![\"RonaldMallett.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/images\/RonaldMallett.jpg\")
With a brilliant idea and equations based on Einstein\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n
Black holes, wormholes, and cosmic strings \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 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.<\/p>\n
Mallett, a U Conn Physics Professor for 30 years, considered an alternative to these time travel methods based on Einstein\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s famous relativity equation: E=mc2.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Einstein showed that mass and energy are the same thing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Mallett, who published his first research on time travel in 2000 in Physics Letters. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The time machine we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve designed uses light in the form of circulating lasers to warp or loop time instead of using massive objects.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Say you have a cup of coffee and a spoon,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mallett explained to PhysOrg.com. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The coffee is empty space, and the spoon is the circulating light beam. When you stir the coffee with the spoon, the coffee \u00e2\u20ac\u201c or the empty space \u00e2\u20ac\u201c gets twisted. Suppose you drop a sugar cube in the coffee. If empty space were twisting, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be able to detect it by observing a subatomic particle moving around in the space.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
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.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n But Professor, there is no spoon<\/a>.<\/p>\n I’d so get an ‘F’ in his class.<\/p>\n