One of my favorite movies growing up was “The Time Machine.”

“The Time Machine” is based on a 1895 science fiction novel by H. G. Wells about a Victorian scientist known as the “Time Traveller” who travels to the year 802,701. 

The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a specially made chair that takes one into the future. The 1960s movie I saw, which kept me and my friends glued to the screen, starred Rod Taylor. 

Does traveling through time seem like fiction or fact, or a hairbrained idea?

No, according to Dr. Ronald Mallet, a distinguished astrophysicist and professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut.

He claims to have discovered the equation that could unlock temporal displacement, pushing boundaries once deemed purely science fiction.

He started on his journey when his father, a television repairman, suddenly died of a heart attack. Boyd Mallett, only 33, died, leaving his son grief-stricken.

His solace came through H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine.” Within its pages, Mallett found a captivating concept: “Time is only a kind of Space.” These words transformed from a literary phrase into a guiding principle, becoming the driving force behind his unwavering commitment to unraveling time’s fundamental mysteries.

Mallett’s vision for a functioning time machine replicates spacetime-warping phenomena around black holes. He offers a compelling analogy: “Picture a cup of coffee. Stir it with a spoon, and the coffee swirls. A spinning black hole does the same to spacetime.”

In Einstein’s general relativity, the universe is a dynamic fabric woven from space and time.

Massive objects like black holes warp this fabric—an effect we perceive as gravity. Mallett theorizes that an intense, continuous, circulating beam of light from a ring of powerful lasers could replicate this gravitational torsion, effectively twisting time into a loop.

This “time loop” would theoretically allow information—or perhaps matter—to travel backward in time. He detailed this mathematical concept in his 2006 autobiography, “Time Traveler: A Scientist’s Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality.”

His work has been published worldwide

His work, published in respected journals, including Physics Letters A and Foundations of Physics, suggests that circulating laser light could generate gravitational fields potent enough to create closed timelike curves, enabling time travel for data.

Mallett’s research has gained worldwide media attention, featured on National Public Radio’s This American Life, the History Channel, and NBC’s Today Show. The widespread interest reflects both his compelling personal story and rigorous scientific approach.

While Mallett’s equations captivate imagination, the path to reality faces immense obstacles. The energy requirement is staggering—Mallett acknowledges needing “galactic amounts of energy,” far beyond current technological capabilities.

There’s also a poignant limitation: even if realized, his machine could only send information back to when it was first activated, meaning it couldn’t transport him to 1955 to prevent his father’s death.

The scientific community remains skeptical, but others have found a way to travel through time. 

Michio Kaku, an American theoretical physicist, futurist, and popularizer of science, has shared his opinion about time travel.

“Most people think that time travel is impossible,” Michio Kaku said in an interview, “But believe it or not, there is no law of physics preventing time travel.”

Kaku is one of many scientists who believe in the future of humanity advancing technologically to explore the stars. He made reference to the beliefs of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein on the concept of time travel.

Physicists Ken Olum and Allen Everett argue that Mallett’s proposed laser ring would need to be larger than the observable universe to achieve the necessary spacetime distortion. They invoke Stephen Hawking’s chronology protection conjecture, suggesting physics may prevent macroscopic time travel.

Astrophysicist Paul Sutter has voiced doubts about Mallett’s underlying mathematics, while science writer Brian Clegg finds the concept intriguing enough to warrant experimental investigation.