CHAPTER ONE

Sitting around the dinner table, a teacher, a doctor, a psychologist, and myself—all of us pleasantly full from the meal we had just finished and pleasantly relaxed from the wine we had been drinking—we listened to our host, the scientist, as he prepared to explain, with great excitement, a new idea he had come upon.

"Now that I have your attention, I'd like to ask that you open your minds a little to what I am about to tell you. For it will be most natural for you to think me a crazy fool when you hear it."

"And how is that any different from the way we think of you now, dear scientist?" joked Filby, the scientist's closest friend.

Laughing, the scientist responded, "Yes, yes ... but seriously, I'm afraid that I have come to the conclusion that many of the things we were taught in school were quite incorrect, especially mathematics."

The laughing stopped and Filby, who was a math teacher, spoke up, "How can that be? Look at all the progress we've made in the world! We must be doing something right!"

"But that is, of course, why our progress is so slow and limited, dear Filby," replied the scientist. "Take, for example, a line." Here, the scientist took a notepad from his pocket and began to draw as he spoke. "A line is measured by its length, yes?"

"Are you trying to insult our intelligence?" asked Manning, the doctor. "We studied this in high school geometry!"

"Please, have patience. To make my point, I must start with the most basic mathematical laws." Continuing, the scientist said, "Now, if we draw three more lines, we then make a square, which we can measure not only by its length, but its width, as well." He lifted the paper and showed the men his drawing. Then turning to Filby, he asked, "could you hand me that box of cards, please?"

"With pleasure, sir," said Filby, smiling and pushing the box toward the scientist.

"Now, this is also a square, but ... "

"It can be measured by its depth. Yes, yes, could you please get to the point," interrupted the doctor, impatiently.

"The point is this: it seems our math teachers all believe that space is measured according to just those three basic dimensions: height, width, and depth. However, they are mistaken here; for there is a fourth dimension."

"And what dimension would that be?" asked Filby, now seeming a little uncomfortable.

"Why, time, of course." The whole room remained silent. After giving the gentlemen a few moments to think about this, the scientist continued by pointing to three paintings leaning against the wall behind him. They were pictures of a man at different stages in his life. "Just look at these pictures. Here, the fellow is eight. In the next, he is fifteen. And in the last, he is twenty-one. That is the fourth dimension being expressed by the other three dimensions. Do you understand?"

I then, felt the need to speak. "I think I do. However, I see a problem. Space is something in which we should be able to move. We can move about in the other dimensions of space. We can walk forward, backward, side-to-side, and we can jump up and down. We cannot, however, move in time. We must always remain in the present."

"Very good, but if you consider how impossible it must have seemed to people not very long ago that man should be able to fly up into the air in a balloon, why should it be so impossible to imagine all the other possibilities, including movement through time?"

"Because it is crazy!" cried out Filby.

"Why is it crazy?" asked the scientist.

"Look, even if you could somehow show that 2 + 2 = 5, I still wouldn't believe it."

"I'm afraid that that would be too difficult for me to prove, but I can prove the possibility of time travel. I've been performing experiments. Would you like to see the results?"

"Experiments? Ha!" laughed the doctor. "Please, Oh please, scientist. I beg you, share with us your wonderful discovery!"

The scientist smiled at this, and with his hands in his pockets he left the room and walked slowly down the hall toward his laboratory, leaving the three of us alone in the dining room.

The doctor lit another cigar and said, "This must be some kind of joke. Remember last Christmas, when he somehow made that 'spirit' appear before us? I don't know how he did it, of course. But these scientists are all very clever and much too eager for fame and fortune. They love to show off their intelligence by tricking us into believing in their grand ideas."

No one else said anything, for the scientist was just then returning to the room. In his hands he held a small metal object, no larger than an alarm clock. It looked very fragile, because of all the small instruments inside. He set it carefully on the table and moved a lamp closer, so that we could see it more clearly.

"This is a model of a machine I am building. I spent two years planning and putting it together."

"Well, it's certainly well made! Very lovely, indeed!" said Filby.

"This machine will make it possible for me to travel through time. Look here, this is where the passenger sits and operates the machine. Do you see this lever inside? Pushing this will send me forward into the future, however far I desire. And by pulling back that other lever, I can travel into the past. Now, doctor, would you be so kind as to give me your hand?"

"What do you plan to do?" asked the doctor, a little frightened.

"I'm going to let you pull one of the levers and send this model into another time. But, first, I want all of you, to take a very close look at it. I want there to be no question about the reality of this machine and it's abilities. I am not playing any tricks on you. I'm showing you this model at great cost, for once this machine is gone, I will never be able to get it back."

Giving the men time to examine the machine and its surroundings, the scientist again addressed the doctor, "Now please, sir, your hand."

Taking the doctor's hand in his, he guided it toward the machine. "You needn't be so gentle, the levers are quite strong."

The doctor's finger slowly pushed one of the levers forward. The machine then started to turn round and round, faster and faster, until it became unclear to the eye. Moments later, it disappeared, leaving only the lamp on the table.

Silence followed, until Filby said to himself. "Well, look at that!" I began to search about the room and under the table for any signs of the machine. Meanwhile the doctor, having dropped his cigar, tried to light a new one with his shaking hands.

The scientist, smiling proudly, said, "Well? What do you think of it, gentlemen?"

"Was that some kind of a trick? Do you really believe that that machine is now traveling in time as we speak?" asked the doctor.

"Of course, it is. However, I could not see which lever you moved, so I'm not sure whether it is going forward or backward in time."

"It must be going backward," said Filby.

"And why do you say that?" asked the scientist.

"Because, if it were moving forward into the future, we should still be able to see it."

"But if it were moving into the past, we should have seen it during our dinner or last week when we met here for drinks," I pointed out.

The scientist was excited to see us taking the machine so seriously. Smiling, he said, "Actually, gentlemen, it's quite simple. Think of a gun, for example. When someone shoots it, can we see the bullet as it flies through the air? Of course not! My time machine is no different. Because of the great speed at which it is traveling, it cannot be seen until it stops traveling. And then it can only be seen at the time and place at which it stopped."

"Hm. Well, it seems believable now, after several glasses of wine, but we'll see how believable it is tomorrow morning when I wake up."

"Gentlemen, I assure you, this has not been a trick of any kind," said the scientist very seriously. "Would you like to see the real machine?" Picking up the lamp, he began walking back into the hallway, saying, "You'll have to come with me to my laboratory this time. The machine is much too large to bring in here."

We followed him down the long hallway and into the large room that was his work area. Everywhere were scientific instruments and glass containers bubbling with different colored liquids. Leading us to the rear of the room, he pulled back a large curtain, revealing a larger version of the model we had just seen disappear. It looked like it was almost finished.

"All that I have left to do is attach those things over there and my machine will be ready for travel!" he said pointing to his work table, on which lay two very large, curved pieces of metal.

"Please tell me that this is some kind of joke!" said the doctor.

"This machine that you see here is my life's work. If you cannot take this seriously, you can never take me seriously. So, I beg of you, please stop looking for a trick in all this." answered the scientist.

All of us stood there staring at the wonderful machine before us. None of us knew what to think of it. We all respected and admired the scientist, but this was something too impossible to believe. I looked over at Filby, who knew the scientist better than any of us, and was surprised to see him smiling. He turned to me and started to shake his head, saying softly, "What if he really has done it? What if this is all for real? Think about it!"

"Do you actually plan to risk your life in that thing?" asked the doctor.

The scientist, closing the curtain, replied, "What would be the point of building it if I didn't intend to carry out the experiment?"

(end of section)