SCIENTISTS have built the world's first time machine — sort of.

Working with electrons in the bizarre realm of quantum mechanics, they first created the equivalent of a break for a game of pool.

The sub-atomic 'time machine' has a long way to go before you can climb into it like Dr. Who's Tardis

The "balls" scattered and, according to the laws of physics, should have appeared to split in a haphazard way.

But researchers managed to make them reform in their original order — looking as if they were turning back time.

Lead researcher Dr Gordey Lesovik, of Moscow's Laboratory of the Physics of Quantum Information, said: "We have artificially created a state that evolves in a direction opposite to that of the thermodynamic arrow of time."

His team used a rudimentary quantum computer, which carries information on subatomic particles. He hopes their findings, in journal Scientific Reports, will help improve processing power.

The sub-atomic 'time machine' has a long way to go before you can climb into it like Dr. Who's Tardis

The "balls" scattered and, according to the laws of physics, should have appeared to split in a haphazard way.

But researchers managed to make them reform in their original order — looking as if they were turning back time.

Lead researcher Dr Gordey Lesovik, of Moscow's Laboratory of the Physics of Quantum Information, said: "We have artificially created a state that evolves in a direction opposite to that of the thermodynamic arrow of time."

His team used a rudimentary quantum computer, which carries information on subatomic particles. He hopes their findings, in journal Scientific Reports, will help improve processing power.