Jack Havig, time traveler, says:
"'...it must be some kind of force that moves me.'" (p. 37)
But he doesn't move, does he? He remains stationary on the Earth's surface, seated on a chair in his first demonstration to Robert Anderson. He continues to move around both the Sun and the galactic center with the Earth but so does everyone else. What happens is that Jack experiences time dilation. Thus, he slows down by comparison with everyone else. He becomes statue-like. And there is no reason why he should become invisible and intangible. Robert Anderson feels the chair "...and no form occupied it." (p. 36) But Jack is still in the chair. He has not gone anywhere else.
Wells' Time Traveler says that he becomes invisible because he is moving too fast to be seen but he is not moving, indeed has slowed down. And, even though a bullet or the spoke of a wheel moves invisibly fast, we will certainly feel it if we stand in front of the flying bullet or put our finger between the moving spokes.
Wells' account of time travel is hopeless and Anderson's would benefit from some reconceptualization.
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Some reconceptualizing by Anderson of THERE WILL BE TIME? Maybe, but having mutant time travelers who become statue like and don't disappear would also raise problems. For one thing it would become HISTORICALLY known certain persons became "like statues" for a century or more before coming back to life. How to make sense of that for the purposes of THERE WILL BE TIME would also cause problems.
No, I think having these mutant time travelers disappear would cause fewer problems for the story.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I agree that invisible time travelers make for a better story but I want a better rationalization of it.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That I can agree with, once the difficulty you raised was pointed out.
Ad astra! Sean
If you're traveling through time in a manner different from ordinary duration, it would seem plausible that you'd cease to interact in the way matter usually does. Everything else in the universe is traveling forward in time at a set rate; you're not.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
So the time traveler would seem to turn into a statue? I can see that causing near insuperable problems for THERE WILL BE TIME.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: no, it's equally likely that he wouldn't be perceptible as matter at all.
But I don't think it is true that everything else is traveling forward in time at a set rate. We are at 3:00 PM and at 4:00 PM and at every intermediate time. We do not move from 3:00 to 4:00. That way of putting it spatializes the temporal interval from 3:00 to 4:00 and unnecessarily involves a second temporal dimension in which we are moving at a uniform rate from 3:00 to 4:00.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: So the mutant time travelers of THERE WILL BE TIME might still seem to disappear, to simply not BE there when "going" from Time A to Time B.
Paul: It's going to be very difficult to avoid using language that "spatializes" time travel when trying to make sense of it. We simply don't have the right LANGUAGE for it.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I agree that there are language problems but we can clarify this distinction: I walk from the Town Hall to the Park (a spatial distance) and it takes me half an hour (a period of time). If I walk faster, then I cover the same distance in half the time. I was never taught calculus at school but I understand that this branch of mathematics covers this situation: one quantity changing as another does.
If I merely exist, e.g., sitting in a chair, for an hour, then there is a period of time but no corresponding spatial distance. Thus, there is neither motion nor speed. I do not move from 3:00 to 4:00 at the rate of 60 minutes per hour with the possibility of speeding up to 120 minutes per hour! 60 minutes ARE an hour. 60 miles are NOT an hour. So I can move at 60 miles per hour but not at 60 minutes per hour. I merely endure or exist for 60 minutes which equals one hour.
We extend and move through space and endure through time. Motion through space takes time. Extension and endurance do not take time. (I think.) (I am trying to clarify, not to dogmatize.)
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I read these comments twice, and I think I understand. The hard part is trying to make sense of time travel.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I think it is straightforward that 60 min = 1 hour which is merely a period of time whereas 60 miles per hour is a speed involving both space and time. I can move at 60 miles per hour whereas I do not move at 60 minutes per hour. I can accelerate to 120 miles per hour whereas I cannot accelerate to 120 minutes per hour. The idea that we move through time is an illusion. Someone sitting in a chair for an hour is not moving anywhere except through space with Earth like anyone else. Wells' Time Traveler begins by saying that we merely extend along time (the 4th dimension), then contradicts himself by saying that the Time Machine accelerates, moves faster than everything else in that direction. Yet, despite allegedly moving faster than everything else, the Time Traveler still finds everything else waiting for him when he arrives in 802,701 AD. This account is completely incoherent.
Paul.
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