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Meet the scientist trying to travel back in time

#1
C C Offline
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/time-...index.html

EXCERPT: . . . Through all of this, from Vietnam to back again, Ron Mallett was quietly considering the possibility of time travel. [...] Today, photos of Mallet at work show him surrounded by equipment in a cluttered laboratory, demonstrating his principles at work via small-scale experiments -- or standing, beaming, in front of chalk boards where he's etched out his formulas. The personal aspect of Mallett's work is profoundly moving, but how plausible is the science behind his ideas?

It all hinges, says Mallett, on Einstein's special theory of relativity and general theory of relativity. "To put it in a nutshell, Einstein said that time can be affected by speed," says Mallett. Mallett gives the example of astronauts traversing space in a rocket that's traveling close to the speed of light. Time would pass differently on Earth than it would for the people in the rocket. "They could actually come back finding out that they're only a few years older, but decades have passed here on Earth," he says.

Mallett points to the 1968 sci-fi classic movie "Planet of the Apes," at the end of which [spoiler alert] an astronaut realizes that he hasn't traveled to a distant, ape-ruled planet, but merely returned to Earth in a post-apocalyptic future in which mankind has been subjugated by simians. "That is an accurate representation of Einstein's special theory of relativity," says Mallet. "So the upshot is that, according to the special theory of relativity, if you're traveling fast enough, you respectively are traveling through time. And effectively, that would be a representation of time travel."

However, this is all about going forward not backward, so how would this help Mallett's quest to be reunited with his father? Einstein's general theory of relativity is based in the concept of gravity -- and considers how time is affected by gravity.

"What Einstein meant by that is the stronger gravity is, the more time will slow down," says Mallett. Einstein's general theory of relativity says that what we call the force of gravity isn't a force at all, it's actually the bending of space by a massive object. "If you can bend space, there's a possibility of you twisting space," says Mallett. "In Einstein's theory, what we call space also involves time -- that's why it's called space time, whatever it is you do to space also happens to time."

Mallett posits that by twisting time into a loop, one could travel from the future back to the past -- and then back to the future. And this is the idea of a wormhole, a sort of tunnel with two openings. Mallett suggests that light could also be used to affect time via something called a ring laser. He's created a prototype illustrating how lasers could be used to create a circulating beam of light that twists space and time -- inspired by his first job experimenting with lasers' effect on airplane jet engines.

"It turned out my understanding about lasers eventually helped me in my breakthrough with understanding how I might be able to find a whole new way for the basis of a time machine," says Mallett. "By studying the type of gravitational field that was produced by a ring laser, this could lead to a new way of looking at the possibility of a time machine based on a circulating beam of light."

Mallett's also got a theoretical equation that, he argues, proves this would work. "Eventually a circulating beam of laser lights could act as a sort of a time machine and cause a twisting of time that would allow you to go back into the past," he says. There's a snag though -- a pretty big one. "You can send information back, but you can only send it back to the point at which you turn the machine on," says Mallett.

While his quest to go back to the 1950s isn't anywhere closer to a reality, he remains optimistic, and continues to ponder possibilities. So could there be a not-too-distant future in which time travel is part of our daily reality? After all, we're entering a new decade in which once fanciful concepts like space tourism and hyperloop trains are entering the realms of possibility. Maybe, but not everyone thinks so.

"Time travel into the past is allowed, potentially, in our theory of general relativity, how we understand gravity," says Paul Sutter, an astrophysicist who hosts a podcast called Ask a Spaceman! "But every time we try to concoct a theoretical time travel device, some other bit of physics busts in and breaks up the party."

Sutter says he is aware of Mallett's work, and thinks it's interesting, if not necessarily on track to deliver results. "I don't think it's necessarily going to be fruitful, because I do think that there are deep flaws in his mathematics and his theory, and so a practical device seems unattainable."

Serious criticism of Mallett's theory was voiced in 2005 by Ken D. Olum and Allen Everett, of the Institute of Cosmology, Department of Physics and Astronomy at Tufts University. They said they'd found holes in Mallett's equation and the practicality of his proposed device.

British science writer Brian Clegg looks more favorably on Mallett's ideas, he also profiled the scientist in his book, "How to Build a Time Machine." "While not everyone agrees that his planned device would work, I think it's an interesting enough proposition to go for an experimental trial," says Clegg. "If it did work, it should be stressed that it's not a practical time machine, it would simply produce a tiny but measurable effect, which would demonstrate the principle."

Mallett is quick to clarify that his ideas are theoretical. He says he's currently trying to get funds to conduct real-life experiments. "It's not like the movies," says Mallett. "It's not going happen at the end of two hours, at the cost of whatever it is you pay for the movie ticket. It's going to cost." (MORE - details)
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#2
Zinjanthropos Offline
As I understand it, there are 3 spatial and one time point for every object in the universe. So these coordinates would be what I need to locate a moment in time. I just have to get there.

Now if I’m moving within a container (non-expanding universe) I could find the exact location in 3D space of where I was at one time. However I’d still not be back in time.

Not sure if I’d have the same luck finding the spatial coordinates in an expanding universe but I wonder if the time coordinate remains unchanged. So if I wanted to get to the time coordinate then I’d have to shrink space?
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