September 21, 2009--Actor Rod Taylor "tests" a time machine in a still from the 1960 film The Time Machine, inspired by a 1895 novella by British writer H.G. Wells. One of the founders of modern science fiction, H.G. Wells would have celebrated his 143rd birthday today.

The time machine was one of many future technologies that H.G. Wells popularized in his 20 novels and dozens of short stories. Although such a device isn't one of Wells's fancies that has since come to fruition, a time machine is within the realm of possibility, said Richard Muller, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley.

"There are many physicists who will tell you it is proven impossible, but that is not the case," Muller said. "We just haven't figured out how to do it."

(Tune in to the National Geographic Channel's Time Machine on Thursday, September 24 at 11 a.m.)

--Richard A. Lovett

More on H.G. Wells
• H.G. Wells Predictions Ring True, 143 Years Later
• H.G. Wells Birthday Quiz: The Man Behind the Fiction
• H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds: Behind the 1938 Radio Show Panic
• Are Neighborhood Aliens Listening to Earth Radio?
• Honoring H.G. Wells: Crop Circles Go Worldwide Overnight
• ON TV: Time Machine, Airing Thursday, September 24