The scientist who devoted his life to the construction of a time machine



[ad_1]

Ron Mallett has a dream that he has dedicated his life to: traveling back in time.

And this is not just a fantasy: Mallett is a respected physicist and professor at the University of Connecticut, USA.

"I see myself as an ordinary pbadionate person, and my pbadion is the possibility of traveling back in time ," said Mallett, whose work was the theme of the Horizon Science Program. , from the BBC.

And the 73-year-old physicist confessed that his great pbadion originated in a personal tragedy.

"Back to my father"

Mallett's father, an inveterate smoker, died of a heart attack just 33 years old, when his son was 10 years old.

Mallett was devastated and took refuge in books.

  Photo of the father of Ron Mallett [19659009] Photo of the father of Ron Mallett

BBC
Mallett dreamed like a child with the construction of a m Machine to go back in time to see his father, dead when the physicist was 10.

"A year after my father's death, I found a book that changed my life." The book was "The Time Machine", by HG Wells. "

" The cover caught my eye, but what enthralled me was what he said inside: "Scientists know that time is a form of life. Space and that we can come and go in time, as we do in space ""

"When I read that I told myself, that if I could to build a machine to go back in time, I could go back in the past, review my father and maybe save his life, "recalls the scientist

A tunnel to the past

The idea of ​​a time machine may seem crazy, but scientists are already looking for answers that might someday become reality Mallett's Vision

  Rod Taylor in a Scene from the movie

Getty Images
The actor Rod Taylor played in a movie version of the book that inspired Mallett as a child "The Time Machine", by HG Wells.

Albert Einstein pointed out that the three dimensions of space are time-dependent, a fourth dimension.

Einstein called this system space-time and is the model currently used to explain the universe.

But Einstein also thought that it was possible. curve space time and creates a bridge . The phenomenon is called " wormhole " and can be visualized as a tunnel with two outputs, each at a different point in space-time.

Wormholes could exist naturally in the The cosmos and scientists in Russia use radio telescopes to try to detect them

Dark energy

But using wormholes to travel in time will not be easy .

The nearest could be several light years away. And even if we could reach them and survive the journey we do not know where we would end.

The mysterious phenomenon of Black Energy could offer a solution.

In the 90s, astronomers found that the expansion of the universe accelerates.

"Something has an anti-gravitational effect We do not know what it is, but it is in a large part of the Universe. "Dark energy," said BBC Tamara Davis, a cosmologist at the University of Queensland Australia

A vortex would only work in time if its entrance or "mouth" could remain open long enough . And that requires negative energy, which does not exist in everyday life.

But according to Davis, black energy could keep tunnel openings as long as needed.

"We do not know if we can create a wormhole if something like that would be in our technical capacity, but who knows what will come to a future human civilization " the cosmologist

"Technology has progressed so fast that maybe one day we will manage to control space and time."

When stirring a cup of coffee "

Ron Mallett has a other proposal

Mallett's plan for a time machine is inspired by a book on the equations of Einstein that he read at the age 12 years .

The physicist at the University of Connecticut has constructed a device to illustrate the principles that would make it possible to build a real machine in the future, according to the BBC

  Ron Mallett in front of a blackboard

BBC
The device Mallett uses a laser to generate a ring of light inside which the space is curved and for "also time".

The device uses a laser to generate a n circular beam. The space inside this ring of light should be curved, "like when you're stirring a cup of coffee," says Mallett.

And because space and time are intimately linked, space […] would be curved time . Mallett's work showed that if the laser had the necessary intensity in a sufficiently small space, it would be possible to modify the linear time in which we live.

All that existed was in space – time

The idea of ​​Mallett would require large amounts of energy and work at the microscopic scale.

And even if we managed to build a time machine, using it successfully would require a greater understanding of the time . Einstein "width =" 624 "height =" 447 "data-lazy-src =" https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/10688/production/_102480276_5ef1e885-61d4-4926-be21-458f4084e889.jpg "/ >

SPL
Albert Einstein pointed out that the three dimensions of space are time-dependent, a fourth dimension.

The generally accepted idea is that l & # 39; Universe is a space-time block

"The important thing about this model is the idea that the past, the present and the future are also real. So you can think that all that existed, exists or will exist is in some a place in space ", explains Kristie Miller, director of the Center for the Study of Time University of Sydney, Australia

This means that" the dinosaurs are there in the past, we are here now and all the future. "He is somewhere in space-time," he explains

One way to visualize this model is to think of points in time as places in Space

"I'm in Sydney, Singapore or London, and these places are perfectly real," Miller said.

"The pbadage of time is real"

This model implies, however, that the past, present and future are already written and even though we could travel in the

The block model deals with our everyday experience of time as an illusion, a way in which human beings rationalize reality.

But Lee Smolin, of the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Canada, believes that the pbadage of time is a fundamental and real phenomenon

"Traveling in time is probably impossible " , Smolin said to the BBC

"If the real is the present moment, the past is only real in the sense that we have memories or recordings and the future does not exist yet, so it does not exist. There is nowhere to travel. "

" You Should Never Say Never "

Neil Turok, director of the Perimeter Institute that the strange world of the Quantum Physics can be crucial to solving the puzzle.

  Tamara Davis

BBC
"Technology has progressed so fast that maybe someday we will succeed in controlling space and" In the smaller scales of quantum physics the rules of clbadical physics that are taught in collegiate texts do not work. "

In the quantum world, for example, a particle may be in several places at the same time.

there is a possibility that we go back in time. In quantum physics, nothing is impossible ", explains Turok

For the moment, the journey through time remains a distant hope because" no one really has a plausible idea about how to go back in time. "

But Turok says that" you should never say never. "

" Someone from very smart could tell us how to change the rules.


Now you can receive notifications from the BBC World Download the new version of our application and activate it to not miss our best content.


[ad_2]
Source link