The Time Machine Hypothesis (eBook)

Extreme Science Meets Science Fiction

Damien Broderick (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2019 | 1st ed. 2019
XIII, 243 Seiten
Springer International Publishing (Verlag)
978-3-030-16178-1 (ISBN)

Infos

Every age has characteristic inventions that change the world. In the 19^th century it was the steam engine and the train. For the 20^th, electric and gasoline power, aircraft, nuclear weapons, even ventures into space. Today, the planet is awash with electronic business, chatter and virtual-reality entertainment so brilliant that the division between real and simulated is hard to discern. But one new idea from the 19^th century has failed, so far, to enter reality-time travel, using machines to turn the time dimension into a two-way highway. Will it come true, as foreseen in science fiction? Might we expect visits to and from the future, sooner than from space? That is the Time Machine Hypothesis, examined here by futurist Damien Broderick, an award-winning writer and theorist of the genre of the future. Broderick homes in on the topic through the lens of science as well as fiction, exploring some fifty different time-travel scenarios and conundrums found in the science fiction literature and film.

Damien Broderick is an award-winning novelist, critic and theorist who holds a doctorate in the comparative discourse analysis of the sciences and humanities. He has published 75 books, some of them collaboratively or as editor. An Australian, he currently lives in San Antonio, Texas. His latest book is Consciousness and Science Fiction, also from Springer. 

Inhalt

Acknowledgments 7
Contents 9
Part I 12
Spacetime Time 12
1: Time Travel Unraveled 13
2: The Scientific Basis for Time Machines 25
3: Closed Timelike Loops 35
4: Don’t Change the Past 47
Part II 59
Time Machine Time 59
5: The First Half Century (and a Bit) 60
1895, The Time Machine: An Invention, H.G. Wells 60
1919, “The Runaway Skyscraper,” Murray Leinster 67
1938/rev 1952 The Legion of Time Jack Williamson 69
1941 “By His Bootstraps” Robert Heinlein 72
1942 “Recruiting Station” aka Masters of Time, aka Earth’s Last Fortress A.E. van Vogt 75
1946 “Vintage Season” by C. L. Moore 78
1947 “E for Effort” T.L. Sherred 80
1949 “Private Eye” Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore (as by Lewis Padgett) 83
1950 “Flight to Forever” Poul Anderson 85
6: Empires of Time 90
1953 Bring the Jubilee Ward Moore 90
1954 1973 “Beep”/The Quincunx of Time James Blish
1955 The End of Eternity Isaac Asimov 96
1955—Time Patrol Sequence Poul Anderson 100
1956 The Door Into Summer Robert Heinlein 103
1958/2002 The Time Traders Andre Norton Atlantis Endgame Andre Norton and Sherwood Smith
1958 The Big Time Fritz Leiber, and 1983 Changewar 109
1958/1992 The Ugly Little Boy Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg 112
7: Behold the Time Machine 115
1962–1969 Times Without Number John Brunner 115
1966–1969 Behold the Man Michael Moorcock 118
1969 Up the Line Robert Silverberg 121
1970 The Year of the Quiet Sun Wilson Tucker 123
8: Time’s Up 127
1973 The Man Who Folded Himself David Gerrold 127
1976 Woman On the Edge of Time Marge Piercy 129
1979 Kindred Octavia Butler 132
1980 Thrice Upon a Time James Hogan 135
1980 Timescape Gregory Benford 138
9: Highways to the End of Time 143
1982–2010 “Fire Watch” and Other Oxford Time Travel Works Connie Willis 143
1985 A Maggot John Fowles 146
1986 Highway of Eternity Clifford Simak 150
1989 “Great Work of Time” John Crowley 153
10: Windows Into the Past 157
1991 Time’s Arrow Martin Amis 157
1991—Outlander Series Diana Gabaldon 160
1997 In the Garden of Iden [The Company Sequence] Kage Baker 163
2000 The Light of Other Days Arthur Clarke and Stephen Baxter 166
11: From Dinosaurs to Elsewhen 169
2002 Bones of the Earth Michael Swanwick 169
2003 The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger 172
2007 The Accidental Time Machine Joe Haldeman 174
2008 In War Times and 2011 This Shared Dream Kathleen Ann Goonan 177
2008 Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait K.A. Bedford, and 2012 Paradox Resolution 180
12: Looping Time 184
2014 The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August Claire North 184
2017 All Our Wrong Todays Elan Mastai 187
2018 Hazards of Time Travel Joyce Carol Oates 190
2019 Rewrite: Loops in the Timescape Gregory Benford 193
Part III 197
A Thought Experiment Is Not a Theory 197
13: In Search of Lost Time Machines 198
References, Sources and Further Reading 222
References to Science Sources, Shown Chronologically 222
Fiction Works Discussed, Plus Suggested Reading 223
Some Papers Related to Time Travel Published in Major Scientific Journals 226
Appendix: “The Dry Sauvages” Damien Broderick 227
A Brief Exegesis 241
Index 242

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 12.7.2019
• Reihe/Serie: Science and Fiction
• Reihe/Serie: Science and Fiction
• Zusatzinfo: XIII, 243 p.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Naturwissenschaft
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Schlagworte: alternative histories • black holes and spacetime singularities • fiction for scientists • parallel alternative • scifi for scientists • time machines • time patrols • visiting past and future • warped spacetime
• ISBN-10: 3-030-16178-1 / 3030161781
• ISBN-13: 978-3-030-16178-1 / 9783030161781