Ronald Mallett lost his father when he was just 10 years old and has worked tirelessly ever since to discover a way to see him again.
Now, he believes he’s cracked the code to time travel.
The emeritus University of Connecticut professor touts rotating lasers as the key, which would, in theory, twist the fabric of space-time and create a loop that would allow backward time travel.
“The thing is, that what is necessary first is being able to show that we can twist space — not time — twist space with light,” he told the Guardian, noting that such a conclusion would allow the rest of his theory to unfold. But for now, he needs more research.
Time travel, a product of science-fiction lore, was a concept popularized by cult classics such as “Back to the Future” but hasn’t been attempted in real life — however, it’s been extensively studied.
Last year, Dr. Ana Alonso-Serrano told USA Today that while “logistically possible,” time travel requires tools such as wormholes or warp drives to create curvatures in space-time.
“In the moment that you carve the spacetime, you can play with that curvature to make the time come in a circle and make a time machine,” said Alonso-Serrano, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Germany.
The snag is finding a “physical, realistic, way to do it,” she added, noting that the “exotic matter” needed might not even exist.
But researchers at the California Institute of Technology miraculously made two small black holes in a quantum computer, noting that the tunnel shared characteristics of a “baby wormhole” — a small step for scientists focused on cracking the code for time travel.
A very determined Mallett, 77, is holding out hope. Although, there may not be an institution or a person with enough funds to take a chance on him and his astounding research inspired by his father’s death.
“When he passed away, it was like this light went out. I was in shock,” he said, rehashing the ill-fated night his mother discovered he had passed away from a heart attack.
“I couldn’t comprehend how this was possible,” he added, saying he “adored” his late father. “To this day, it’s hard for me to believe he’s gone. Even after 60 some years.”
Mallett’s dad had fought in the Second World War and became a TV repairman upon returning home. Despite a modest income, Mallett said his family was utterly spoiled — one Christmas, all three brothers were gifted bicycles, an “incredible” feat for his father to achieve with his earnings.
“I adored him,” Mallett continued. “One of the great pleasures for me was meeting him when he got off the subway and carrying his toolbox home with him. He just literally lit up the room when he would come in.”
But after he died, the family uprooted from The Bronx and moved to Altoona, Pennsylvania, where Mallett recalls being met with bullies who called him the N-word. At the time, the now-emeritus professor was “depressed” and actually punched the taunting kid, later apologizing.
He found solace in books, namely “The Time Machine,” which he says “spoke” to him.
“The very first paragraph changed my life. I still remember the quote: ‘Scientific people know very well that time is just a kind of space and we can move forward and backward in time, just as we can in space,'” he said, remembering how he attempted to create a time machine replica comprised of his bike and his father’s old radio.
At 11, he discovered a book by Albert Einstein, whose theories about space and time inspired him to pursue further schooling, earning all As. He eventually joined the Air Force hoping to use the GI Bill to put himself through higher education, often volunteering for night shifts to keep his nose in books.
His studies at Pennsylvania State University earned him the esteemed title of one of the first African Americans to receive a Ph.D. in physics, but he stayed tight-lipped about his time travel aspirations. At the time, it would have been considered nonsense in “serious” academia and could have potentially ended his career.
Keeping his head down — and in his books — he continued to research and came across information on black holes.
“It turns out that rotating black holes can create a gravitational field that could lead to loops of time being created that can allow you to go to the past,” Mallett explained, using an analogy.
“Let’s say you have a cup of coffee in front of you right now,” he continued. “Start stirring the coffee with the spoon. It started swirling around, right? That’s what a rotating black hole does.”
Einstein, then, believed that space and time are related, he added, so a rotating black hole could “cause a twisting of time.”
But there’s a catch: There’s a lack of black holes. Although, Mallett believes it can be mimicked with a ring laser, which emits rotating light beams. Because “light can create gravity,” he mused, “and if gravity can affect time, then light itself can affect time.”
To be successful, the device would need to be about the size of the universe, deeming it pretty much impossible — yet Mallett isn’t deterred. At this point, he says his machine, size undetermined, will appear to be a cylinder of rotating streams of light.
Even if he were to somehow be granted funding for such an endeavor, Mallett’s decades of research might be for naught. He would never be able to see his late father again, despite that being his motivation.
In reality, the machine would only be able to grant time travel to a particular point — the moment the time loop was created — which couldn’t possibly be Mallett’s desired 1955.
“It was sad for me but it wasn’t tragic, because I remember that there was this little boy who dreamed of the possibility of having a time machine,” he said of his depressing realization. “I have figured out how it can be done.”
Instead, he hopes his research can birth new technology that could accurately predict natural disasters such as earthquakes or tsunamis.
“So, for me, I’ve opened the door to the possibility,” he said. “And I think that my father would have been really proud about that.”
