Iranian claims to have invented ‘time machine’

TWO years after Iran claimed it had produced the world’s first flying saucer, it is again boasting that it has turned science fiction into fact.

A profilic young inventor in Tehran maintains he has developed a time machine that allows users to zip forward up to nearly a decade. It is, he said, being coveted by the Chinese.

Ali Razeghi, 27, says his device will help Iran’s government predict the possibility of military confrontation with adversarial powers and forecast fluctuations in foreign currency values and oil prices.

“Naturally, a government that can see five years into the future would be able to prepare itself for challenges that might destabilise it,” Mr Razeghi told Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency. “As such, we expect to market this invention among states as well as individuals once we reach a mass production stage.”

His Aryayek Time Travelling Machine works by a set of complex algorithms “to predict five to eight years of the future life of any individual, with 98 per cent accuracy”.

There is no rewind button to visit the past. And, rather confusingly, Mr Razeghi says his time machine “will not take you into the future – it will bring the future to you”. Iran’s self-styled time lord said he began work on the project 10 years ago, when he would have been 17.

He has registered his machine – the size of a laptop computer – with Iran’s state-run Centre for Strategic Inventions, where he is managing director and has 179 other inventions listed under his name.

Iran will not launch a prototype at this stage because “the Chinese will steal the idea and produce it in millions overnight”, Mr Razeghi added.