Ronald L Mallett - The Time Traveller

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THE TIME TRAVELLER

A CORGI BOOK: 9780552155755

First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Doubleday a division of Transworld Publishers Corgi edition published 2008

Copyright Ronald Mallett and Bruce Henderson 2006

Ronald Mallett and Bruce Henderson have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work.

This book is a work of non-fiction based on the life, experiences and recollections of Ronald Mallett. In some limited cases names of people, places, dates, sequences or the detail of events may have been changed to protect the privacy of others. The author has stated to the publishers that, except in such minor respects not affecting the substantial accuracy of the work, the contents of this book are true.

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Ronald Mallett was born in Pennsylvania in 1945 and grew up in the Bronx. In 1973 he was one of the first African-Americans to receive a PhD in theoretical physics and is now a professor of physics at the University of Connecticut. He has published many papers on theoretical physics, and his time travel research has been featured in the TV special The Worlds First Time Machine as well as in publications as diverse as Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone and New Scientist.

Bruce Henderson is the author and co-author of numerous bestselling books, including And the Sea Will Tell and, most recently, True North: Peary, Cook and the Race to the Pole. He teaches writing at Stanford University, and lives in Menlo Park, California.

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The powerful story of a sons love for his father ... provides deep insights into the influences, both positive and negative, that impact an individual wishing to go into science, and the interplay between family, emotions, race, and ambition

Ronald E. Mickens, Ph. D. distinguished Fuller E. Callaway professor of physics at Clark Atlanta University and the author of Mathematics and Science and Mathematical Methods for the Natural and Engineering Sciences

Malletts poignant and powerful text correctly paints the scientist as first and foremost a human being in a way few other scientific autobiographies have managed. The science enthusiast who comes to this work fascinated by Malletts ground-breaking research into time travel will come away with an unexpected understanding of his struggles against prejudice, both societal and scientific

Kristine Larsen, professor of physics and astronomy at Central Connecticut State University and author of Stephen Hawking: A Biography

Mallett is such a great teacher that the complex ideas that shape modern physics arent so scary under the professors easy guidance ... strange, interesting and ultimately touching memoir

Bruce Lieberman, San Diego Union Tribune

Mallett never comes off as a puffy-chested smarty-pants. His delivery is humble, his voice enthusiastic, his optimism contagious. For anyone, but especially for the aspiring scientist, The Time Traveller is a worthwhile and surprisingly entertaining read

Julie Mayeda, San Francisco Chronicle

While a theory for time travel is in itself extraordinary, Malletts own story of how he became one of the first African-American Ph.D.s is just as remarkable ... There have been a number of time travel books published of late, but this is one of the more accomplished. His theory is the first serious and practical attempt at making the impossible possible. The Time Traveller is about far more than theory, however, and will undoubtedly serve as inspiration to budding scientists and the general reader alike Science Book Reviews

Flight by machines heavier than air is impractical ... if not utterly impossible, stated one of the great scientists of the nineteenth century, Johns Hopkins professor of astronomy Simon Newcomb (18351909), who spent much of his career producing improved orbital tables for the moon and planets. Newcomb was convinced that a new metal or unknown force of nature would have to be discovered before man could consider taking to the skies. Even should a power-machine be invented that could lift a man off the ground, he predicted it would fall a dead mass to the ground and kill anyone aboard.

Simon Newcombs comments about the impossibility of manned flight were published in 1902.

A year later, Orville and Wilbur Wright proved the expert wrong.

It was yet another hot and humid summer day in the nations capital as I entered a large lecture hall on the sprawling urban campus of Howard University. Inside the air-conditioned hall, rows of seats rose upward from the podium, creating a theater-like setting that seemed apropos, as I was about to deliver the most important presentation of my life.

Since the age of eleven, I had told only a few confidants about my secret dream. Long fearing professional suicide, I had until recently held off revealing to colleagues at the University of Connecticut, where I am a professor of physics, my hope of turning one of mans favorite science-fiction fantasies into a scientific reality. Had I spoken of it earlier, I would not have received tenure.

The time had arrived. Before fifty or so of the worlds leading physicists assembled here for the International Association for Relativistic Dynamics Third Biennial Conference, I was about to reveal in detail my plan for finally realizing my lifelong goal. It would not be enough for me to tell them my belief that this century will be the century of time travel just as the twentieth century was the century of air and space travel. No, this audience would want the nuts and bolts.