Dr. Mallett is a prestigious physicist and professor at the University of Connecticut. Spike Lee is working on a movie about his life. He is currently constructing a time machine. Dr. Mallett's Web page

Ken, webmaster of About Facts Net. Webmaster@aboutfacts.net

Dr. Mallett's Book, Time Traveler

Audio Of Interview

Ken:

Dr. Frank Tipler spoke about building a time machine using a spinning cylinder. He said that if the cylinder is long and dense, and spins fast enough about its long axis, then a spaceship flying around the cylinder on a spiral path could travel back in time. Going in the other direction it could fly forward. He proposes that the limitation to this idea is that matter is not strong enough to construct it. What is your opinion about this?

Dr. Mallett

Well I think that Tipler is right. I think that a long cylinder, there is a possibility. Tipler's work is based on work that was done by a man named Van Stockton and that shows in fact that there is possibilities of loops in time existing for a mass of rotating cylinder and the limitations would be the stresses on the matter of the rotating cylinder. So that is a possibility.

Ken:

Many scientists seem to think that any time machine would contain an extremely powerful energy source and some type of spinning device. Could they be barking up the wrong tree?

Blackhole Movie
Movie Source: NASA

 

Dr. Mallett

Oh no. That is what Tipler was saying and as a matter of fact some of your earlier work and in fact one of your most important pieces of earlier work, was the notion of rotating universe, which was developed by the mathematician Godel , who was very important to mathematicians in fact. In any case what he showed was that if the universe was rotating as a whole it would lead to loops in time and also we know that rotating blackholes could lead to the possibility of loops in time. So this notion of spinning matter some how doing it, would be a connection to it. My work is in a different direction. Rather than using matter I talk about using circulating light, but the circulating light creates the loops in time too, but no that's reasonable.

Ken:

Do you think that there could be anywhere in this universe or any other dimensions where time doesn't exist and if so, tell us what you think that would be like?

Dr. Mallett

No, as I said without time....things have to endure to exist so if there is no time, there is no existence.

Ken:

What about an empty universe?

Dr. Mallett

Well it wouldn't be empty, there would be nothing to measure it by. In other words it has to endure.

Ken:

Some people believe that there are places on this earth known as vortexes where time is not the same, is this a possibility?

Dr. Mallett

I don't think so. The thing is that at best the earth is rotating so that can actually affect the rate the clocks are running. So clocks would be running differently because of that rotation of the earth, but there is not going to be a whirlpool of time in any particular place on the earth. I doubt it unless someone demonstrates this experimentally or has a consistent theory of that, I am skeptical.

Ken:

Some people have had experiences where they felt that time was traveling faster or slower. Do you think that this was due to imagination or somehow this was true in their particular case?

Dr. Mallett

You say imagination, I don't think imagination, it could be due to the fact that physiological processes that were going on for them made it feel that way. In fact Einstein facetiously said that, when someone asked him about relativity, he said remembering the times he was talking, he said that if you were talking to a pretty woman time seems to go very very quickly, but if you are sitting on a hot stove, it can appear to go very very slowly. So it is that kind of thing, it portends on what is going on in your intention. If you are busy, everyone one of us has had the experience of time seeming to pass at an unbelievable rate, but if you are bored it seems to go on forever.

Ken:

If humans could travel into the past what do you think that it would be like, do you think that it would seem like the world we are in now, or would it be more of a shadow world where we might be able to see people and events without being able to interact with them?

Dr. Mallett

I think that if we were able to go back into the past, we would actually be there. I think that we will actually be able to transport matter to the past. We would actually be there with people in the past. I think that is what I suspect would happen, because according to physics we could actually move it, move matter from one place in time to another place in time, space and time.

Ken:

There are those that state that time travel is possible because certain laws of nature prevent paradoxes and these are the same laws that make light travel in straight lines. Could you clarify this for us.

Dr. Mallett

The thing is that Einstein's theories are what makes time travel possible. According to Einstein's theories, if you go fast enough you can cause time to slow down. By fast I mean any speed up to the speed of light. We have actually demonstrated that. In Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity we have seen that, the faster we move clocks, the more that they slow down. This has been done in real experiments with atomic clocks aboard ordinary passenger jets. We also know that clocks are affected by gravity, the stronger gravity is, the slower clocks go. Once again we know that these effects are real, we see that clocks run at a faster rate aboard these GPS satellites than they do here at the surface of the earth. That is the way that we know that time can be affected and we can travel at least into the future doing it and also the possibility of going into the past has been opened up by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity which allows us to manipulate space and time in particular ways.

Time Travel
Photo Source: Stock.xching

Ken:

When Kip Thorne at Caltech discovered that there was nothing in physics that prevented time travel a lot of scientists were surprised, were you?

Dr. Mallett

Not really, because what Kip Thorne was basing his statement on was Einstein's theories of relativity. There is nothing in those theories that prevent time travel so potentially it should be possible. It may be difficult to achieve, but potentially it should be possible.

Ken:

When the space race first started, there was a lot of secrecy, especially in the old Soviet Union. Cosmonauts were lost and we didn't find out this fact for many years. Could the race towards building an actual time travel machine have already started somewhere and could there have been causalities that we don't know about?

Dr. Mallett

Well I mean anything's possible but it is hard to speculate about that because as a scientist I have to base things on evidence, real evidence of things happening. If there is this, as I said, it would be hard to know, specifically for the fact that we need specific evidence for that.

Ken:

What do you estimate the cost will be to build your machine?

Dr. Mallett

Well the space twist part of it, we are talking just about the initial opening cost, will probably be about one quarter of a million dollars. That is just what we know that we will need. The total cost of that experiment will probably be on the order of ten million dollars. That is just the space twisting portion. How much it will cost for the time twisting portion, as I said, we wouldn't even go to if we don't see a space twisting portion. That I can't even estimate because that would require us understanding the technologies that would be needed and that we won't know until we are done with the space twisting part, but at least that portion of it will cost ten million dollars.

Ken:

What about the thing that Einstein called spooky action at a distance where two quantum systems seem to be connected, does this apply to time travel and would you explain it to my readers?

Dr. Mallett

Well this spooky action at a distance that Einstein was talking about actually has to do with quantum theory rather than relativity. What he was talking about is that it turns out that if systems are created as a single unit and if you separate those systems, I am talking about molecules for example, if you separate them and bring them to two different places even though they are separated, we have found experimentally that what you do on the one system seems to instantaneously effect what is happening on the other system. In other words the two systems act as if they are still connected to each other even though they are now separated into two different pieces. This spooky action at a distance is what Einstein was referring to. It is the fact that when I do something to system A, system B instantaneously responds to it as though the two systems were still connected. Somehow this entanglement, which is the term that is used now for this, it seems like the two systems are entangled with each other even thought they are now separated, but the key here is that they were once one single unit, in that you essentially split them up and separated them and yet they still behave as though they were one single unit. So that is what he is referring to. As far as I know, that doesn't have any direct application to time travel but that is an effect. It might affect, this spooky action, it might lead to the possibility and in fact many physicists believe this, that it might lead to teleportation. It won't be the type of teleportation that you see on Star Trek, but it could eventually lead to teleportation, but it doesn't seem to have the direct implication for time travel.

Ken:

There are those that think that if our universe starts to collapse, that time will run backwards, do you believe this?

Dr. Mallett

No it will run forward, it will just be the universe collapsing.

Ken:

Does time repeat itself, have we all done what we are doing millions of times before or is Laflamme correct when he states this will not happen?

Dr. Mallett

I think that the events that have happened to us are unique events. I think that we have this feeling sometimes that things have been repeated or this sense of De je vue. I think that this is due to our mind, our brain and the way in which it functions. The amount of information that we receive and that we don't even process consciously is unbelievable and I believe that when we experience a sense of De je vue it has a lot more to do with our brain function than it has to do with something happening objectively with time in the world.

Ken:

If you know, at what point are the Russians at in the field of trying to build a time machine and is there any other country that might have such a project?

Dr. Mallett

As far as I know I am not aware of what the Russians are doing in this field. They may be working on it, but as I say once again, unless they share the information out in the open community such as my work, then it is impossible to know what they are doing this or that sort of thing.

Blackhole
Graphic Source: NASA

 

Ken:

Could we be wrong about some of the phenomena in space, such as blackholes and could they act as natural time machines in some way?

Dr. Mallett

Well definitely. blackholes definitely. act as natural time machines because not only in......definately we are right about blackholes they are definitely. classed. There is actually more than just one. We have actually been able to observe many many millions of blackholes. They are even at the center of some galaxies and we do know that they are the result of matter collapsing to a point where the gravity becomes so intense that it pulls light in. That is what we mean by blackhole. It turns out that blackholes affect time as well. The closer you get to a blackhole, the more time slows down. If someone were to move closer to a blackhole, time for them and remember when I say time I am talking about anything that measures time, your heart rate, your metabolism would slow down, so if you got close enough to a blackhole only a few hours may pass for you, time would be passing at a normal rate everywhere else. A hundred years could be passing. If you left the region near the blackhole, as long as you didn't cross into the blackhole and came back, you might find that you are only a few hours older, but centuries may have passed. blackholes can definitely act as natural time machines.

Ken:

Do you think that we possess anything with enough power to rip the fabric of space and time, or is that an impossibility?

Dr. Mallett

Well we don't here on the earth, but definitely. things like blackholes, one could think of them in a sense as being tears in the fabric of space time. Things like that, phenomena like that definitely can occur, but here on the earth no, we haven't done that yet.

Ken:

Some people say that a wormhole might be used to travel through time, what are your feelings on this?

Dr. Mallett

Oh definitely. The work that has been done by people like Kip Thorne and mentioned by people like Paul Davies. wormholes definitely have a possibility of being used as time machines and the problem is of course finding a wormhole and controlling the wormhole to do that. The potential is definitely there.

Ken:

We have talked a lot about travel into the past, do you think that traveling into the future could be a one way trip and if so, why?

Dr. Mallett

Well the thing is in Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity which says that time slows down for a moving clock, time travel is a one way trip. That is to say that just on the basis of the Special Theory of Relativity you can only travel to the future, because you would have to exceed the speed of light to get back into the past and that is not possible based on the laws of physics, E=Mc2. The thing is that time travel into the future based on speed is a one way trip. We have already demonstrated that we can do it, only by fractions of a second, just with atomic clocks aboard ordinary passenger jets. We have actually been able to show that we can move into the future fractions of a second. Things like the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) when they speed up these elementary particles, they cause them to live 8 to 16 times longer. It means that these particles are actually traveling into their future. That is a one way trip. Using General Relativity it might be possible to warp space and time in such a way that we can make it a two way trip. So the answer is that based on Special Relativity which links time with speed, it is a one way trip, but with Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, which has to do with gravity and the warping of space time, we may be able to make it a two way trip.

Ken:

Have you ever noticed any effects on earth that could be attributed to time events?

Dr. Mallett

Well yes in the sense of gravity, that is the most noticeable one. Clocks here on the surface of the earth are running slower than clocks on GPS satellites. As I mentioned before, this is actually important because corrections have to be made for that. They actually have to calibrate these clocks onboard the satellites to make sure that they take this effect into account or we would not be able to find our correct positions here on the surface of the earth. So yes we have already seen this effect and also as I have said with objects moving fast enough aboard satellites time slows down, so we definitely have seen phenomena here on the earth that shows that time is affected by things like gravity and speed.

Ken:

I have heard a moving automobile described as a time machine because you can look out the back and see the past or look out the front and see the future. What do you think about that?

Dr. Mallett

No, It is to the extent that an automobile is moving through time and the fact that it is moving at a speed that is different from the speed that it would have if it were parked. It actually means that the clocks onboard of your ordinary car are running slower, however the fact that the automobile is moving so slow compared to the speed of light, that effect is so microscopic that it is immeasurable. Because the automobile is moving, time is actually slowing down a little bit

Ken:

There have been times when people have stated that they have seen what they thought were spirits or ghosts. In your opinion, do you think that there is some connection between our current time and past or future times and what they are seeing is shadows of the past or future?

Dr. Mallett

No, not based on physics, I don't think so. I mean I don't know what these phenomena may be, but the thing is that I don't think that they are images of the past or future, from the standpoint of physics.

Ken:

Strange things have been found that were out of place in time, such as a necklace in a lump of coal or a transistor inside of a rock that was millions of years old. Do you believe that any of this could be the result of time travel?

Dr. Mallett

I am skeptical. Remember as I said I think that, not what I think but just based on real time machines, you have to have a device that created the effect. If these phenomena had occurred somewhere, they would have had to occur in the neighborhood of some time machine. Somehow the time machine would have had to have been there to have created that particular effect. So unless in those ancient times they had technology that we can barely imagine, it seems highly unlikely.

Ken:

Throughout history there have always been scientists that ridiculed other scientists for trying to create things that they thought were impossible. Have you ever been ridiculed for your theories?

Dr. Mallett

No I would say that people are skeptical until I tell them what I am doing is based on Einstein's theory. Skepticism is a good thing and there is also skepticism about how much energy is going to be needed. These are technological questions. For example the thing that was brought to the Wright Brothers was you are going to need a new type of metal and new processes in order to do this. The thing is that a lot of this is going to require technological ingenuity in order to make it happen, it is based on the laws of physics. Sometimes people are still a bit skeptical because they think that time travel is something that is in the realm of science fiction. This has been part of the point of my book Time Traveler, is to make people realize that based on real physics, based on the physics of Einstein and this is the same physics that has explained and given to us things like the laser to nuclear power. That very same theory is the theory that is behind the theory of time travel. Initial skepticism is a good and healthy thing, but as I said that once people begin to see that these things are based on real laws of physics and understand the limitations, because there are limitations, then their skepticism usually turns to glee for the possibility.

Ken:

What thoughts would you like to leave us with on time travel?

Dr. Mallett

Lets say that there is actually two things that I want to leave people with. It is important to realize that whether or not we have time travel, the only thing that we really have, any of us really have, is the present moment in our life and we need to make the best possible use of that, because ultimately that is all that we have. The other aspect is that time travel is going to allow mankind an unprecedented control of their destiny. I think that is something that we should all look forward to and be mindful of and realize that this could lead to a new golden age for the human race.

Ken:

Well I want to thank you very much for such an interesting interview.