Twist of fate

Before I start, if anyone knows a good website for Doctor Who spoilers, please let me know, that'd be brilliant. Thanks :)

And on that note, I'm going to blather on about one of my favorite subjects, theoretical time travel. I mentioned yesterday that the many worlds theory opens up to us a rather nontraditional means of time travel. But before I get into that, let's talk about the traditional version open to us.

It is possible to travel into the future. Theoretically, anyway. Many worlds, one world, doesn't matter, travel to the future is quite possible in quantum physics. There's a few different ways to make this possible. There's the good ol' Einstein way, where you simply sit in a space ship going faster than the speed of light, and let the rest of the Universe age around you.

There's also a concept of limited two way travel developed by Professor Ronald Mallet at the University of Connecticut. His ideas are pretty wild, and fairly awesome, though his theories contain some pretty large holes as well (and not the cool, wormhole type). However, I think he's fantastic nonetheless, simply because he's trying. So few scientists out there are willing to spend time and energy on flights of fancy such as time and space travel. Its simply not profitable in this silly reality we've created for ourselves, where the highest authority is the almighty dollar bill.

Mallet's idea is to create a time machine, he's using light as his basis, laser light to be exact. The science behind the idea is fairly beyond me, but involves the twisting of spacetime to create a closed loop circuit from one time period, to another. The overall concept is that once his time machine is activated, people may travel through it to the future, or backwards up until the point when the machine was switched on.

Sounds to me, the sooner we flip that switch, the better.

Mallet's theories are based on Einstein's theory of relativity, and rely on a quickly circulating light to literally bore a hole into the future through the walls of our timeline. Nifty, no? While he still needs funding for the project, he predicts it could be ready to go within ten years.

Of course, within ten years we're not going to go jumping through Mallet's laser light show and pop out in the brave new world of the future. He's currently working on sending neutrons through the machine, then slowly working his way up to the point where the rest of us can do the time warp.

The really interesting thing about Mallet's idea, is that he'll quite possibly know as soon as he flips that switch whether or not it was a success. He predicts that when he turns it on, neutrons from future experiments he plans on conducting, will start to appear, having been sent back in time by his future self while testing the machine.

The overall goal of this machine is to create a time loop. One that starts when Mallet's machine is first turned on, and ends at the date that it is switched off. Whether or not a controlled, closed time loop such as this can be created, is purely theoretical, but Mallet seems really convinced.

What makes me less optimistic about this approach, is that Mallet plans on using substitutions for the needed equipment. That alone seems odd, when you invent a recipe, you generally don't substitute ingredients right off the bat. Without getting too technical, the issue arises because in order to create this loop, Mallet doesn't just need circulating lights, but to physically bend the light. The crystals he is using to create the laser light, don't allow for the bending of light without fracturing it. So, the light is traveling in a straight line, which is utterly useless to the antsy time traveler. Rather than try and develop the technology necessary, he has created a one dimensional singularity to act as a "geometric constraint" to bend the light around the helix in the vacuum of his machine. Ok, maybe that did get a bit technical towards the end. The bottom line is, he's currently planning on using knock-off parts, which is never a good idea.

The other major issue is that in order to create the loop a large amount of energy would be needed, beyond anything we could supply, and the tear in time would actually be larger than the entire observable universe. Mind blowing to try and picture, really. Mallet believes that he can artificially slow the speed of light, and as the speed drops, so does the energy requirement, and the size of the wrinkle in time. If the speed of light is reduced enough, the energy required to jumpstart the machine becomes attainable. But, in slowing the speed of light, you loose your brainy backing from Einstein, as the theory of relativity uses the speed of light as a constant (i.e. something that does not change). It also becomes an issue because Mallet needs to slow light within a vacuum, and while you can artificially slow the speed of ligth by throwing obsticals in its way (water etc.) the whole idea is that nothing exists inside a vacuum, so there's no obsticals to throw at the light. As it stands now it seems Mallet has abandonded the slow light idea, in the interest of seeking out other alternatives.

However, as I said, I very much admire this man. Here is man who dared to dream the impossible, and has dedicated his life to changing our concept of what is possible. While his initial theory needs some working out, there is hope. Steven Hawking published a paper back in 1992, which stated that closed loop time circuits are theoretically possible. So while Mallet hasn't worked out all the kinks yet, he's definitely on the right track. So bravo Professor Mallet for having the drive to stay with your dreams no matter how impossible they may be.

Hmmm. . .looks like I'll have to get into the many worlds theory of time travel later, as for now, I'm out of time. . .