BACK TO DAD TIME MACHINE

Astrophysicist thinks he has formula for time travel — and, perhaps, a way to see his father

When Ron Mallett was 10 years old, his father died. More than 65 years later, he’s still obsessed with finding a way to see his dad again. He believes he’s figured it out.

“I idolized him. Everything began and ended with him,” Mallett said of his father. “I was 10 years old at the time and it completely devastated me. It turned my world upside down.”

Perhaps a preface is in order: Ronald Mallett is a for-real astrophysicist. He has a doctorate from Penn State and has been a professor of physics at UConn since 1975.

His father had been a television repairman in the Bronx, and encouraged his son toward engineering and science.

After his father died unexpectedly of a heart attack at 33 years old, Mallett came across a science fiction classic, H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine,” which he called “the book that changed my life.”

Mallett became “obsessed” with the idea that “time is a kind of space, we can move backward in time.”

“If I had a time machine I could go backward in time and see him again and tell him what happened and maybe change things,” Mallett said.

As a child, Mallett attempted to build a time machine using scrounged bits and pieces: “I tried putting something together that matched the cover. It didn’t work.”

At some point, Mallett came across the second book that changed his life, “The Universe and Dr. Einstein,” a 1948 laymen’s explanation of Albert Einstein’s relativity theory.

“Einstein became my second obsession,” Mallett said.

Living in poverty after the death of his father, Mallett went to Penn State on the G.I. bill, where he eventually earned his doctorate in astrophysics. He focused on black holes, but it was a ruse — his real interest remained time travel.

“I could use that as my cover story. Black holes affect time,” he said. “I knew that if I studied black holes, it was considered legitimate crazy as opposed to time travel.”

In 1975 he became the first-ever African American professor in UConn’s physics department, and there he stayed, quietly niggling away at the problem of time travel.

His breakthrough came around the turn of the century: A simple, elegant formula he says might someday allow someone to travel back in time.

How to build a time machine

Einstein’s theory of special relativity, as Mallett explained, showed that time is not static. Speed, Einstein showed, affects time — the closer you get to the speed of light, the slower time becomes.

A decade later, Einstein’s theory of general relativity suggested that gravity could also affect time. Einstein classically illustrated that concept with a metaphor: Imagine the universe as a flat, rubber sheet.

Objects with large mass and gravity, like the sun, act like a bowling ball on that sheet, creating a well into which objects with lower gravity are pulled. Black holes — which Mallett studied for years — produce so much gravity that time would theoretically stop at the center.

According to Newtonian physics only matter can create gravity, but Einstein disagreed: light, he said, could also affect gravity.

Mallett’s ah-hah moment was when he put those dots together.

“According to Einstein, gravity can affect time,” he said. “If gravity can affect time and light can create gravity then light can affect time.”

Mallett’s formula calls for a device called a ring laser, which is exactly what it sounds like — a series of mirrors that force a tight beam of light into a loop. Put enough energy into that laser and you can actually warp space, creating what physicists call a closed timelike curve, or CTC.

Mallett describes it as a cup of coffee. Stir your coffee with a spoon and you create a whirlpool inside the cup, spiraling downward. But in the case of a CTC, the coffee is space and you would be spiralling backward through time.

“A ring laser, since it creates a sort of circulating gravity field, it will actually cause a rotational type of gravity field,” Mallett said, which would “cause space to be twisted. The thing that’s causing the loops in time is the twisting of space.”

Critiques and disagreements

Mallett is a scientist, and he is the first to agree that there are hurdles to overcome. Other scientists have been harsher.

Physicists Ken Olum and Allen Everett took issue with some of the math, but they also argued that even if theoretically reasonable, Mallett’s concept was not practically possible.

“For physically realistic energy densities, the CTCs occur at distances from the axis greater than the radius of the visible universe by an immense factor,” they wrote.

Mallett agrees. He said the density of energy necessary to create a closed timelike curve within a contained space would be almost beyond imagination.

“We’re talking about galactic amounts of energy,” he said. “Theoretically it is possible. Technologically it’s not clear.”

The first step, he said, is to show that a ring laser can actually twist space, even in a small way.

“First we actually have to show that we can cause a twisting of space. If we don’t even see the twisting of space then we can go home,” he said. But, if it actually works, “then we can overcome this barrier of energy.”

Tinseltown time

The real barrier, according to Mallett, is money.

“All of these things require financing,” he said.

A few years ago, the Nobel Prize was awarded to physicists who showed that two colliding black holes create gravity waves. That experiment cost $1.1 billion.

The Large Hadron Collider, which is being used to search for the most elusive particles in the universe, reportedly cost $4.75 billion to construct.

Mallett estimates that his feasibility study, just showing that a ring laser can twist space, would cost about $275 million, which he called “pocket change” in comparison.

“Time traveler,” Mallett’s book about his life and work, has been optioned by a Hollywood studio — he’s not allowed to say which one — and a feature film could create enough interest in his research to shake loose the necessary money.

There have been no shortage of films about time travel, including numerous cinematic retellings of the H.G. Wells classic novel. Now a film about time travel could help fund research into the real thing.

“There’s been a lot of documentaries, but when it comes to feature films that’s a whole new level,” Mallett said.

Not just can, but should

Physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, reportedly quoted Hindu sacred texts when he saw the explosive effects of what he had built: “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Mallett firmly believes that his math is correct, that the power issue can be overcome, that travel back in time is possible, even if it’s not practical.

And for him, there’s no concern about changing the past and affecting the future. He is not worried about the implications of his work.

Now 77 years old, he’s still trying to get back to his dad, and to show that his theories can be proven.

“When we find out we can do something as human beings we do it,” he said. “We feel compelled.”

Contributed photo UConn astrophysics professor Ronald Mallett believes he has worked out a formula that would make time travel possible. He has been obsessed with the idea since his dad, a television repairman, died when Mallett was 10 years old.

Ronald Mallett / Contributed photo Living in poverty after the death of his father, Ronald Mallett went to Penn State on the G.I. bill, where he eventually earned his doctorate in astrophysics. He focused on black holes, but it was a ruse — his real interest remained time travel.

Ronald Mallett / Contributed photo UConn astrophysics professor Ronald Mallett believes he has worked out a formula that would make time travel possible.