Ronald Mallett

Infobox Scientist


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name = Ronald L. Mallett
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birth_date = birth date and age|1945|3|3
birth_place = Roaring Spring, Pennsylvania, U.S.
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nationality = flagicon|USA American
ethnicity = African American
field = Particle and Field Theory
work_institutions = Pennsylvania State University
University of Connecticut
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known_for = Time Travel, Quantum cosmology,
Relativistic Astrophysics
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Ronald L. Mallett, Ph.D. is a professor of physics in the University of Connecticut.

Early life

Mallett was born in Roaring Spring, Pennsylvania, on March 3, 1945. He lived in the Bronx, New York City. When he was 10 years old, his father died, at age 33, of a serious 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.

Education

In 1973, he received a Ph.D. from Penn State University. Also that year, he received the Graduate Assistant Award for Excellence in Teaching. [http://www.phys.uconn.edu/~mallett/MallettCV.pdf]

Career

In 1975, he was appointed a job at the University of Connecticut as an assistant professor, where he continues to work today. His research interests include general relativity, quantum gravity, and time travel.

In 1980, he was promoted to associate professor, and since 1987, he has been a professor. He has received two grants and many other distinctions.

In 2007, his life story of pursuing a time machine was told on "This American Life", episode #324.

He is a member of both the American Physical Society and the National Society of Black Physicists.

Time machine project

For quite some time, Ronald Mallett has been working on plans for a time machine. This machine uses a ring laser and the theory of relativity. Mallett first argued that the ring laser would produce a limited amount of frame-dragging which might be measured experimentally, saying: [R. L. Mallett, "Weak gravitational field of the electromagnetic radiation in a ring laser", [http://www.physics.uconn.edu/~mallett/Mallett2000.pdf Phys. Lett. A 269, 214 (2000)] . pdf]

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: [R. L. Mallett, "The gravitational field of a circulating light beam", [http://www.physics.uconn.edu/~mallett/Mallett2003.pdf Foundations of Physics 33, 1307 (2003)] . pdf]

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, [ [http://www.physics.uconn.edu/~mallett/main/main.htm Home Page of Ronald L. Mallett ] ] and an illustration showing the concept on which Mallett has designed the time machine can be seen on a Geocities webpage. [ [http://www.geocities.com/mohdkhalidmunir/timetravel1.htm New Page 1 ] ]

He also wrote a book titled "", co-written with New York Times best-selling author Bruce Henderson, that was first published in 2006. Henderson, also known as Bruce B. Henderson, is the co-author of "And the Sea Will Tell" and more than 20 other nonfiction books. Filmmaker Spike Lee purchased the movie rights in 2008, and will co-write and direct a feature film adaptation of the book.cite web |url=http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117987632.html?categoryid=13&cs=1 |title=Spike Lee takes on "Time Traveler" |accessdate=2008-06-18 |author=Fleming, Michael]

Objections

In a recent paper by Ken Olum and Allen Everettcite journal | first = Ken D. | last = Olum | coauthors = Allen Everett | title = Can a circulating light beam produce a time machine? | journal = Foundations of Physics Letters | volume = 18 | year=2005 | pages = 379–385 | doi = 10.1007/s10702-005-7127-4 arxiv | archive = gr-qc | id = 0410078] the authors claimed to have found problems with Mallett's analysis. One of their objections is that the spacetime which Mallett used in his analysis contains a singularity even when the power to the laser is off, and is not the spacetime that would be expected to arise naturally if the circulating laser were turned on in previously empty space. Mallett has not offered a published response to Olum and Everett, but in his book "Time Traveler" he mentions that he was unable to directly model the optical fiber or photonic crystal which bends the light's path as it travels through it, so the light circulates around rather than moving in a straight line; as a substitute he chose to include a "line source" (a type of one-dimensional singularity) which would act as a "geometric constraint", bending spacetime in such a way that the light would circulate around on a helix-shaped path in a vacuum.cite book | last = Mallett | first = Ronald | title = Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality | publisher = Thunder's Mouth Press | year = 2006 | pages = pp. 167-168 | id = ISBN 1-56025-869-1] He notes that closed timelike curves are present in a spacetime containing both the line source and the circulating light, while they are not present in a spacetime containing only the line source, so that "the closed loops in time had been produced by the circulating flow of light, and not by the non-moving line source."medium (as in the experiments of Lene Hau where light was passed through a superfluid and slowed to about 17 metres per second) the needed energy would be attainable.cite web |url=http://www.spacedaily.com/news/timetravel-01a.html |title=Getting In A Twist Over Time |accessdate=2006-12-19 |author=Brooks, Michael] However, the physicist J. Richard Gott argues that slowing down light by passing it through a medium cannot be treated as equivalent to lowering the constant "c" (the speed of light in a vacuum) in the equations of general relativity, saying:cite web |url=http://www.wonderquest.com/TimeTravel.htm |title="...they can't come to us..," Carl Sagan |accessdate=2006-12-19 |author=Holladay, April]

One has to distinguish between the speed of light in empty space, which is a constant, and through a medium, which can be less. Light travels more slowly through water than through empty space but this does not mean that you age more slowly while scuba diving or that it is easier to twist space-time underwater.
The experiments done so far don't lower the speed of light in empty space; they just lower the speed of light in a medium and should not make it easier to twist space-time. Thus, it should not take any less mass-energy to form a black hole or a time machine of a given size in such a medium.

Later, Mallett abandoned the idea of using slowed light to reduce the energy, writing "For a time, I considered the possibility that slowing down light might increase the gravitational frame dragging effect of the ring laser ... Slow light, however, turned out not to be helpful for my research."cite book | last = Mallett | first = Ronald | title = Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality | publisher = Thunder's Mouth Press | year = 2006 | pages = p. 205 | id = ISBN 1-56025-869-1]

Finally, Olum and Everett note a theorem proved by Stephen Hawking in a 1992 paper on the chronology protection conjecture,cite journal | first=Stephen | last=Hawking | authorlink = Stephen Hawking | url=http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v46/p603 | title=Chronology protection conjecture | journal = Physical Review D | volume = 46 | year=1992 | pages = 603–611 | doi=10.1103/PhysRevD.46.603 | format=abstract] which demonstrated that according to general relativity it should be impossible to create closed timelike curves in any finite region that satisfies the weak energy condition, meaning that the region contains no exotic matter with negative energy. Mallett's original solution involved a spacetime containing a line source of infinite length, so it did not violate this theorem despite the absence of exotic matter, but Olum and Everett point out that the theorem "would, however, rule out the creation of CTC's in any finite-sized approximation to this spacetime."

References

External links

* [http://www.physics.uconn.edu/~mallett/main/main.htm Mallett's UConn Homepage]
* [http://www.physics.uconn.edu/~mallett/Mallett2000.pdf R. L. Mallett, "Weak gravitational field of the electromagnetic radiation in a ring laser"]
* [http://www.physics.uconn.edu/~mallett/Mallett2003.pdf R.L. Mallett "The gravitational field of a circulating light beam"]
* [http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1227 My Brilliant Plan] - This American Life The episode contains a story about Ron Mallett's life goal of creating a time machine.
* [http://www.phys.uconn.edu/~mallett/main/documentary.htm A list of documentaries Mallett has been featured in]