> that Andrew's story
might have some truth?</i> <i> To find out,
I need to understand more
about how time works.</i> Hi, Zach. Good morning. How are you? <i> Mathematician Tom Van Baak</i> <i> believes that time
is not an absolute,</i> <i> and that while clocks
appear to tick
at the exact same speed,</i> <i> day by day, not all time
is created equal.</i> It was only
in the last hundred years,
with the theories of Einstein, that he proposed
this radical idea
that time wasn't fixed. It's mind-blowing. How? How is that possible? I mean-- Well, it seems that gravity
and time are somehow related. If we have two clocks, <i> and one clock is here,
at sea level,</i> <i> where gravity is the strongest,</i> <i> and one clock is raised
far up into a mountain,</i> <i> where there's less gravity,
the clock closer to Earth</i> is actually running slower
than the clock that's
further away from Earth. If you have excess gravity,
time slows down. It's incredible.
So, someone who lives
in New Orleans, for example, <i> and someone
who lives in Denver--</i> these two clocks would,
theoretically, be running
at slightly different speeds? Not just theoretical,
but that's an example of something you can
actually verify. Would you like to see how? I would love to. These are all clocks. Uh-huh. And that demonstrate
the tremendous evolution
of timekeeping. There are all different types. We have the classic
sand timer. That old chestnut. This is a chronometer from the 1950s. This is a military
quartz crystal. Mm. But still not as accurate
as we would need
for a relativity experiment. Right. For that,
we need an atomic clock. So here's the inside
of an atomic cesium clock. It allows to measure down
to one nanosecond in a day-- Wow. ...for the relativity
experiment. Great. There's our man. And he would agree. He would agree. <i> Our experiment will test</i> <i> Einstein's theory of relativity</i> <i> by placing two atomic clocks
at vastly different elevations.</i> <i> One clock will stay
at sea level--</i> We need to synchronize
the clocks-- Okay. ...so they're all equal. <i> ...while the other</i> <i> will be placed on a mountain</i> <i> 6,000 feet above sea level.</i> <i> [Van Baak]
Very simple experiment
conceptually.</i> <i> If the theory
of relativity is true,</i> <i> the clocks that are
on the mountain</i> <i> should come back
a tiny bit ahead
of the clocks left behind,</i> <i> and that's because the clocks
at higher elevation</i> <i> run a little bit faster
than clocks at sea level.</i> <i> [Quinto]
Theoretically,
the greater the distance</i> <i> the bigger the gap in time.</i> <i> So if time runs
at different speeds
in these two locations,</i> <i> does that mean
that time is not fixed?</i> <i> We're about to see,
with our own eyes,</i> <i> just how flexible time can be.</i> There are some mysteries
about time that
have not been solved. Uh-huh. Time's not fixed. There's slight
variations possible.
It's mind-blowing. <i> [Quinto]
I'm diving in
to the true nature of time</i> <i> to see how it works.</i> <i> For generations,
we've believed</i> <i> that time only moves
in one direction.</i> <i> And now I've teamed up
with mathematican Tom Van Baak</i> <i> to see for myself how
time moves differently</i> <i> at different locations.</i> <i> By using super-accurate
atomic clocks,</i> <i> we're testing
the elasticity of time,</i> <i> letting one clock run
at sea level</i> <i> while the other runs
on top of a mountain.</i> Tom. Hey, Zach. How are you, man? Really good. Yeah? How have you been
since I saw you last? We've had quite an adventure-- Okay. ...the clocks and I. <i> We went up to Mount Palomar,</i> <i> and we've been gone one day,
six hours, 25 minutes.</i> The prediction
of general relativity is that clocks at higher
elevation run
a little bit faster <i> than clocks running
at sea level.</i> <i> Right.</i> And these clocks
are accurate enough that they should be able to
measure that effect. Okay. Let's check it out. So this is the A clock,
so-- Right. ...this one went up
the mountain, and you can see
the time ticking away there. Mm-hmm. And we can turn on the time of
the base clocks, and the answer is...
14 nanoseconds. Wow. So sure enough, the A clock, the one I brought down from
the mountain, somehow got
14.3 nanoseconds ahead. That's amazing. These measurements are tiny, but they feel significant. Being able to measure
time passing, even if
it's down to a nanosecond, in any different way kind of seems like a springboard
for other possibilities. It sounds like
you want to be a physicist. I'm-- I want to be
a time traveler, Tom. That's what I want to be. [laughing]
Yes. <i> [Quinto]
Do you think we'll ever see</i> <i> the ability to travel
through time?</i> I think what it does is
kind of shake the foundations of a naïve view of the way
the universe works. Mm-hmm. <i> [Van Baak] We don't fully
understand everything,</i> and with all
the technology that we have, new discoveries
are continually made. <i> [Quinto]
This experiment reinforces
the idea</i> <i> that time is not fixed</i> <i> but can move faster or slower,</i> <i> depending on your location.</i> <i> But if time is not fixed,</i> <i> could you travel through it,</i> <i> like Andrew Basiago claims
he did?</i> <i> There is actually a place</i> <i> where this might be possible.</i> [bell tolling] <i> Famous for being the birthplace
of the Beatles,</i> <i> Liverpool, England,
has also become known for</i> <i> a very strange phenomenon.</i> <i> For decades,
people have been reporting
sudden shifts in time</i> <i> while walking down
Liverpool's city streets.</i> <i> These slips have been
experienced by people</i> <i> who don't know each other
and have no obvious connection.</i> <i> Ann Winsper
has been investigating</i> <i> the phenomenon of time slips
in Liverpool.</i> Ann. Hi. Hi, Zach. <i> [Quinto]
And she's one of
the many individuals</i> <i> who claims to have had one.</i> What is going on with
these experiences referred to
as time slips? It's a very difficult experience
to contextualize because,
rather than time travel, 'cause that has all
the connotations of actually preparing for it, whereas a slip is you just
suddenly seem to slip
into this different era. It happens so randomly, and it is like
the just slipping back to
a place that existed 20 years ago,
50 years ago, <i> 100 years ago...</i> and then slip back out again. Can you talk me through
how it usually happens? A typical experience
would be that someone is just walking along
minding their own business, <i> and suddenly the light
starts to go dim</i> <i> and sounds seem to go muted.</i> <i> Everything seems slightly
unusual,</i> and then they notice that
the people they see seem to be wearing
old-fashioned clothes, <i> dressed in long coats,
bowler hats,</i> <i> canes, and umbrellas.</i> And if there' s cars, they seem
to be old-fashioned cars. <i> And then suddenly the light
will go back to normal.</i> <i> The sounds will
go back to normal,</i> <i> and they're back in
the present day again.</i> This is so crazy-sounding,
right? [laughing] I know.
It does sound mad. So how many people
would you say you've talked to that
have had this experience? Oh, gosh. Probably at least 40 people. Wow. <i> There's something there
because a number of people</i> <i> who have no relationship
to one another are telling
their experiences,</i> <i> and their experiences
are eerily similar.</i> That is weird. I mean,
there's no two ways about it. Liverpool has a pretty high
concentration of time slips. What do you think's happening? There's absolutely no way
that you can try and pin it down
to one single thing because you can't
take somebody and stick them in a lab <i> because you've taken them</i> <i> out of the area
where it happens,</i> but we came up
with an idea. It might be just to do with
the Underground Railway. <i> There's a lot
of electromagnetic fields.</i> <i> It could be,
because it's in a loop,</i> <i> it might be affecting
people's perception.</i> <i> With the electromagnetic
fields,</i> <i> people have spoken about it</i> <i> affecting the temporal lobe
in the brain.</i> <i> Do you feel like there is
something about this place</i> that has a supernatural
connection? And, if that's the case,
then what do we do about it? <i> This is one of the problems.</i> <i> I'm concentrating
really at the moment</i> <i> on the psychology of it</i> and is it something
that's just happening internally with the person. Because, if it isn't,
how do we look at time? <i> Right.</i> <i> Is it a slip in time?</i> <i> Are we then moving
on to things</i> <i> like multiple dimensions?</i> <i> What is it?</i> <i> It would be unsettling</i> <i> to have one of these
experiences,</i> but I almost want to have one
just to understand what it is. <i> If I put myself in the spot</i> <i> where these time slips
are happening,</i> <i> can I discover
a portal to the past?</i> <i> I'm about to find out.</i> This is Bold Street. There's been
a lot of experiences, and of course it's
from around this area. <i> [Quinto]
I'm on a mission to determine</i> <i> whether or not
time travel is possible.</i> <i> And right now
I'm investigating reports</i> <i> of a time altering phenomenon</i> <i> experienced by
multiple unrelated people,</i> <i> called time slips...</i> <i> where, without warning,</i> <i> everything around them
changes</i> <i> and they fall
into what appears to be</i> <i> another era in history.</i> <i> But why is this happening?</i> <i> One widely held theory</i> <i> is that low frequency
sounds, or infrasound,</i> <i> occurring at extremely high
levels in some areas,</i> <i> may be having
harmful effects</i> <i> on parts of the human brain.</i> <i> And in Liverpool, England,</i> <i> there are clusters
of these time slips</i> <i> reported along Bold Street.</i> <i> Toward the top of the street
sits St. Luke's Church.</i> <i> Bombed during World War II,
the church is situated</i> <i> above a mysterious
underground crypt</i> <i> which could have
ideal conditions</i> <i> for low frequency sounds.</i> Steve. Zach, hi. Pleasure. <i> So I've asked paranormal
investigator Steve Parsons</i> <i> to come test the area.</i> <i> Since 2006, he's been
collecting audio data</i> <i> at various locations
around Liverpool</i> <i> in search of
evidence of infrasound.</i> So how would you explain a soundwave of any frequency having an impact on
a human being's experience to the degree that they are
suddenly in a different era? Well, there was some
research done in Europe on the effects
of low frequency sound on truck drivers... <i> and how the sound
from the big diesel engine</i> <i> was affecting
their performance,</i> <i> and it found that,</i> <i> when they were
subjected to these sounds,</i> it would put them into
a sort of dreamlike state. <i> So it might be more
of a waking dream</i> <i> than a real time slip.</i> <i> Interesting.</i> There's a crypt
underneath this church where we've set up to measure those particular band of
low frequency, um, soundwaves. Okay. I'd be, uh, interested
in checking that out. Let's go check it out. I'll follow you. <i> Steve believes</i> <i> there might be evidence
of infrasound nearby,</i> <i> and he'll be testing for this
in the underground tunnels.</i> Welcome to the crypt. [chuckles]
This is a little bit,
um, spooky, you know. Mm-hmm. So how do we test for the low frequency sound? We have a sound
monitoring device to look at the frequencies that ordinary sound
equipment can't detect. <i> Sound frequencies
exist on a spectrum</i> <i> from very high to very low,</i> <i> including inaudible sounds</i> <i> like certain high-pitched
noises made by animals--</i> <i> [dolphin barking]</i> <i> ...or very low sounds
such as sonic booms.</i> <i> [boom]</i> <i> It has been reported</i> <i> that high levels
of low frequency sounds</i> <i> can be very harmful
to the human brain</i> <i> and one possible cause
for time slips.</i> What we have on the display is low frequency at the left,
high frequency at the right. Mm-hmm. And what's
hearable by the naked ear? <i> You won't hear anything much
below 40 or 50 hertz.</i> <i> Oh, okay.</i> <i> But you will still
be affected by it.</i> It just takes a--
a few seconds
to self-calibrate. You'll be able to see
the results in real time. [beep] There we go. There it is. All right, so... obviously there's a whole
spectrum of sound. It's currently peaking
around 12 hertz. <i> Oh, yeah. Is this a lot?</i> <i> It is a lot.
If I could--</i> If I could relate this
to a hearing sound-- Mm-hmm. ...you are standing
next to something as loud as a jet engine. Really? Really. It's that loud, but it's at a frequency
that you can't hear. So are you surprised
to see these results, or is this what you expected? Yeah. These
are the sort of figures that could certainly
in some people induce those trance-like,
dreamlike states. And do you expect
that if we were <i> to take these
same measurements</i> <i> up on the street outside</i> <i> that they would
be this high?</i> Oh, absolutely. <i> Steve has been able</i> <i> to provide tangible evidence</i> <i> that there are low frequency
inaudible sounds</i> <i> engulfing this region,</i> <i> which could mean
that these experiences</i> <i> of slipping through time</i> <i> could all be
in someone's head.</i> <i> But that doesn't explain
other important details</i> <i> shared by these
time slip reports.</i> <i> The disconnect for me is</i> why is it that these
low frequency sounds would elicit time slips? Why not some other <i> dreamlike trance?</i> <i> One might expect that.</i> <i> But this is only one
potential factor.</i> <i> Problem is unless we can
measure the anomaly</i> at the same time
that somebody said, <i> "Whoa, time just slipped"--</i> <i> Right.</i> <i> ...it's all
pretty speculative.</i> <i> Right.</i> There, I think,
will always remain the conundrum
of the paranormal. <i> Steve has been able
to provide tangible evidence</i> <i> that there are low frequency
inaudible sounds</i> <i> engulfing this region,</i> <i> which could mean
that these experiences</i> <i> of slipping through time</i> <i> could all be
in someone's head.</i> <i> Now I'm heading</i> <i> to an advanced underground
research facility</i> <i> called CERN,</i> <i> where a group of
scientists may be close</i> <i> to solving the mystery
of time travel</i> <i> once and for all.</i> <i> 500 feet beneath the city
of Geneva, Switzerland,</i> <i> they've built
a $9 billion facility</i> <i> with the most powerful
machine in the world.</i> <i> It's called
the Large Hadron Collider,</i> <i> or...</i> <i> and it stretches
17 miles long.</i> <i> Behind elaborate
security measures,</i> <i> they're using this machine
to run experiments</i> <i> that might actually allow
us to peer back in time.</i> So this is where it
all happens. Yeah. This is the CERN
control center which controls
the Large Hadron Collider and monitors it
when it's running. And what is
a Hadron Collider? The-- The LHC is kind of
like a time travel machine in that we can
recreate the conditions that the universe was like <i> 14 billion years ago,</i> <i> just after the Big Bang.</i> <i> Wow.</i> Okay, so the LHC-- how would you explain
how it works? Okay, so we start off
with a bunch of hydrogen gas. [gas hissing] <i> Get rid of the electrons.</i> <i> You're left
with a bunch of protons.</i> <i> When they come
into the LHC,</i> <i> they're already going
at quite a fast speed.</i> <i> Once we fill up
the entire machine</i> <i> with bunches of protons,</i> <i> we start accelerating
them all together.</i> <i> To accelerate them,</i> <i> we have to give them
"kicks" of energy.</i> When the protons collide, <i> you get
a spray of particles--</i> <i> Right.</i> <i> ...coming out.</i> It can be anything
that nature decides to roll the dice
and give us. Could be creating
some new particle we didn't even know of. <i> [Quinto] By smashing
these protons together,</i> <i> they're able to recreate</i> <i> the conditions
of the universe</i> <i> at the beginning of time.</i> <i> And for CERN, this means
they might discover something</i> <i> that changes what we know
about how the world works</i> <i> and how time runs.</i> I mean,
a hundred years ago, we thought we had physics
all wrapped up. In a century, everything
has completely been
turned on its head. It's not unreasonable
to think that maybe there are
parts of the universe where the laws
of physics do change. Mm-hmm. Maybe there is a part
of the universe where time
runs differently. We don't really know. <i> It's amazing that the LHC</i> <i> can recreate the conditions
of the Big Bang.</i> <i> But to do this, they're using</i> <i> incredible amounts
of energy and power.</i> <i> And some fear this could lead</i> <i> to ramifications
for the whole world.</i> <i> [Female reporter] Critics
suggest this mammoth machine</i> <i> could destroy the world.</i> <i> That's because the Collider</i> <i> is scheduled
to generate energies</i> <i> seven times higher than any
other machine in history.</i> In the Large Hadron Collider, <i> we are taking particles,</i> <i> accelerating them</i> to very close
to the speed of light, running them in this gigantic <i> ring that has
a 17-mile circumference.</i> <i> And then
we slam them together</i> <i> and see what happens.</i> <i> One of the big concerns
with the LHC</i> was that it might
open up a black hole through one of these
particle collisions. Now, the danger is there's a lot we don't
know about black holes. It could be a Pandora's box
type of situation. <i> We would have no idea
how to close it.</i> <i> [Quinto] There's so much
mystery and controversy</i> <i> surrounding CERN.</i> <i> But to really understand</i> <i> the experiments they do here,</i> <i> I need to take a closer look.</i> <i> [Automated female voice]
Thank you. Please enter.</i> [Claire Lee]
These are security doors. They make sure
people are authorized
to go underground. So how dangerous is it here? Yeah, so we have a very,
very high-energy particle beam that we're shooting around
almost at the speed of light. Uh, in times that the,
uh, beam goes off track, this could cause,
uh, potential damage. Mm-hmm. Uh, it does produce
a lot of radiation. You want to press
the button? All right.
I'll do the honors. So we're gonna go
all the way down. [laughing] Oh, my God. [Claire]
These are security doors. They make sure
people are authorized to go underground. <i> [Quinto]
Time.</i> <i> For centuries it has been
measured and tracked</i> <i> through clocks, calendars,
and ancient texts.</i> <i> But what if we could
travel through time...</i> <i> backwards and forwards?</i> <i> What if time were flexible?</i> <i> There's a mysterious place</i> <i> that is considering
these questions:</i> <i> The Large Hadron Collider
inside CERN headquarters.</i> <i> It's one of the most powerful
structures ever built by man.</i> <i> And I'm about to step inside.</i> Thank you. Welcome to heaven. Wow. [laughing] Oh, my God. Pretty big, huh? Unbelievable.
That's so massive. <i> Being in this massive
manmade structure</i> <i> designed to look billions
of years into the past,</i> <i> it really is dwarfing.</i> It's kind of ironic
that, to see the smallest
particles of nature, you have to build
something this big. Yeah, right? What I'm really
searching for is how this applies
to time travel. <i> So time is
a very tricky thing.</i> <i> We don't yet understand
what time is.</i> <i> Mm-hmm.</i> <i> You know,</i> time just happens to us, but we haven't mastered it. And so one of the things
that we're kind of hoping is that we will see
something in the detector that nothing can explain. Okay. But I also understand, by looking
at something this big, how people
are afraid of it. Right. It's-- It's huge,
and it can be pretty scary. I know
there's some concern around what you're
flirting with that could have catastrophic
impacts on our planet, <i> you know, create black holes
that would swallow the Earth.</i> <i> The first thing is</i> <i> we hear a lot about big,
huge, massive black holes</i> <i> in astronomy:</i> <i> a hundred thousand times
the mass of the sun</i> <i> sitting at the center
of our galaxy,</i> <i> swallowing up objects
as they go.</i> <i> The black holes</i> <i> that we would create
inside the LHC,</i> <i> if we could create them,
are so small.</i> <i> They're smaller
than the size of a proton.</i> <i> In fact,
what actually happens</i> <i> is these black holes
just evaporate</i> <i> in a puff of particles.</i> <i> Uh-huh.</i> <i> So I'm not worried</i> that we're
going to do anything that's going to destroy us. Uh-huh. <i> While the researchers at CERN
continue their quest</i> <i> to understand
the mysteries of time...</i> <i> I've already found,
through my own exploration,</i> <i> how time can change
based on external factors</i> <i> like gravity,</i> <i> magnetic fields,</i> <i> and infrasound.</i> <i> If time is actually flexible,</i> <i> then there might
even be more ways</i> <i> we can bend
and travel through it.</i> <i> One way to think about time</i> <i> is as a measure
of our experiences.</i> <i> Each day we travel
through time,</i> <i> going through a series
of events that add up</i> <i> to the same number of hours,
minutes, and seconds.</i> <i> In other words, time seems</i> <i> to be constant
and unchanging,</i> <i> but that's not
how we experience it.</i> <i> Some days whisk by...</i> <i> while others drag on.</i> <i> There's another side to time
beyond counting and calendars</i> <i> that is fluid.</i> <i> But why?</i> <i> What is actually going on</i> <i> that creates
our ever-changing</i> <i> perception of time?</i> <i> And can it be controlled?</i> What gives us
our perception of time? There is something
interesting with time when it comes
to our own experience. <i> [Paul Sutter]
When in a state</i> <i> of heightened awareness
of extreme danger,</i> <i> of important moments,</i> all our senses are alive. We are paying attention
to those tiny detailed moments that usually just pass us by,
that we ignore. <i> So we get the sense
that time is movings slower.</i> Even though our clock still only ticks
one second at a time, and that rate stays fixed, our perception
of those moments increases. <i> [Quinto] Time moves
in mysterious ways.</i> <i> And while it seems
to flow in one direction,</i> <i> we know from our own
everyday experience</i> <i> that time
does not always feel</i> <i> like it's moving
at the same speed.</i> <i> If our perception of time</i> <i> is also flexible,</i> <i> does that mean
we have the power</i> <i> to change
how we experience it?</i> <i> Many people say their
perception of time changes</i> <i> when they're
in extreme situations.</i> <i> And I want to experience
for myself</i> <i> how and why that happens...</i> <i> by leaping out of a plane
from 13,000 feet.</i> Hey, man. I'm Zach.
Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, Zach. <i> Neuroscientist Chess Stetson</i> <i> has a theory
about how our brains</i> <i> are actually controlling
the passage of time.</i> In my work in particular, we started studying
this feeling that time slows down when you
get really, really scared. <i> That's what we're
gonna get a chance</i> <i> testing our probe today,</i> <i> which I'm pretty
excited about.</i> I'm literally jumping
out of an airplane. I spent a lot of time
in my life being afraid of that idea. Wow. <i> My brain's like,</i> <i> "I can't believe
you're about to do this."</i> Adrenaline certainly
will be rushing. I mean, I imagine I'll be... probably pretty scared. Perfect. We talked
about that adrenaline that you're likely to feel, and in the brain
that's called epinephrine. That can cause more
memories to be laid down. Hmm. When you're in a really
heightened fear scenario... <i> Chess' theory is that,</i> <i> when a person goes
into survival mode,</i> <i> their brain
not only perceives</i> <i> but also stores more
information than normal,</i> <i> effectively making
more memories</i> <i> and causing it to feel
like time slows down.</i> <i> To test Chess' theory,</i> <i> I'll be wearing special
goggles during the jump</i> <i> that will flash images,</i> <i> and I'll try to memorize
as many of them as I can</i> <i> to see if my brain actually
stores more information</i> <i> when I'm in a state of fear.</i> But in the meantime,
we're gonna try that
on the ground, and that'll be our
controlled experiment. Uh-huh. So we're basically
gonna show you a bunch of images flashing
in front of your eyes. And then, when it's over,
I'm gonna wait ten minutes and ask you to tell me
what they were. All right. Okay. Okay. So let's
wait ten minutes. Do you want to go meet
the guys that are gonna
do the jump with? Yeah. Let's do it. Fantastic. Hey, man. All right,
you ready to do this? I think I am. Put your foot in there. We're going
up to 13,000 feet, and we're gonna be hitting
about 120 miles an hour. Yeah. Why not? All I'll have you do is kind of hold
on the harness, and then I'll tap you when to release. Okay. And after that, you're
on a roller coaster ride. Okay. Okay, Zach, so now tell me
what you saw. Okay, uh, there was
a fireplace, a piggy bank,
a rainbow, a candle, um... and I think
that's all I have. You don't remember
any others, do you? Uh-uh. Okay. Oh, octopus. Aha. I knew there night be
something back there. Yeah. So you're around half. Okay. We'll do the same thing after you've been falling for 50 seconds
through thin air. All right, let's do it. All right, Zach,
watch your head on top. Whoo. All right. <i> As we get closer
to the moment,</i> I'm getting more and more like, uh,
freaked out about it. Now I'm gonna strap us into the airplane. All right, Zach,
here we go, man. I am tense
and really nervous. I'm gonna hit the ground
one way or another. Oh, my God, you guys! All right, Zach,
watch your head up top. All right. <i> Can your perception of time
change time itself?</i> I'm gonna strap us
into the airplane. All right, Zach,
here we go, man. <i> I want to see just how far
we can bend it.</i> <i> I'm jumping out of a plane
to see if time will slow down</i> <i> even when I am free falling
at very fast speeds.</i> Oh, my God, you guys! <i> In this experiment,</i> <i> I'll be shown
a group of images</i> <i> and later asked
to recall them</i> <i> to test
my perception of time.</i> All right. You gonna
be all right? <i> I can't imagine
my brain working better</i> <i> while jumping out of a plane.</i> You ready? All right. <i> But I guess
I'm about to find out.</i> <i> As soon as I was
out of the plane,</i> <i> there was almost
like a white noise quality</i> <i> to everything
that was around me.</i> <i> Time just elongated.</i> <i> When I just took
the goggles down,</i> <i> the-- the ground
flying toward you</i> <i> and the air rushing
around you.</i> <i> And then,
when the chute opens...</i> <i> there's this incredible</i> <i> slowing down of everything.</i> So cool. <i> You just go into a mode</i> <i> where self-preservation
kicks in.</i> <i> The moments felt
like they were taking longer,</i> <i> and there was
much more heightened.</i> Time lost all meaning.
It really did. Stand up. All the way up. Wow. Oh! [laughing] [woman]
All right. Nice diving. Oh, my God, it was so crazy! I was so scared.
I was so scared up there. [laughing] <i> I definitely got the sense
that time passed more slowly.</i> <i> But was it actually
because my brain</i> <i> was taking in
more information?</i> <i> One way to find out</i> <i> is to see how many images
I can recall</i> <i> from the memory test.</i> Okay, so, Zach, can you tell me now what were the images
that you saw when you were in free fall? Uh... tennis racquet, teddy bear, bow tie, a rainbow, a candle, fireplace, comb, like a cruise ship, um... pine cone... um... maybe a match? All right. That might actually
be everything. Really? Wow. It's amazing that you could see
all of that while you were falling. What I kind of think
might be going on is you're not necessarily taking in more information, <i> but more of the information</i> <i> that you are taking in
gets stored.</i> <i> And that's why it feel</i> <i> like more time passed.</i> <i> It's also possible</i> <i> that my ability
to memorize lines as an actor</i> <i> may have given me an edge.</i> I mean,
I don't know if maybe you actually are
a little bit of a Vulcan. Maybe, maybe. Uh, but, uh-- <i> When I left the plane,
I was just falling.</i> There's this, like,
constant ticking in my head of, like, I can't believe that this
is actually happening. <i> I think I was much more
aware of the moments</i> <i> when we were sailing down.</i> <i> I definitely think</i> <i> that's a little
kind of portal</i> <i> that you slip into.</i> I get it. There's something
really powerful about it. Time is the thing that I was
curious about coming here, and time's the thing
that I feel like I leave having at least a better
sense of understanding how it can bend and change. It's really cool. <i> Time is a riddle</i> <i> that we may never
fully solve.</i> <i> We know you can physically
move through time</i> <i> faster or slower,</i> <i> depending on where you are</i> <i> and what you're doing.</i> It felt like minutes between
when I jumped out of the plane and when the chute was opened. <i> And we know
some people believe</i> <i> they've actually traveled
back in time.</i> When I first teleported,
I was 6 years old. You just suddenly seem to slip
into this different era. <i> While time travel
has been explored</i> <i> by some of the most brilliant
minds in history...</i> <i> tomorrow
we might just discover</i> <i> that we can travel
through time</i> <i> in ways we never
thought possible.</i> [clock ticking]