Disappearing Act

Why should a time machine disappear on departure and appear on arrival? The Time Machine offers an explanation that does not add up. The travelling Time Machine is compared to the spoke of a wheel spinning too fast to be seen or to a bullet flying through the air. First, the Time Machine is not moving anywhere. Secondly, we will certainly feel the spoke or the bullet if we get in its way whereas the Psychologist, one of the Time Traveller's dinner guests, passes his hand through the space where they had seen the model Time Machine before its departure.

Appearance and disappearance are convenient for fictional purposes. They also make more sense in the case of the Time Patrol timecycles because these vehicles do not exist in the space-time between departure and arrival.

"She and her vehicle blinked out of sight. He paid no heed to the usual snap of air rushing in where they had been."

-The Shield Of Time, p. 297.

"Machine and rider vanished."

-ibid., p. 318.

"A Patrol machine appeared."

-Time Patrol, p. 281.

"There followed a puff, and he was gone."

-ibid., p. 694.

"Whoosh. The second machine above the first, its riders flattening themselves below the ceiling."

-ibid., p. 713.

"But whoosh. Luis is gone."

-ibid.

And so on.