Mike Rossmassler

And anyway, no matter what i do, my treatment of Lady Science will be infinitely more gentlemanly than the one Fox News gives.

Another thing i remember from my childhood is science fiction. It wasn't long ago that science fiction was viewed in the same light as comic books. It was printed on cheap paper that yellowed fast. My dad has a library of pulpy science fiction, some of which was purchased from another staple of my childhood, the Cranbury Bookworm. Eventually, my appetite for new reading material overtook my parents ability to take me to the library and bookstore. So, i turned to our household library. Science fiction was perfectly suited for me. The reading level was not high, and the subject matter meshed nicely with my love for science and math. What i did not realize was that is was priming me for my love of movies and videogames.

Both time and time travel hold a nearly unhealthy fascination in science fiction authors. I think they feel drawn to the possibilities of the paradox, and the uncertainty that that it creates. Not to mention the possibility for the unseen or the unknown. I've explicitly chosen not to deal with the conundrums created by backwards time travel, but i will cover a few examples that i find interesting.

Ray Bradbury is an icon of the science fiction community. One of his famous stories, A Sound Of Thunder, deals with the problems that can arise from the abuse of backwards time travel. In the story, hunters voyage back in time to kill some of the greatest game that has ever walked the earth. The activity of the companies that run these hunts is cleared by a governmental department that is in charge of sorting out the paradoxes that arise. In the climax of the story, the Tyrannosaurus that was to be the subject of the hunt scares the hunter from the prepared path, and he accidentally steps of the path and crushes a butterfly. Upon returning to the future, everyone finds that the dictatorial presidential candidate who had originally lost the recent election, had been elected in the the world-line altered by the crushed butterfly.

One of the mechanics of interest in this story is that the time travellers pass by themselves on their journey to and from the past. This is described as a jostling of the craft as they "bump into" themselves. So, the rule here seems to be that a person can meet himself by moving about in time.

Another of Bradbury's stories Frost and FIre, tells of a planet where a small civilization of people struggle to survive under a so intense that its radiation increases their aging process exponentially. Instead of a normal lifespan, the lifetime of a person on the surface is compressed to five days. This can be extended, if the person moves deeper underground. Those who remain underground are the only keepers and practitioners of knowledge and science. The main character, Sim, finally makes his way to a metal structure that lays on a nearby peak, and finds that it is a spaceship that protects from the harmful radiation, and is capable of taking his people off of the planet. I think that the most interesting point raised in this story is the idea of the changing duration of life for the people on the planet depends on their exposure to the sun. While their actions do not change in speed, their lifespan is longer if they are more removed from the day-to-day activites of life.

Being a huge Philip K Dick fan, i can't leave this essay without mentioning at least some of his work. As it stands, i am currently reading one of his books on time travel, with two more in the queue. One of his short stories, A Little Something For Us Tempunauts, deals with three governmental time travellers (called tempunauts) stuck in a closed time loop that results in their recurring demise. In his world, the Soviets have managed to send travellers(called Chrononauts, in a reference to the space-race) through time first. In an attempt to outdo the Soviets, the American Government sends their tempunauts further, to disasterous results. One of the most interesting points raised in this story, is how the American government relays the information to the public that its tempunauts have experienced distress in their travels. The government shows the tempunauts on television, in the midst of their own funeral precession, and calls them an "image of themselves", in effect saying that the time loop does not continually kill the tempunauts.

In another story Captive Market, survivors of a nuclear war attempt to build a spaceship to leave their ruined planet. Their only means of supply is a small town market owner who has discovered a thin part of space, where she can sell her goods to them at exorbitant prices. In this story, only the shop-owner can move through time, making here the only lifeline for the stranded people. Her position allows her to pick a timeline for the future of the stranded people, which she uses to ruin their escape attempts, and ensure he position as their lifeline.

Dick has numerous other books on time travel, which i hope to cover in the future. His most extensive work, his Exegesis, which remains largely unpublished, straddles the line between memoir, science fiction, and absurdity. In it, he details a belief that mixes Gnosticism, Christianity, science fiction, all mixed in an LSD-spiked kool-aid. In it, he explains how time is an illusion draped over the modern world, a perceptual phenomenon that arises from the true nature of Christ and his imminent return. In it, knowledge is a physical object, and is inextricably bound with God. This combination of the human form and the knowledge (of God) is the manifestation of the Kingdom of God.

At the same time, all of the present events are real, and are occurring. For one, Nixon was a tyrannical despot who was deposed by the will of God for his crimes against mankind. God did this through another of his forms, an extrasolar satellite called VALIS, which transmits information directly into individuals brains through Pink Light. In other stories, Dick suggests that God is contained in pottery, which i believe can be linked to his belief that knowledge is a physical object, present a mushroom that could be eaten, or mixed into a drink, and was stored in clay pots, along with the Nag Hammadi Library. If any of this seems complicated or non-sensical, then i have done a good job of filtering it for you, as i have pieced a lot of this together from readings, the internet, and drawing parallels between Dick's novels. Since the Exegesis is not (and will likely never be) published in its entirety, a lot of the contradictions that might be explained are still a mystery. However, since this written nearing the end of Dick's life, it is difficult to separate what is his personal paranoia, what is simply his overindulgence in drugs, his peculiar ideas on science, science fiction, religion and what is simply a gigantic story.

Any article on time should contain at least some reference to The Time Machine, and to Slaughterhouse Five. The Time Machine is the archetype for a large portion of the "journeys through time" stories, and Slaughterhouse Five deals with the experience of moving along a fixed timeline.

Which leads me to an article that Jamie Antonisse (or Jaime, as my phone refers to him), posted here: http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html
It deals with the repercussions of altering the existing timeline, particularly with unforseen consequences. While the goal of "making things right" seems to be a common one amongst time-travellers, it seems that AsianAvenger forgot his Bradbury, and stepped on the proverbial butterfly.

The mechanics of time in popular science fiction cannot go without the mention of popular TV. While i am unfamiliar with Dr. Who (if anyone has this to lend, please let me know), there are a wealth of other examples that need to be mentioned. In short order, Fry is his own grandfather (among numerous other time-travel related curiosities) in Futurama, Derek Reese watches himself at 5, his older brother (Kyle) at 13, and his older brother's son (John Connor) at 18, in The Sarah Connor Chronicles. In Red Dwarf, Dave Lister and company encounter a dimension where time runs backwards, and they make a living as "backwards entertainers." And I can't let Lost, one of my current televisual addictions, go unmentioned. It seems that certain people and areas have an impermanent connection to time, allowing them to move consciousness across time and space.