(my postdoc dream project, still shaping - started January 14th, 2025; latest substantial update: July 14th, 2026)
I know that these are,
So far,
Futile attempts,
But I feel closer
To a "machine of time"
Than anyone else
*Got its name from the animal that performs the fastest movements in nature (faster than the hummingbird). The mantis shrimp also has remarkable vision, and peculiarly survives its own shockwaves.
An exploration of how to make use of these, all (or most) at once, primarily RELATIVISTICALLY:
the Earth's shape and movement
gravity
magnetism; electromagnetism; flux
thermodynamics
the speed of light; interferometry; the Sagnac effect; the Doppler effect
quantum entanglement; the Casimir effect
(So far, thought) experiment: A series (~ sequence) of entangled photon bundles (evenly distributed along the path) could be sent towards/to the nearest black hole, Gaia BH1, from where they would act as a bridge of information extracted from the photon sphere of the black hole, and thus, potentially, from the black hole's past. (Specific inspiration: the Hawking Information Paradox; The 3 Body Problem, Season 1 (the space engineering aspects).)
Books:
George Gamow: One, Two, Three... Infinity (1947)
Stephen Hawking: A Brief History of Time (1998)
Audio:
the accelerating elevator thought experiment(s) by Albert Einstein (heard about it on The Math and Physics Podcast by Parker and Ray)
General film inspo:
The Imitation Game (2014)
The Theory of Everything (2014)
The Hummingbird Project (2018)
Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know (2020, documentary)
Sci Fi film inspo:
Minority Report (2002)
Paycheck (2003)
Interstellar (2014)
Tenet (2020)
Precision Tests of Quantum Electrodynamic Phase Shifts Using Entangled-Photon Interferometry in Structured Electromagnetic Environments
We propose a precision interferometric experiment employing polarization- and path-entangled photon pairs to probe extremely weak quantum electrodynamic (QED) modifications to photon propagation in structured electromagnetic environments. One photon of each entangled pair traverses a carefully engineered region featuring controlled boundary conditions and time-dependent electromagnetic fields, while its partner propagates along a stable reference path. The resulting two-photon interference provides a differential, quantum-enhanced phase measurement that is intrinsically insensitive to common-mode noise.
The experiment targets higher-order vacuum-mediated effects predicted by QED and effective field theories, including vacuum polarization–induced refractive index shifts, photon–photon interactions mediated by virtual electron–positron pairs, and Casimir–Polder–type modifications near structured materials. By tailoring the electromagnetic environment to enhance field confinement and vacuum fluctuations, these otherwise inaccessible effects can produce measurable phase shifts in joint detection correlations, without relying on nonlinear optical materials.
Entanglement enables sensitivity beyond classical interferometry by accessing nonlocal phase information and reducing technical noise through correlation-based readout. The use of null and symmetry-based measurement protocols allows vacuum contributions to be distinguished from conventional material dispersion and loss. The proposed platform provides a scalable testbed for precision QED measurements at optical frequencies and offers a new route to experimentally constrain photon self-interactions and higher-order electromagnetic effects in regimes inaccessible to classical probes.