The Time Traveler has no problem breathing while time traveling whereas Jack Havig has to stop to breathe which is impossible when the land is under water or ice so Havig's group later uses miniature oxygen tanks small enough to carry through time. Anderson thinks through the idea better than Wells. He also suggests that time travelers see what little they do while traveling because their fields, which might have an electromagnetic component, catch a few photons.
Havig wills himself forward or backward in time and can accelerate by making an effort. He crosses several centuries in a few subjective minutes. If he is aiming for a particular future time, then he will not overshoot it and arrive late although, like other time travelers, he might have to cast about to find his precise destination time. If he is aiming for a particular past time, then some mishap might cause him to stop traveling too early which would make him arrive later than the destination time. (Similarly, a futureward mishap might make him arrive too early.) So maybe we have found one time traveler who can arrive late.
To start answering a question asked here, in 1951, Havig tells Robert Anderson about Berkeley in 1970. Anderson lives long enough to see it for himself. What else does Havig tell Anderson out of time?
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
This seems a bit unclear, as you wrote it. Wouldn't Havig needing to cast about to be sure of finding his desired destination also run the risk of arriving too early or late?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It would but, other things being equal, there would be nothing to prevent him from continuing to cast about until he found hid destination time.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Granted, despite me wondering if the implications of that "casting about" could have been further developed by Anderson.
Ad astra! Sean
Note that Wells' time traveler is in a machine. The machine, and therefore a space of atmosphere, would go along with him. He's in a bubble.
The amount of matter carried along by Havig and his peers is very much smaller.
But Wells' Time Traveler is ON a machine. His Time Machine is open like the Time Patrol timecycles.
Kaor to Both!
Therefore, it seems a flaw of Wells work that his time machine was not enclosed, that some means of enabling his time traveler to breathe was not provided for.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Well, no. The air is thin in the remote future but he breathes more easily as he returns through time so he interacts with his environment enough to breathe the air.
Paul.
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