Light that strikes a new and improved mirror is always returned to sender.

South Korean physicists have created a composite mirror, made up of about a thousand tiny reflectors, that coaxes light waves to retrace, in reverse, the paths taken by the original waves that struck it. As a result, the researchers were able to reproduce an image at the same spot where it originated, even though the initial light waves had been severely scattered on their way to the mirror. This phase-conjugation mirror, reported in a paper to appear in Physical Review Letters, is not the first of its kind but requires less equipment and preparation time than its predecessors. “It’s very simple and elegant,” says Allard Mosk, a physicist at the University of Twente in Enschede, the Netherlands. (1)

Turning light back. Turning time back. Seems perfectly reasonable. And easy. Perhaps because it is perfectly reasonable. And easy. So are we going forward? Are we turning back? Not even this simple question can we answer. We see things and we “know” we move forward. But are we?

Look at the spinning wheel. Make it move forward. Make it move backward. In a world of possibilities, we have chosen that there is none. Maybe that is the case.

Drifted away, powerless. Are we?

Imagine the world is going backwards. Imagine what you know is wrong. Imagine that wrong is right. Imagine you are moving towards your birth.

Irrational…

Imagine the world is going forward. Imagine what you know is wrong. Imagine that wrong is right. Imagine you are moving towards your death.

Irrational…

You are not moving. You are just thinking.

And thinking makes you move.

Perhaps that is why it seems true. And so wrong…