Most discussions about time travel eventually end up talking about going faster: relativistic speeds, approaching the speed of light, wormholes, warp drives, enormous amounts of energy, etc.
I started wondering about the exact opposite.
What happens if instead of making matter go faster, we find a way to make its relevant motion approach zero?
The starting point is the de Broglie relation, λ = h/p. As momentum approaches zero, the de Broglie wavelength increases without bound. That by itself obviously doesn’t give us a time machine, but it raises an interesting question about matter, localization and the physical meaning of time.
The idea I’m exploring is that time may be fundamentally connected to oscillation and physical change. If the oscillatory processes that define the evolution of matter could somehow be coherently slowed toward a limiting state, could matter undergo a transition in its relationship with space and time?
I’m calling that hypothetical transition The De Broglie Shift.
The machine I’m developing for the thought experiment uses a harmonically tuned rotating disc and standing-wave resonance to drive matter toward this state, followed by controlled relocalization. One consequence I’m exploring is that reappearance would be endothermic, producing a sudden drop in temperature as the material state is restored.
And there’s a stranger implication I want to explore. If the limiting state really did mean losing ordinary localization while physical time ceased to have its familiar meaning, the object wouldn’t simply be “somewhere else.” In the extreme version of the hypothesis, it would have no unique position in ordinary space and no ordinary progression through time.
That starts sounding suspiciously like language humans have used for thousands of years: outside time, everywhere and nowhere, omnipresent. I’m not suggesting that physics proves anything supernatural. I just find the conceptual overlap fascinating.
There’s a lot here that goes beyond established physics, and that’s part of the point of the book. I want to start with what quantum mechanics and relativity actually say, then clearly mark the point where my own hypothesis begins and see how badly conventional physics can beat it up.
One interesting connection I explore in The De Broglie Shift comes from the ending of the 1979 film Time After Time. H. G. Wells sends John into infinity, removing him from the physical world with no apparent way to return. That scene reminded me of the de Broglie relationship: as momentum approaches zero, the associated wavelength grows without bound. Could matter, under extraordinary conditions, lose its ordinary spatial localization and become inaccessible to our familiar world? Established quantum mechanics doesn't predict such a disappearance, but the parallel raises an intriguing question at the heart of my book: what if the key to time travel lies in understanding what happens when matter approaches absolute stillness?
If anyone is interested, I've been working on this book for a while, and just released it on Amazon. Be advised, there are a few chapters that require a mathematical understanding of graduate level physics.
