Recap

Developing Time Travel

Professor of Physics at the Univ. of Conn., Dr. Ron Mallett shared his research into time travel. His interest in developing a time machine was brought about by the early death of his father and his desire to go back into the past and see him. Mallett's concept for a time machine (see graphic below) centers around the idea that a circulating beam of light can cause a twisting of space and time, looping the past and future together.

Travel into the past could only occur during the time frame that the machine had been turned on, as those are the moments that are "preserved," he explained. For instance, if the machine was created in January 2008 and left on for a year, any month in 2008 could be visited in 2009. However, to go back further into time, he suggested that humans might eventually have access to ET's time machines which may have existed for thousands of years.

Time machines could have practical uses as early warning devices, giving notice about catastrophes. While the cost to create one could run into the billions of dollars, Mallett said his first stage of experimentation would run about $250,000. Once the basic principles can be established, it will take about five years to demonstrate the twisting of light with subatomic particles, and another five years for the twisting of space. He predicted that we could have human time travel by the end of this century.

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Time Travel Models

Prof. Ron Mallett's quest to build a time machine was recently profiled on the BBC News Magazine. To the left is a graphic (click here to view in full) that demonstrates the basic principles behind his time travel theory. Also receiving attention is Prof. Amos Ori's model of a time machine. In his equations, "time would be able to curve back on itself," Roger Highfield writes in an article for the Telegraph.