In 2006, Alan built a time machine. And not just any time machine. A particularly fine-grained time machine, which could advance or go back one second at a time.
In fact it could actually only advance or go back by a single second, stepping back into the past a second, or jumping forward into the future a second. And maybe it didn’t actually even do that, but it was really difficult to tell.
The device was originally described in the documentary movie The Science of Sleep. Well, maybe it wasn’t a documentary, but it was a movie. And it did feature the time machine that Alan faithfully reproduced.
Similar to in the documentary, Alan presented the invention to the love of his life, Priscilla. As a birthday… present. And it even worked! At least as well as the one in the movie did anyway.