Physics Professor Confident His Time Machine Will Work

Ananova ^ | 4-5-2002

[blam]

Physics professor confident his time machine will work

A physics professor says he is building a time machine that will transport things to the future or the past.

Ronald Mallett says his machine could transport anything from an atom to a person.

The University of Connecticut professor hopes to have a working model and start experiments this autumn.

He told the Boston Globe he's basing his work on Einstein's theory of relativity.

He says the project is serious and added: "I'm not a nut."

He told the paper: "I would think I was a crackpot, too, if there weren't other colleagues I knew who were working on it. This isn't Ron Mallett's theory of matter - it's Einstein's theory of relativity. I'm not pulling things out of the known laws of physics."

The professor and his colleagues plan to build a machine to test whether it's possible to transport a subatomic particle through time using a ring of light.

He hopes the energy from a rotating laser beam may warp the space inside the ring of the light so gravity forces the neutron to rotate sideways. With more energy, he thinks it's possible a second neutron would appear. This second particle would be the first one visiting itself from the future.

He admits sending a human through time may need more energy than scientists know how to harness currently, but he sees it as just ''an engineering problem.''

Prof Mallett's boss, William Stwalley, chairman of the university's physics department, said: "His ideas certainly have merit. I think some of his ideas are very interesting and they would make nice tests of general relativity."

Story filed: 16:02 Friday 5th April 2002

[balrog666]

Actually, I already have a time machine. Unfortunately, it only goes forward.

[hole_n_one]

They don't make 'em like they used to........

[WFTR]

CasearianDaoist, good thoughts on both of your points!

martin_fierro, thanks for the correction and the information!

[DAnconia55]

The first trip doesn't matter.

When this technology is invented (if it already isn't)....
The government will take it, and all history will not be safe from them.

I hope time travel is impossible, because gov't will use it to destroy opposition.... Another sheep breeding weapon.

[Revolting cat!]

I'd go back to 1962 and learn to dance (if it took me all night and day) the Gravy (For My Mashed Potatoes.)

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

I would go back to April, 1984 and slap my "future" Mother in Law when she tried to break me and her stepson up! lol....and I would hit her so hard!

[Brett66]

I would go back to 9/10/01 and I would take a stack of newspapers with me.

But what if, after having prevented the events on 911, America doesn't engage in a war on terrorism or does it half-hearted. This gives Saddam time to create nuclear weapons which are used on Israel and America causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands and igniting a nuclear war? Time travels a tricky business.

[boris]

I predict he will collide with Mr. Peabody's Wayback machine and/or Dr. Who's Tardis; possibly both.

--Boris

[boris]

"If time travel into the past were possible, we'd be overrun with tourists from the future."

(Either Arthur Clarke or Stephen Hawking; possibly both or neither)

--Boris

[Consort]

Time travel is not time "dependent". If the ability to time travel is developed at any time, then it can be made available to all times by the time travelers who go forwards and backwards in time. It seems to me that a time machine would have to be able to travel in space and contain its own safe air supply, food, etc, and the time travelers would have to wear space suits to avoid germs that we are no longer immune to or have no cure for. The time craft would have to materialize in space in the vacinity of the Earth or other planet of destination to avoid materializing underground or underwater, etc due to the movement of the planet. Maybe UFOs are time machines.

[Timesink]

BTW - I'd go back to 1932 and warn this country about the worst president in the history of this country...FDR.

No way. I'd rather have FDR be president, and thus me be born, than no FDR and no me. Without FDR, WWII would have been entirely different, and practically nobody born after the early 30s ever would have been born. The world would end up populated by a completely different group of people. Chaos theory and all, y'know.

[gwmoore]

FYI, forgive me if you have been pinged before with the same thing. Physicist, I have a question for you which you may be better able to theoretically answer than others on this thread.

I am basing this question (actually 2) using the theory that time, in reality, is really an infinite series of probabilities, each one existing separately and parallel, with each probability based on all possible outcomes of ANY event which can have more than one outcome.

My question. If, in theory, it is possible to "travel" in time, would one then "wobble" across probability lines as one traveled? Any venture into the past could therefore wind up on any parallel timeline just as it could our own. The traveler would not notice the difference until he arrived, then, literally be stuck on that timeline, with his return to the "present" being a crapshoot on which probability timeline he ended up? Given the "powered from the present" technology described, could there then be a possibility of "wobbling" into a timeline on which this process was not invented? Would our "traveler" then be either stuck, or non existent?

Sorry, Physicist, but this happens to be one of my more esoteric interests, and the various theories about travel (Blame Tipler's "Closed Timelike Loops" for my interest ;-) have fascinated me for a LONG time. Thanks much for any input here.

Greg

[jennyp]

Given the "powered from the present" technology described, could there then be a possibility of "wobbling" into a timeline on which this process was not invented? Would our "traveler" then be either stuck, or non existent?

My suspicion regarding any contradictions from time travel is: All contradictions do get resolved ("nature abhors a contradiction", to coin a phrase), but the annihilation of the contradiction gets played out at the same speed at which the original timeline got "written". So, the time traveler would never see the consequences of the contradiction. I'd simply live out my life in the past, free to change history as I saw fit.

[jennyp]

I would go back to 9/10/01 and I would take a stack of newspapers with me.

I've daydreamed about this a lot. (Probably part of the grieving process.) Let's see. What would I do...

I'd go back to November 1999. Me and Jenny₂ would go to the FBI & force them to take our fingerprints & compare them. (Hopefully we could convince the nice agent to fingerprint us just on the strength of our amazingly identical moles, & identically aged purses & wallets & etc.) You see, without some extraordinary proof of time travel like that, I'd be rightly dismissed as a loon.

Then I'd tell him about how Ahmed Ressam is going to be caught at the Anacortes ferry terminal in WA with a trunk-ful of explosives in December.

Then I'd tell him about the Cole in February 2000. They probably still wouldn't do anything about it, but unfortunately that's an acceptable price to pay for proving my bona-fides.

Then in March 2000 we'd max out our credit cards & do some serious short selling & put buying.

Then I'd tell him to call me in Apr. 2001 so I can tell him about a certain Wash. DC intern & the need for some intensive surveillance.

And of course he should call back in August 2001. I agree with Brett66 that simply preventing 9/11 from happening wouldn't be the best thing to do. It would have to be handled deftly, so that the attempt almost succeeds. A similar problem would occur if we went back to early 1941: If there were a hundred American P-40s circling Honolulu waiting for the Japanese, then wouldn't the Japs send in the 2nd wave that they didn't do in our timeline? (However, I assume it would take more energy the farther in time you move the mass.)

[JamesWilson]

Then in March 2000 we'd max out our credit cards & do some serious short selling & put buying.

March 10, 2000 to be exact. I remember that day like yesterday. [tear.]

[Brett66]

One thing I think I would do would be to get my 30.06, go back to the time right before Mohhamads "revelation" and take care of the problem before it ever got started. Maybe something else would have filled the void, but I seriously doubt it would have been as evil and bloody as what transpired. It would be a risk worth taking.

[gwmoore]

Thanks, jennyp.

I agree with you, incidentally. I also use the phrase "history is inertial" to describe the non result of meddling in the past. Since any change produces a new timeline, the timeline which one came from would not be altered, there just would be another timeline created from the change point onward.

What I still haven't got worked out conceptually is how one actually could return to the start point again. Given that any visitation constitutes change (Shroedlinger's Cat) then, time travel, while possible in theory, is a one way trip to an uncertain destination, unless one develops a way to physically measure displacement between timelines and correct for same, somewhat like an inertial guidance system, though what one would use for a stable platform reference is not clear to me at this point (Yes, my experience is in aerospace engineering, if you haven't figured that out LOL) . What is also not clear is how one returns. If one wobbles into the past, one wobbles even more quickly forward into an increasingly complex series of timelines, without a power source yet ;-) (Said power source according to this article is fixed in time and space).

Greg

[JamesWilson]

As a very sensitive guy, I think you're right. Bonne Chance!

[fnord]

Actually, I already have a time machine. Unfortunately, it only goes forward.

Is that the cheapo K-Tel version that goes forward 1 day for each 24 hours of operation? I always thought it sounded too good to be true :-)

[CasearianDaoist]

We seem to be waging the war half-heartedly now, if you ask me. Have not the Palis gotten the results they seek? (Note: I am not dumping on Bush here.)