Steins Gate sparks CERN's time travel theory
Daniel Johnson
Updated on March 24, 2026
CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was turned on July 5th and people have come up with various theories about it. The one that has been gaining a lot of attention is a reference to Steins Gate and its theory about time travel.
Steins; Gate has been among the most popular animes of all time that came out in 2011. The show and manga got people hooked on the idea of time travel.
While the show has no reference to real-life incidents, CERN’s name happens to ring a bell for everyone who has seen the show.
i didnt know what cern was so when i heard about it i just thought of steins;gate sern until i had the realization that one might be inspired by the other
— contin (@etkakoten) July 5, 2022
Steins Gate’s Sern explained
Sern, which sounds a lot like CERN, is a global research organization that is controlled by Committee 300. If you haven’t guessed it already, they are also the main antagonist of the show.
Their goal is to create a dystopian society by taking control of the machine that allows time travel. The show begins with viewers getting an idea of how hard Sern has been trying to develop a fully functioning time machine.
As the episodes continue, we see the members coming across the information that will help them succeed in their plan. While CERN and Sern happen to be two different things, people are comparing the two to draw similarities.
CERN and Sern’s similarities give rise to speculations
To begin with, the only thing common about CERN and Sern is that the two happen to be research organizations.
Apart from this, there is nothing common between the two because one is a real research organization while the other is a fictional organization created to act as an antagonist. Despite this, people have been giving rise to rumors that CERN’s experiment on July 5th can pave way for time travel and the collider is being compared to the time machine that the organization would need to make it all happen.
As imaginative as it sounds, in reality, it is not possible.
What exactly is CERN doing?
CERN’s experiment will not give rise to portals that allow time travel and neither is it going to open a black hole. If the collider were to explode, nothing “nature has already done during the lifetime of the Earth” will take place.
In short, the worst thing that can happen is there will be a release of helium and damage to magnets.
CERN explains on its website: “LSAG [LHC Safety Assessment Group] reaffirms and extends the conclusions of the 2003 report that LHC collisions present no danger and there are no reasons for concern. Whatever the LHC will do, Nature has already done many times over during the lifetime of the Earth and other astronomical bodies.”
