Mallett was born in Roaring Spring, Pennsylvania, on March 3rd, 1945. He lived in the Bronx, New York City. When he was 10 years old, his father died at age 33 of a heart attack. Inspired by a Classics Illustrated comic book version of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, Mallett resolved to travel back in time to save his father. This idea became a lifelong obsession.
For quite some time, Ronald Mallett has been working on plans for a time machine. This technology would be based upon a ring laser's properties within the context of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Mallett first argued that the ring laser would produce a limited amount of frame-dragging which might be measured experimentally, saying:
"In Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, both matter and energy can create a gravitational field. This means that the energy of a light beam can produce a gravitational field. My current research considers both the weak and strong gravitational fields produced by a single continuously circulating unidirectional beam of light. In the weak gravitational field of a unidirectional ring laser, it is predicted that a spinning neutral particle, when placed in the ring, is dragged around by the resulting gravitational field."
In a later paper, he argued that at sufficient energies, the circulating laser might produce not just frame-dragging but also closed timelike curves, allowing time travel into the past:
For the strong gravitational field of a circulating cylinder of light, I have found new exact solutions of the Einstein field equations for the exterior and interior gravitational fields of the light cylinder. The exterior gravitational field is shown to contain closed timelike lines.
The presence of closed timelike lines indicates the possibility of time travel into the past. This creates the foundation for a time machine based on a circulating cylinder of light.
Funding for his program, now known as The Space-time Twisting by Light (STL) project, is progressing. Full details on the project, Mallett's theories, a list of upcoming public lectures and links to popular articles on his work can be found at the Professor's UConn web page,and an illustration showing the concept on which Mallett has designed the time machine can be seen on a Geocities webpage.
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video:
A 2003 BBC Documentary chronicling the work of Dr Ronald Mallett, a physicist on the brink of making time travel a reality. This documentary covers: Traveling to the past, the future, alternative universe and paradoxes that come with time travel.
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