Time Mechine
‘I have not,’ said the Provincial Mayor.
‘It is simply this. That Space, as our mathematicians
have it, is spoken of as having three dimensions, which
one may call Length, Breadth, and Thickness, and is
always definable by reference to three planes, each at right
angles to the others. But some philosophical people have
been asking why THREE dimensions particularly—why
not another direction at right angles to the other three?—
and have even tried to construct a Four-Dimension
geometry.
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Professor Simon Newcomb was expounding
this to the New York Mathematical Society only a month
or so ago. You know how on a flat surface, which has
only two dimensions, we can represent a figure of a three-
dimensional solid, and similarly they think that by models
of thee dimensions they could represent one of four—if
they could master the perspective of the thing. See?’
‘I think so,’ murmured the Provincial Mayor; and,
knitting his brows, he lapsed into an introspective state, his
lips moving as one who repeats mystic words. ‘Yes, I think
I see it now,’ he said after some time, brightening in a
quite transitory manner.
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‘Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work
upon this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time.
Some of my results are curious. For instance, here is a
portrait of a man at eight years old, another at fifteen,
another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on.
All these are evidently sections, as it were, Three-
Dimensional representations of his Four-Dimensioned
being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing.
‘Scientific people,’ proceeded the Time Traveller, after
the pause required for the proper assimilation of this.
‘know very well that Time is only a kind of Space. Here is
a popular scientific diagram, a weather record. This line I
trace with my finger shows the movement of the
barometer. Yesterday it was so high, yesterday night it fell,
then this morning it rose again, and so gently upward to
here. Surely the mercury did not trace this line in any of
the dimensions of Space generally recognized? But
certainly it traced such a line, and that line, therefore, we
must conclude was along the Time-Dimension.