Time viewer
In science fiction, a time viewer, temporal viewer, or chronoscope is a device that allows another point in time to be observed.[1] The concept has appeared since the late 1800s.
Concept[edit]
In its most basic form, a time viewer is a device that only allows the observation of the past.[2] Unlike with a time machine, the user is not transported from one moment in time to another.[3][4] Under the strictest definition it cannot alter the past; one benefit this confers for writers is the lack of potential for time paradoxes.[2][3][5] Conversely, the unexpected discovery that the device alters the past is a common motif.[2][3] Variations on the concept where the future rather than the past is observed are more uncommon but nevertheless appear in multiple works.[3][5] Another variation involves listening to the past rather than viewing it.[2][3]
History[edit]
The earliest known example of a fully fledged time viewer in fiction appears in the 1883 short story "L'historioscope" by Eugène Mouton in the form of an electrical telescope, though it was prefigured by a couple of proto-variations on the concept;[3][6][7] in the 1872 work Recits de l'infini by Camille Flammarion a spirit accomplishes the same effect by travelling faster than light, and the titular device in the 1873 short story "The Automaton Ear" by Florence McLandburgh enables listening to the past.[3][7][8] In film, the first time viewer appeared in the 1918 film The Ghost of Slumber Mountain.[3]
Future time viewers[edit]
Rarely, time viewers may be depicted as allowing observation of the future rather than the past.[3][5] Such devices appear in the 1922 short story "The Prophetic Camera" by Lance Sieveking, wherein the titular camera can take pictures an adjustable amount of time into the future;[3][9] the 1936 short story "Pre-Vision" by John R. Pierce, where the advanced solution to Maxwell's equations proposed by John Archibald Wheeler and Richard Feynman where electromagnetic radiation travels backwards in time (see Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory) is exploited to view the future on a device similar to a television;[3][10][11] the 1953 short story "Paycheck" by Philip K. Dick and its 2003 film adaptation, where the engineer who created the device has his memory erased and must use assorted everyday items he left to himself to figure out what is going on and get out of trouble;[3][12][13][14] and the 1955 novel The Pleasures of a Futuroscope by Lord Dunsany, where the device reveals a future nuclear holocaust.[3][15] In the 1924 short film The Fugitive Futurist a gambler is offered to buy a future-viewing device which he intends to use to find out which horses to bet on, though the device turns out to be fake.[3][16]
Future-viewing devices are occasionally limited in what they are able to show rather than being general-purpose.[3] One example is the device in the 1939 short story "Life-Line" by Robert A. Heinlein which can determine an individual's moment of death by measuring the reflection from the future end of that person's world line; a similar device that reveals the manner but not time of death appears in the 2010 anthology Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories About People Who Know How They Will Die by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo, and David Malki.[3][5] Another is the instantaneous "Dirac communicator" introduced in the 1954 short story "Beep" by James Blish which due to the lack of a speed-of-light delay can send messages to the past.[3][10][17]
References[edit]
- ↑ Prucher, Jeff (ed.). "time viewer". Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. p. 244. ISBN 978-0-19-530567-8. Search this book on
Prucher, Jeff (ed.). "temporal viewer". Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. p. 234. ISBN 978-0-19-530567-8. Search this book on
Prucher, Jeff (ed.). "chronoscope". Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-19-530567-8. Search this book on
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Baxter, Stephen (Autumn 2000). "The Technology of Omniscience: Past Viewers in Science Fiction". Foundation. No. 80. Science Fiction Foundation. pp. 97–107. ISSN 0306-4964.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 Langford, David (2022). "Time Viewer". In Clute, John; Langford, David; Sleight, Graham. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (4th ed.). Retrieved 2022-07-26. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Nicholls, Peter; Langford, David (2017). "Time Machine". In Clute, John; Langford, David; Sleight, Graham. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (4th ed.). Retrieved 2022-07-27. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Webb, Stephen (2017). "Time Viewers". All the Wonder that Would Be: Exploring Past Notions of the Future. Science and Fiction. Springer. pp. 127–128. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-51759-9_5. ISBN 978-3-319-51759-9. Search this book on
- ↑ Clute, John (2018). "Mouton, Eugène". In Clute, John; Langford, David; Sleight, Graham. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (4th ed.). Retrieved 2022-07-27. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ 7.0 7.1 Sims, Michael (2017). "Florence McLandburgh". Frankenstein Dreams: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Science Fiction. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 978-1-63286-042-2. Search this book on
- ↑ Selzer, Adam (2022-08-09). "Florence McLandburgh: Early Science Fiction Author". Graceland Cemetery: Chicago Stories, Symbols, and Secrets. University of Illinois Press. p. 251. ISBN 978-0-252-05342-9. Search this book on
- ↑ Bleiler, Everett Franklin (1990). "Sieveking, L[ancelot] de Giberne (1896–1972)". Science-fiction, the Early Years: A Full Description of More Than 3,000 Science-fiction Stories from Earliest Times to the Appearance of the Genre Magazines in 1930 : with Author, Title, and Motif Indexes. Kent State University Press. p. 685. ISBN 978-0-87338-416-2. Search this book on
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Nahin, Paul J. (2011). "Faster-Than-Light Into the Past". Time Travel: A Writer's Guide to the Real Science of Plausible Time Travel. JHU Press. pp. 148–150. ISBN 978-1-4214-0120-1. Search this book on
- ↑ Nahin, Paul J. (2016). "Maxwell's Equations and Sending Messages to the Past". Time Machine Tales: The Science Fiction Adventures and Philosophical Puzzles of Time Travel. Springer. p. 259. ISBN 978-3-319-48864-6. Search this book on
- ↑ Nicholls, Jack (2021). "Paycheck". In Clute, John; Langford, David; Sleight, Graham. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (4th ed.). Retrieved 2022-07-26. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Heckman, Davin (2008). ""Here's Johnny!": The Introduction of Information to the Space of the Home". A Small World: Smart Houses and the Dream of the Perfect Day. Duke University Press. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-8223-8884-5. Search this book on
- ↑ Szeto, Kin-Yan (2011). "Facing Off East and West in the Cinema of John Woo". The Martial Arts Cinema of the Chinese Diaspora: Ang Lee, John Woo, and Jackie Chan in Hollywood. SIU Press. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-8093-8620-8. Search this book on
- ↑ Clute, John; Langford, David (2022). "Dunsany, Lord". In Clute, John; Langford, David; Sleight, Graham. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (4th ed.). Retrieved 2022-07-26. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Pearce, Steven (2022). "Fugitive Futurist, The". In Clute, John; Langford, David; Sleight, Graham. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (4th ed.). Retrieved 2022-07-27. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Nicholls, Peter; Langford, David (2011). "Dirac Communicator". In Clute, John; Langford, David; Sleight, Graham. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (4th ed.). Retrieved 2022-07-26. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help)
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