Ronald Mallett is on a mission to develop a real-life working time machine that uses lasers. Fascinated by the concept since childhood, he is now 77 years old. He used to teach physics at the University of Connecticut and still believes that a spinning laser loop can always bend time.
But it will be hard because, according to what we know about physics now, time travel is impossible, even though it is often shown in science fiction.
As we understand them, the laws of physics do not allow for backward time travel in a way that would be consistent with causality, meaning that events cannot happen before their causes. But some theories, like the theory of general relativity and the idea of wormholes, make it possible to travel through time. But these models are based on a lot of guesswork and require conditions we can't reach with our current technology. So, even though time travel is still a common theme in science fiction, it is not thought to be possible based on what we know about science right now.
But Mallett may, he believes, have found a loophole. His idea is to create an artificial black hole, which could generate a gravitational field that could lead to time loops and the ability to travel to the past, according to a recent article in The Guardian. Since 2019, the prototype has produced a continuously rotating light beam.
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