Time traveling professor featured in Ripley's book

Inside a non-descript office on the fourth floor of the UConn's labyrinthine physics complex, between professors having office hours and students waiting outside to lament the results of their latest exam, is the office of arguably one of the most interesting people on campus - Ronald Mallett. When he's not busy teaching classes, Mallett is working on something extraordinary: a time machine.

Mallett has been discussed by various media outlets over the years, including BBC, CNN, the Boston Globe and Rolling Stone. Most recently, he was featured in Ripley's recent book, "Seeing is Believing," alongside a Connecticut couple who were married in a piercings parlor. While Ripley's usual fare is news of the strange and surreal, Mallett and his time machine are anything but. Mallett, who had not known he would be featured in the book until he was contacted for this story, said he had mixed feelings about appearing in Ripley's. On one hand, he said being in the book will draw more publicity to him and his project. On the other, most people who will read it don't know that his work is deeply rooted in hard science, including the works of Albert Einstein.

Mallett has had three papers on time travel published in accredited physics journals, and has also written a book his work titled "Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality." The book is currently being made into a movie by Spike Lee. In a 2008 press release, Lee called the book "a fantastic story on many levels and also a father-and-son story of loss and love." The script for the movie, which is also being written by Lee, is nearly done, but a release date for the film itself has not been discussed, Mallet said.

The driving force behind the project was the loss of Mallett's father to a smoking-related heart attack at the age of 33, when Mallett was 10 years old. The primary goal for Mallett was to be able to go back in time and stop his father from smoking. He was inspired by a comic-book version of H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine," and spent years reading through books by physicists like Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. He spent four years in the Air Force to pay for college.

The device itself, according to Mallett, would look nothing like the machine from Wells' novel. Instead, it would be microscopic and involve lasers and mirrors rather than levers and gears. At the core of the machine is an as-yet-undeveloped ring laser, which, when combined with a series of mirrors and other hardware, would enable human time travel. The laser is currently being developed with the help of Chandra Roychoudhuri, a laser specialist at UConn. Recently, Mallet was able to secure a partnership with his alma mater, Penn State, and their Electro-Optics Center. The Electro-Optics Center is one of the most highly regarded laser labs in the United States, with such clients as the Defense Department and DARPA. Mallett said he hopes to secure $1 million in funding to start the project and $10 million to develop its first phase. Much of that funding is expected to come from grants to the Electro-Optics Center. Mallett said that the project is "really taking off" in comparison to where it was three years ago.

Mallett will give a presentation on his work at the Connecticut Science Center on November 4th at 6 p.m. Tickets are $25 for non-members and $15 for premier members.