Time travel could be a reality within just three months, Russian mathematicians have claimed.They believe an experiment nuclear scientists plan to carry out in underground tunnels in Geneva in May could create a rift in the fabric of the universe.

The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) hopes its “atom-smashing” tests – which aim to recreate the conditions in the first billionth of a second after the “Big Bang’” created everything – will shed invaluable light on the origins of the universe.

But Irina Aref’eva and Igor Volovich, of Moscow’s Steklov Mathematical Institute, say the energy produced by forcing tiny particles to collide at close to the speed of light could open the door to visitors from the future.