Time Travel Reading Answers: IELTS Reading Practice Test

Understand the IELTS Pattern in detail before you begin! 

Time Travel Reading Passage  

Paragraph A:

When astronomers recently disclosed that sub-atomic particles known as neutrinos—the offspring of the sun's radiological debris—could transcend the lethal velocity, time travel pushed a little step away from speculative fiction and toward the phenomenon. The unassuming piece is on its way to becoming a rock star in the science centre. It is electronically apathetic, small but with an "– anti-mass," and capable of insinuating the human form undetected.

Paragraph B:

Experimenters from the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva sent the neutrinos hurtling through an underground corridor toward their colleagues at the Oscillation Project with the Emulsion-Tracing Apparatus (OPERA) team 730 kilometres away in Gran Sasso, Italy. The neutrinos arrived expeditiously—so promptly, in fact, that they initiated what scientists call the unimaginable—that everything they have comprehended, understood, or taught stemming from the last 100 years in the physics discipline may need to be considered again. 

Paragraph C:

A very small period - specifically sixty nanoseconds - is at hand (sixty billionths of a second). The neutrinos were able to exert force at a constant rate and at a speed significantly faster than the speed of light (15,000 neutrinos were sent over three years). This demonstrates that it is conceivable to contend with light and triumph, even with a margin of error of 10 billionths a second. The experimentation period was also taken into deliberation, and it annihilated any potential moon consequences or tidal bulges in the Earth's crust.

Paragraph D:

Nevertheless, there's an abundance of explanations to remain sceptical about. Harvard University Science historian Peter Galison said that Einstein's relativity theory is harder than any theory in the history of physical sciences. Yet each prior challenge has come to nothing, and relativity has so far refused to buckle. 

Paragraph E:

So, is time travel on the horizon? The notion has obviously moved considerably closer to reality now that a significant physical barrier—the speed of light—has been overcome. If particles can travel faster than light, reaching into the past is theoretically conceivable. However, how anyone uses that to some beneficial end is significantly beyond the ability of any current technology and will be left to future generations to investigate.

Paragraph F:

Certainly, any would-be time traveller would have to overcome more physical and philosophical obstacles than simply exceeding the velocity of light. One such problem, posited by René Barjavel in his 1943 text Le Voyageur Imprudent, is the so-called grandfather paradox. Barjavel theorised that if it were possible to go back in time, a time traveller could kill his grandfather. If this were to happen, however, the time traveller himself would not be born, which is already known to be true. In other words, there is a paradox in circumventing an already known future; time travel can facilitate past actions, which means time travel cannot occur. 

Paragraph G:

However, several plausible paths have been suggested. Time travel is conceivable within certain limits, according to Igor Novikov, the astrophysicist who developed the self-consistency principle in the 1980s. Novikov contended that every occurrence resulting in a paradox had a 0% probability. However, if travellers avoided all inconsistencies, they might "influence" rather than "alter" historical events. Averting the Titanic's disaster, for example, would nullify any future obligation to do so - it would be impossible. Saving a few people from the ocean and replacing  It is conceivable to replace them with realistic corpses as long as the historical record is not tampered with.

Paragraph H:

A further possibility is that of parallel universes. In the 1960s, Bryce Seligman DeWitt popularized the notion of many-worlds interpretation that holds that an alternative pathway for every conceivable occurrence actually exists. We can’t expect a person if we send a person back in time because if we do that it will divert him to a new historical trajectory. 

Paragraph I:

A concluding notion of unknown origin scrambles itself fairly effectively around the grandfather paradox. The quasi-idea proposes that if a person changed their ancestry in ways that hampered their own birth, they would simply cease to exist. They would still exist in person if they returned to the present, but any chain reactions caused by their acts would be lost. Their "chronological personality" would be obliterated.

Paragraph J:

So, will humankind ever rupture this very same limit that neutrinos do? Stephen Hawking, a universe astronomer, forecasts that once spacecraft can sail more quickly than the speed of light, humankind could potentially go millions of years into the future to inhabit the Earth in the case of an imminent collapse. This is because, as the spaceships rev into the future, time would delay around them (Hawking divulges that bygone eras are off limits – this would violate the fundamental rule that cause comes before effect).

Paragraph K:

Hawking is, therefore, pessimistic yet optimistic. Time travel was once deemed scientific iconoclasm, and I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a crank. These days I’m not so prudent. "

Discover exciting and informative IELTS reading answers about Time Travel