The Hyper-Matrix Of The Continuum

World lines can be represented by curving lines on a sheet of paper.

Each timeline in the Time Patrol series could be represented by a different sheet.

Such sheets could be bound together as the pages of a book.

Each page represents an entire four-dimensional space-time continuum.

The pattern of curving lines on any given sheet is the matrix of a particular continuum.

The entire book is the "hyper-matrix" to which Guion seeks "'...a clue...'" (The Shield Of Time, p. 8).

Guion wants to find out if there is any way to intuit the relationships between the pages of the book because he already knows that there are successive pages and that they interact. What is the matrix of the next page after ours?

The world line of a human being is simply that person as a psychophysical organism enduring or extending from birth to death.

Each point on the curving line represents a moment in that person's life.

When awake, the person remembers "past" moments and anticipates "future" moments.

A hypothetical reader of the book sees no present moment on the page but knows that, at each moment, points to the left are regarded as past and those to the right as future.

When the reader turns from page 1 to page 2, he no longer sees the lines on page 1 but this does not negate the fact that each human being represented on page 1 was conscious, when not asleep, from birth to death. The person's life was not chopped off at any intermediate point because the page was turned.