Ronald Mallett was born in Pennsylvania in 1945 and grew up in the Bronx. In 1973 he was one of the first African-Americans to receive a PhD in theoretical physics and is now a professor of physics at the University of Connecticut. He has published many papers on theoretical physics, and his time travel research has been featured in the TV special The World's First Time Machine as well as in publications as diverse as Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone and New Scientist.

Bruce Henderson is the author and co-author of numerous bestselling books, including And the Sea Will Tell and, most recently, True North: Peary, Cook and the Race to the Pole. He teaches writing at Stanford University, and lives in Menlo Park, California.