(Unlike the rest of this blog, this is fiction. Or is it?)
Alright, let’s do this, Daniel thought as he walked down into the basement from the kitchen, coffee cup in one hand and a small notepad in another. Walking up to his workshop in the corner, he put the coffee at the left edge of the desk, as far away from the mess of electronics and wires as possible, and sat down. The notepad went onto the desk right in front of him. Its top page showed the indentations left by the pen when Daniel wrote yesterday’s to-do list onto the previous top page, now torn out.
In front of him, occupying most of the desk, was what once used to be a microwave, before it was disassembled, modified, and reassembled most of the way back. Its inner chamber was now lined with reflective insulation, blocking the view inside; its right panel was missing because it didn’t fit over the new set of transformers and relays; and on top Daniel had bolted on a printed circuit board with the microcontroller—the new brains for the device. But the main changes, what made this no longer a microwave, were on the inside. If he was right, and several different calculations suggested that he was, these changes should let him send small amounts of matter back in time. In theory, at least. Today was the day to see if it worked.