With a brilliant idea and equations based on Einstein’s relativity theories, Ronald Mallett from the University of Connecticut has devised an experiment to observe a time traveling neutron in a circulating light beam. While his team still needs funding for the project, Mallett calculates that the possibility of time travel using this method could be verified within a decade.
Black holes, wormholes, and cosmic strings – each of these phenomena has been proposed as a method for time travel, but none seem feasible, for (at least) one major reason. Although theoretically they could distort space-time, they all require an unthinkably gigantic amount of mass.
Mallett, a U Conn Physics Professor for 30 years, considered an alternative to these time travel methods based on Einstein’s famous relativity equation: E=mc2.
“Einstein showed that mass and energy are the same thing,” said Mallett, who published his first research on time travel in 2000 in Physics Letters. “The time machine we’ve designed uses light in the form of circulating lasers to warp or loop time instead of using massive objects.”
To determine if time loops exist, Mallett is designing a desktop-sized device that will test his time-warping theory. By arranging mirrors, Mallett can make a circulating light beam which should warp surrounding space. Because some subatomic particles have extremely short lifetimes, Mallett hopes that he will observe these particles to exist for a longer time than expected when placed in the vicinity of the circulating light beam. A longer lifetime means that the particles must have flowed through a time loop into the future.
“Say you have a cup of coffee and a spoon,” Mallett explained to PhysOrg.com. “The coffee is empty space, and the spoon is the circulating light beam. When you stir the coffee with the spoon, the coffee – or the empty space – gets twisted. Suppose you drop a sugar cube in the coffee. If empty space were twisting, you’d be able to detect it by observing a subatomic particle moving around in the space.”
And according to Einstein, whenever you do something to space, you also affect time. Twisting space causes time to be twisted, meaning you could theoretically walk through time as you walk through space.
“As physicists, our experiments deal with subatomic particles,” said Mallett. “How soon humans will be able to time travel depends largely on the success of these experiments, which will take the better part of a decade. And depending on breakthroughs, technology, and funding, I believe that human time travel could happen this century.”
Step back a minute (sorry, only figuratively). How do we know that time is not merely a human invention, and that manipulating it just doesn’t make sense?
“What is time? That is a very, very difficult question,” said Mallett. “Time is a way of separating events from each other. Even without thinking about time, we can see that things change, seasons change, people change. The fact that the world changes is an intrinsic feature of the physical world, and time is independent of whether or not we have a name for it.
“To physicists, time is what’s measured by clocks. Using this definition, we can manipulate time by changing the rate of clocks, which changes the rate at which events occur. Einstein showed that time is affected by motion, and his theories have been demonstrated experimentally by comparing time on an atomic clock that has traveled around the earth on a jet. It’s slower than a clock on earth.”
Although the jet-flying clock regained its normal pace when it landed, it never caught up with earth clocks – which means that we have a time traveler from the past among us already, even though it thinks it’s in the future.
Some people show concern over time traveling, although Mallett – an advocate of the Parallel Universes theory – assures us that time machines will not present any danger.
“The Grandfather Paradox [where you go back in time and kill your grandfather] is not an issue,” said Mallett. “In a sense, time travel means that you’re traveling both in time and into other universes. If you go back into the past, you’ll go into another universe. As soon as you arrive at the past, you’re making a choice and there’ll be a split. Our universe will not be affected by what you do in your visit to the past.”
In light of this causal “safety,” it’s kind of ironic that what prompted Mallett as a child to investigate time travel was a desire to change the past in hopes of a different future. When he was 10 years old, his father died of a heart attack at age 33. After reading The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, Mallett was determined to find a way to go back and warn his father about the dangers of smoking.
This personal element fueled Mallett’s perseverance to study science, master Einstein’s equations, and build a professional career with many high notes. Since the ‘70s, his research has included quantum gravity, relativistic cosmology and gauge theories, and he plans to publish a popular science/memoir book this November 2006. With help from Bruce Henderson, the New York Times best-selling author, the book will be called Time Traveler: A Physicist’s Quest For The Ultimate Breakthrough.
http://www.physorg.com/news63371210.html
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Beam me up Scotty!
I think the first place I would travel is back to 1969 Woodstock. I hate missing a good party and I was just too young for that one.:icon_rr:
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So, he's saying that if you go back in time and change something, it won't affect the here and now, because you will be in a parallel universe and only affect that universe and not the one you came from. Well, what's the fun in that? UNLESS, when you "came back," you could be in that alternate universe still at a later time. That woudl be good. Then, you COULD go back and change something by jumping into a parallel existence. Of course, this will need to be regulated. You could really fuck things up badly and then be stuck there. (My head is hurting thinking about this!)
I'd go back in time and give myself some prereleased albums. How cool would that be!
lol
And, if you DID jump into a parallel existence, would there then be two of you there? Would there be a void in this universe where you once existed? (I need a bottle of aspirin.)
What would prevent the parallel version of you coming to your dimension of existence and fucking up something in your past? Some of my parallels could be real pricks.
If I could go back in time the first thing I'd do is not post this post.
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by the sound of the article, time travle may be only possible going forwards. unless they figure out how to reverse the process. i think that if time travle is ever going to be possible we would have had some travlers here already. they have done a damn good job hiding or pretending they are crazy. also one thing that worries me is earth isnt the only existance of space in the universe. and the earth is always moving. wouldnt it make sence that if you jump forward in time but not space that you would land in the same place earth was when you jumped? you could end up floating in outerspace!
I've already done this once before.
“The martyr sacrifices themselves entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for they make the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.” - Florence Nightingale
All they need is a Dalorean, and a flux capacitor.
No body would let time travel succeed. Or anyone use it. Wars would be had over it. think about going into the beginning and destroying a race of people or wipeing out a culture.. Claiming the land before people settle on it. Putting scientific instruments and tools on to a field waiting for discovery, which will shoot up the process of inventing stuff.. Which will launch us further into technology. So the automobile may be made in 1700's.
Maybe the Bermuda Triangle is a time portal. I mean, with everyone and everything that ever went in but never came out!!! Hmmmmm......
What A Twist!
I think time travel will probably spark the rapid destruction of everything. Time travel is made possible. A week later everything is gone.
I just got done traveling one hour ahead in time last sunday.
Gonna go back in the fall.
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ok Al step into the machine
I don't think so Tim
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