‘Time mirrors' are actually a real thing, experts say: ‘Like pressing undo on the universe'

New York Post

23-05-2025

It's not just in your head — time can actually flip.
Physicists in New York have pulled off what sounds like a page ripped from a sci-fi script: They've confirmed that 'time mirrors,' a trippy phenomenon where waves literally reverse in time — are real.
The mind-bending experiment, led by Dr. Hussein Moussa at the Advanced Science Research Center at CUNY, involved tinkering with a futuristic 'metamaterial' — a strip of metal embedded with electronic components.
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3 The sci-fi-style breakthrough, led by Dr. Hussein Moussa at CUNY's Advanced Science Research Center, used a futuristic 'metamaterial' to bend the rules of time itself.
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When juiced with a precise burst of energy, the setup caused an electromagnetic wave to do the impossible: to flip the direction of time, as reported by Earth.com — or, as one TikTokker put it, 'Like pressing undo on the universe.'
'This is experimental physics catching up to what mystics, mushrooms and mad geniuses have been saying for decades,' said TikTok creator @psychonautics in a recent video.
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'Time is not a line. It's a wave. And baby, we're just learning to surf it.'
The wave reversal doesn't just bounce a signal back in space like your average mirror — it scrambles the whole timeline. The wave's frequency shifts — and suddenly — it's like rewinding reality.
Scientists say this discovery, published in 'Nature Physics,' could one day revolutionize data transmission and computing. But for now, it's mostly blowing minds online.
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More experiments will most likely follow this discovery.
And while physicists are bending time in the lab, neuroscientists say the human brain may already be doing it naturally.
3 Experts say the breakthrough could one day flip the script on data transmission and computing. For now? It's just melting brains across the internet.
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Back in 2021, scientists from France and the Netherlands discovered that our brains possess 'an internal or inherent flow of time, that was not driven by something going on in the external world,' according to neuroscientist Leila Reddy, who sat down with Vice for an interview.
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Her team studied epilepsy patients with electrodes implanted in their brains and found 'time cells' firing — even in the absence of external cues.
'These patients have severe, drug-resistant epilepsy and are awaiting surgery,' Reddy told Vice. 'Once the electrodes are inserted into the brain, we ask the patients if they are willing to participate in short experiments for us.'
The brain's inner clock, Reddy explained, could be the key to 'mental time travel' — the way we encode not just what happened, but when and where.
3 While those in labs are busy bending time with high-tech 'time mirrors,' neuroscientists say the human mind might already be pulling off a similar sci-fi stunt — no gadgets required.
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'Time cells could provide the scaffolding for representing the 'when,'' she added.
In other words, while physicists are flipping waves, your neurons might be flipping through your past like a mental VHS tape.
Between time-bending materials and our own memory machinery, the past isn't as fixed as we thought — and the future just got a lot weirder.