building a time machine

Dr Ronald L Mallett, a physics professor at the University of Connecticut thinks he can build a time travel machine.

He's written a book -

The Time Traveller: One Man's Mission To Make Time Travel A Reality, by Ronald L. Mallett with Bruce Henderson, published by Doubleday (£14.99 - UK) and Avalon Publishing Group ($24.95 - USA)

From the UK Daily Mail

"Mallett isn't mad," the New Scientist article said. "None of the known laws of physics forbids time-travel.

"In theory, shunting matter back and forth through time shouldn't be that difficult."

So, how do you build a machine which will take you back into the past - or forward to the future?

In fact, there have been several plans for a time machine devised by physicists since Einstein's mind-blowing discovery that reverse timetravel should be possible.

and

But consider, too, all the weird paradoxes that the time machine would create. You could come face-to-face with your past self, causing untold confusion. What, for example, would happen if you killed your past self? Would both versions of 'you' die at the same time?

Mallet believes these paradoxes would not in themselves prevent the construction of such a machine. But there are plenty of sceptics.

Some physicists think that the laser upon which his machine depends would need to be impossibly large or powerful. Others point to Stephen Hawking's 'chronology protection conjecture', which says that quantum effects may conspire to prevent the possibility of a time machine.

But, while some physicists have questioned Mallett's approach, no one has yet proved with absolute certainty that the machine would not work.

Temporal instability in the space-time continuum?

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Argh, back to work today. I could do with a week off work!