The Time Machine

von H. G. Wells

The Time Traveller, as we’ve come to call him, was diving into a complex topic that evening. His grey eyes sparkled with excitement, and his usually pale face was flushed with animation. The fire crackled warmly, and the soft glow from the silver lamps danced on the bubbles in our glasses. The chairs he had designed cradled us comfortably, creating a cozy, indulgent atmosphere that followed a satisfying dinner—an atmosphere where thoughts flowed freely, unbound by the constraints of strict logic.

He leaned forward, marking his points with a slender finger as we lounged back, appreciating his passion for this intriguing paradox he was presenting.

“Listen closely,” he urged. “I’m going to challenge a few ideas that most people take for granted. For example, the geometry you learned in school is based on a misunderstanding.”

“Isn’t that a bit much to ask us to start with?” Filby, a man known for his argumentative nature and red hair, interjected.

“I’m not asking you to accept anything without good reason. You’ll soon see what I need from you. You know that a mathematical line, which has no thickness, doesn’t actually exist, right? They taught you that? Neither does a mathematical plane. These are just concepts.”

“That’s fine,” the Psychologist chimed in.

“And a cube, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can’t truly exist either.”

“That’s where I disagree,” Filby countered. “A solid object can definitely exist. All real things—”

“That’s what most people believe. But hold on. Can an instantaneous cube exist?”

“I don’t follow you,” Filby replied, puzzled.

“Can a cube that doesn’t last even for a moment have a real existence?”

Filby paused, deep in thought. “Clearly,” the Time Traveller continued, “any real object must have extension in four directions: it must have Length, Breadth, Thickness, and—Duration. But due to a natural limitation of our understanding, which I’ll explain shortly, we tend to overlook this fact. There are actually four dimensions: the three we know as the planes of Space, and a fourth, which is Time. However, we often mistakenly separate the last dimension from the first three because our consciousness only moves along Time from the start to the end of our lives.”

“That’s very clear,” said a young man, struggling to relight his cigar over the lamp. “Very clear indeed.”

“It’s quite remarkable how often this is overlooked,” the Time Traveller said, his mood brightening. “This is what people mean when they talk about the Fourth Dimension, even if some don’t realize it. It’s just another way of understanding Time. There’s no difference between Time and the three dimensions of Space, except that we experience Time in a linear fashion. Yet, some misguided individuals have taken a wrong turn with this idea. You’ve all heard the theories about the Fourth Dimension, right?”

“I haven’t,” said the Provincial Mayor.

“It’s simple. Space, as our mathematicians describe it, has three dimensions—Length, Breadth, and Thickness—and is defined by three planes, each at right angles to the others. But some philosophical thinkers have questioned why we have three dimensions specifically—why not another direction at right angles to the others? They’ve even attempted to create a Four-Dimensional geometry. Just last month, Professor Simon Newcomb was discussing this with the New York Mathematical Society. You know how, on a flat surface with only two dimensions, we can represent a three-dimensional object? They believe that with models of three dimensions, they could represent a four-dimensional one—if they could grasp the perspective of it. Do you see?”

“I think so,” the Provincial Mayor murmured, furrowing his brow as he slipped into a contemplative state, his lips moving as if repeating some profound mantra. “Yes, I think I understand now,” he said after a moment, a fleeting spark of clarity lighting up his face.

“Well, I’ll share with you that I’ve been working on this Four-Dimensional geometry for some time now. Some of my findings are quite fascinating. For example, here’s a portrait of a man at eight years old, another at fifteen, another at seventeen, and another at twenty-three. Each of these is a sort of section—a three-dimensional representation of his four-dimensional existence, which is a fixed and unchanging reality.”

“Scientific people,” the Time Traveller continued after a brief pause for everyone to digest his words, “understand that Time is really just another form of Space. Take this popular scientific diagram, for example—a weather record. This line I’m tracing with my finger represents the movement of the barometer. Yesterday, it was at a certain height, then last night it dropped, and this morning it started to rise again, gently moving up to this point. Clearly, the mercury didn’t trace this line in any of the dimensions of Space we usually recognize. But it did trace that line, which leads us to conclude it was moving along the Time-Dimension.”

“But,” the Medical Man said, staring intently at a coal in the fire, “if Time is truly just a fourth dimension of Space, why has it always been seen as something separate? And why can’t we move through Time like we move through the other dimensions of Space?”

The Time Traveller smiled. “Are you so certain we can move freely in Space? We can go right and left, backward and forward, and people have always done that. I agree we move freely in two dimensions. But what about up and down? Gravity limits us there.”

“Not exactly,” the Medical Man replied. “There are balloons.”

“True, but before balloons, aside from occasional jumping and the unevenness of the ground, humans had no real freedom to move vertically.”

“They could still move a little up and down,” the Medical Man insisted.

“Sure, but it’s much easier to go down than to go up.”

“And you can’t move at all in Time; you can’t escape the present moment.”

“My dear sir, that’s where you’re mistaken. That’s where everyone has gone wrong. We are constantly moving away from the present moment. Our mental lives, which are immaterial and have no dimensions, are flowing along the Time-Dimension at a steady pace from birth to death. Just like we would descend if we started our lives fifty miles above the Earth’s surface.”

“But here’s the real challenge,” the Psychologist interjected. “You can move in all directions in Space, but you can’t move in Time.”

“That’s the core of my groundbreaking discovery. But you’re wrong to say we can’t move in Time. For example, when I vividly recall an event, I momentarily return to that instant. I become absent-minded, as you might say. I jump back for a moment. Of course, we can’t stay there for long, just like a primitive person or an animal can’t hover six feet above the ground. But a civilized person has an advantage over the primitive in this regard. They can rise against gravity in a balloon, so why shouldn’t they hope that one day they might be able to stop or speed up their journey along the Time-Dimension, or even turn around and travel back?”

“Oh, this,” Filby began, “is all—”

“Why not?” the Time Traveller challenged.

“It’s against reason,” Filby replied.

“What reason?” the Time Traveller asked.

“You can argue that black is white,” Filby said, “but you’ll never convince me.”

“Perhaps not,” the Time Traveller said. “But now you’re starting to understand the purpose of my research into the geometry of Four Dimensions. Long ago, I had a vague idea for a machine—”

“To travel through Time!” exclaimed the Very Young Man.

“That would travel in any direction through Space and Time, depending on the driver’s choice.”

Filby could only laugh.

“But I have experimental proof,” the Time Traveller insisted.

“It would be incredibly useful for historians,” the Psychologist suggested. “Imagine traveling back to verify the accepted account of the Battle of Hastings!”

“Don’t you think that would attract attention?” the Medical Man said. “Our ancestors weren’t very tolerant of anachronisms.”

“One could learn Greek directly from Homer and Plato,” the Very Young Man mused.

“In which case, they’d probably quiz you for the Little-go. German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

“Then there’s the future,” the Very Young Man said. “Just think! You could invest all your money, let it accumulate interest, and then rush ahead!”

“To discover a society,” I added, “built on a strictly communistic basis.”

“Of all the wild, extravagant theories!” the Psychologist began.

“Yes, it seemed that way to me, which is why I never talked about it until—”

“Experimental proof!” I exclaimed. “You’re going to verify that?”

“The experiment!” Filby cried, looking increasingly overwhelmed.

“Let’s see your experiment anyway,” the Psychologist said, “even if it’s all nonsense.”

The Time Traveller smiled at us, then, still smiling faintly with his hands deep in his pockets, he slowly walked out of the room. We could hear his slippers shuffling down the long hallway toward his laboratory.

The Psychologist looked at us. “I wonder what he’s up to?”

“Just some kind of magic trick,” the Medical Man said. Filby attempted to share a story about a magician he had seen in Burslem, but before he could finish his introduction, the Time Traveller returned, and Filby’s tale fell apart.