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February 10, 2007

The Story of the Time Traveler

From a review of Ronald Mallett's Time Traveler:

Physicist Mallett's theory that 'space and time can be manipulated' to make time travel possible has gained national media attention. His research and theories flow nicely through this easy-to-read autobiography. Mallett, one of the first African-American Ph.D.s in theoretical physics, has lived under the shadow of his father's death when he was 10. His struggles with poverty, racism and depression, coupled with his extreme drive to succeed at building a time machine and so see his beloved father again are inspirational. (Publishers Weekly)

The story of how the death of his father drove him to build a time machine--and led him to theoretical physics--is beautifully told in this installment of "This American Life" entitled "My Brilliant Plan." (The story is about 33 minutes into the episode.)

[H/t Linta Varghese.]

Posted by Robin Varghese at 07:10 PM | Permalink

Comments

The issue of time travel appears to be a very remarkable discovery thus far. Has anybody been able to contact Professor Mallett to determine if research is on going? I would be very interested in getting involved with the research. Please contact me and advise.

Posted by: Darrel Battle | Oct 8, 2008 12:55:18 PM

I quote from "Ronald Mallett
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."

Later, Mallett abandoned the idea of using slowed light to reduce the energy, writing that, "For a time, I considered the possibility that slowing down light might increase the gravitational frame dragging effect of the ring laser ... Slow light, however, turned out not to be helpful for my research."[13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Mallett#cite_note-Time-Traveler_page205-12

Dear Professor Mallett:

Does this mean you have abandoned any hope of sending information backwards in time? Or, are you working on another approach? One thing is certain: if it were possible to send information backwards in time, we would soon know the technology of the year 10 billion, indeed every year 10 billion along every time line.

Best regards,

Mark S. Oller

Posted by: Mark S. Oller | Jul 21, 2009 9:26:00 PM

Mark: You might be on to something. Maybe we already know the next 10 billion years' worth of technology the catch is that we'll need 10 times 10 to the 9th years to unpack it all. Remembering the future might prove to be just slightly less efficient than inventing it. So once again causality violations are narrowly avoided.

Posted by: Pete Chapman | Jul 22, 2009 2:17:59 AM

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