Sending data to the past

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Brun developed a program for such a computer to solve extremely difficult mathematical problems, such as factoring very large numbers. At the start, the computer checks the wormhole. If in the future, the computer solved the equation, it sends the answer encoded in bursts of particles back in time through the wormhole.

The program essentially works because of steps "which are never actually executed," Brun said. Such a computer essentially works similarly to a familiar time travel paradox.

"A brilliant young inventor receives a message from her future self, telling her that she is going to invent a time machine, and giving her the details of its construction," Brun said. "She duly builds the machine and demonstrates it. When she is old and famous, she sends a message back to her younger self, telling her that she is going to invent a time machine, and giving her the details of its construction.

"This situation is self-consistent, but still very strange. The information on how to build a time machine appears out of nowhere," he explained.

While this may seem "quite bizarre," Brun said such computers "don't defy logic, only common sense."

What happens if the computer is approached with a problem that would take so long to solve, the wormhole or the universe would end first? Or what happens if the wormhole can only send information backward for a short amount of time? Steps in the program break such incredibly difficult problems into smaller and smaller issues, until each is reduced enough to be solved within the computer's lifetime, at which point the answer is sent back in time.