Scientist in Tehran says he has created a time machine to see into the future

Imagine what would happen if a nation like Iran could travel in time. It could be some very bad things, given their leader’s views on some pretty important issues including homosexuals, the Holocaust and women’s rights.

And now a scientist in Iran says he has done the unthinkable and has registered “The Aryayek Time Traveling Machine” with the Iranian Centre for Strategic Inventions.

The report comes from The Telegraph, which picked up its story of scientist Ali Razeghi’s invention from the Iranian state news agency. (Though, that initial report seems to have disappeared, at least from the English-lanugage version of the site, after Iran saw into the future of many readers laughing at its outrageous report.)

Though Razeghi, who works as a manager at Iran’s Centre for Strategic Inventions, has reportedly been working on this time machine for a decade, he also has 179 other inventions listed under his name.

Before you get too excited about the prospect of zipping into the past and the future, the machine can only use a set of algorithms to see into the future with 98 per cent accuracy. It can’t take you there. And it can’t go into the past. “My invention easily fits into the size of a personal computer case and can predict details of the next 5-8 years of the life of its users. It will not take you into the future, it will bring the future to you,” says Razeghi in the Times story.

Razeghi predicts that the seeing-into-the-future device will be helpful for governments and military, but it might be a while until Iran can harness its power. It’s got to be super sneaky about it, lest the Chinese catch on. “The reason that we are not launching our prototype at this stage is that the Chinese will steal the idea and produce it in millions overnight,” says Razeghi.