The real life Doctor Who who believes he can build a time machine

The Daily Mail ^ | 27th July 2007 | MICHAEL HANLON

[hgro]

Something is warped and it isn’t time.

[caseinpoint]

I’ve never understood the principles of time travel but it seems that if he were to succeed and go back in time and prevent his dad’s death, wouldn’t that also change his motivation to build the time machine in the first place? Like it never would have been built had his dad not died? How does that work? Or does he just get to create some parallel universe?

[Rb ver. 2.0]

"I'll go back in time, become fashionably cool and ask Anna Nicole Smith to marry me. Of course, yuck yuck, I'll take her before the store boughts".

[girlangler]

I know this shows my age, but it reminds me of the TV series from the ‘60s, Twilight Zone.

I hope this guy is successful, cause the first thing I’m going to do is go back to 1970, and change the way I responded to that boy with the (then) classic Ford Fairlane (black, white top, with red leather interior), the one who broke my heart (grin).

[2harddrive]

It is only fair to tell you. Yes, it worked!

[TitansAFC]

......Almost.........there............

[hosepipe]

Dr. FrankenSteyn (ominous organ chord) I presume..

[tlj18]

If he is right, the little boy from the Bronx who lost his beloved father all those years ago will end up being the most famous inventor in history.

Yeah, maybe like Nikola Tesla.

Tesla was the greatest inventor of all time, yet hardly anyone knows who he was.

[Redcloak]

I read a short article about an interesting time travel theory. A physicist had figured out a way to make time travel permissible without breaking any physical laws; however, the same equations also showed that any event you went back to observe would have a probability of one. In other words, there wouldn’t be a 50:50 chance of a particular toss of a coin coming up heads. If it came up heads before, it will come up heads every time you go back to relive the event. Conversely, the odds of something happening that didn’t happen before would be zero. A car crash that didn’t happen won’t happen when you go back to see that period again. (Of course, on a quantum level, this means that you wouldn’t see anything anyway. Since the photons necessary to form the image did not impact upon your retina the first time around, the odds of them doing so again on a replay of the event would be zero.)

[fanfan]

I picture this guy with a basement full of old toasters that somehow figure into his plan.

LOL!

Perhaps, but 200 years ago, no one was particularly serious when they spoke or wrote about 'flying' to the moon.

[Lijahsbubbe]

Well, people can laugh, but I’m sure many of the famous inventors were thought of as kooks. I think one day someone will figure out time travel, if our planet survives long enough.

[Graymatter]

So many alternate realities that nobody’s enjoying. We really do need time machines so we can experience the unexperienced, the might-have-been.
However...you know how you play solitaire on the computer and it has an option to restart the game? If you lose, do you opt to restart the game and try again with that exact same layout? Nah.
If I had the choice to live my life (and maybe botch up a little differently), or start a whole new one, you wouldn’t see me grabbing the keys to the time machine.
Besides, I like where I am now, and my mistakes got me here, just as surely as my efforts did.

[fanfan]

So you don’t remember the future when you’re in the past?

[Williams]

Well, here's how it works. His drunk dad tells him to get the "F" lost and downs another three belts of booze before falling asleep with a lit cigarette in his hand, thereby saving his preciious time machine.

If he's particulary unlucky dear old dad pulls a gun and his time saga ends on the first trip. Just as well, imagine the tediousness of dragging dad's drunk rear to countless AA meetings, just to learn the lesson Bill Murray went through with the old codger in Groundhog Day?

[Old Professer]

I think, you said think, not know, that the author of this piece has no interest in giving a single soul peace; if anything he is hell-bent on harrassing the less-perfect until eternity.

What better insight to his “reasoning” than this statement near the top where he says:

“Just think if you could go back and warn someone that their lifestyle, their smoking or heavy drinking was driving them into an early grave.”

Usually we say something meaningless and stupid when somebody dies, like, “Don’t he look nice,” but this guy will be standing there with a club ready to beat you back to life just so he can beat you into submission again.

When will we be rid of these fools?

[fanfan]

Smiling at you.

[Pontiac]

If you were to walk into this 'timetunnel' - which would resemble a large vortex of light a few feet across - you could emerge at some point in the past. He thinks he can build a prototype machine in the lab, using today's technology, with funds of just $250,000 (£120,000).

That is incredibly cheap. You would think that some billionaire would finance this project just on a lark.

However, Prof Mallett is fussy about who gives him the money. "We want non-military sources. I don't want to get to a certain point and get 'top secret' slapped over the project and have it taken away from us."

I don’t think using private money is going to prevent the DOD from taking this project away from him if they think he will be successful. On the other hand it may be the DOD that has prevented him from getting a private backer so far.

[fanfan]

I didn’t like that part either.

[fanfan]

Apparently not.

:-(

[Graymatter]

Anybody ever see that episode of the new Twilight Zone called, “Her Pilgrim Soul?” Unforgettable. I bet this guy Mallett saw it.