Timescape
Encyclopedia
Timescape is a 1980 novel
by science fiction
writer Gregory Benford
(with unbilled co-author Hilary Foister). It won the 1980 Nebula and British Science Fiction Awards, and the 1981 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
. The novel was widely hailed by both critics of science fiction and mainstream literature for its fusion of detailed character development and interpersonal drama with more standard science fiction fare such as time travel
and ecological issues
Pocket Books
used the title of this book for their science fiction imprint
.
s and dieback
s on the brink of large scale extinction
s. Various other events are mentioned in passing, such as student riots and an event of nuclear terrorism
against New York City
which took place before the events of the novel. This thread follows a group of scientists in the United Kingdom
connected with the University of Cambridge
and their attempts to warn the past of the impending disaster by sending tachyon
-induced messages to the astronomical position the Earth
occupied in 1962–1963. Given the faster-than-light
nature of the tachyon, these messages will effectively reach the past. These efforts are led by John Renfrew, an Englishman, and Gregory Markham, an American most likely modeled on Benford himself. Overseeing their efforts is Ian Peterson, a womanizing member of the World Council.
The second thread is set in the University of California, San Diego
, in La Jolla, California, in 1962 where a young scientist, Gordon Bernstein, discovers anomalous noise in a physics experiment relating to spontaneous resonance and indium antimonide. He and his student assistant, Albert Cooper (also likely based on the author and his experiences at UCSD), discover that the noise is coming in bursts timed to form Morse Code
.
The resulting message is made of staccato sentence fragments and jumbled letters, due to the 1998 team's efforts to avoid a grandfather paradox
. Their aim is to give the past researchers enough information to start efforts on solving the pending ecological crisis, but not enough that the crisis will be entirely solved (thus making a signal to the past unnecessary and creating a paradox).
Due to the biological nature of the message, Professor Bernstein shares the message with a professor of biology, Michael Ramsey. Since the message also gives astronomical coordinates, he also shares it with Saul Shriffer, a fictional scientist who is said to have worked with Frank Drake
on Project Ozma
. Initially, these characters fail to understand the true meaning of the message. Ramsey believes it to be an intercepted military dispatch hinting at Soviet bioterrorism
, while Shriffer thinks the message is of extraterrestrial origin. Shriffer goes public with this theory, mentioning Bernstein in his findings. However, Bernstein's overseer, Isaac Lakin, is skeptical of the messages and wants Bernstein to keep working on his original project and ignore the signal. As a result of this interruption in their experimentation, Bernstein is denied a promotion and Cooper fails a candidacy examination. The signal also exacerbates difficulties in Bernstein's relationship with his girlfriend, Penny.
In 1998, Peterson recovers a safe deposit box
in La Jolla containing a piece of paper indicating that the messages were received. Meanwhile, it is clear that the viral nature of the algal bloom is spreading it faster and through more mediums than originally expected. Strange yellow clouds that have been appearing are said to be a result of the viral material being absorbed through the water cycle
, and it soon affects the planet's agriculture as well, resulting in widespread cases of food poisoning. Flying to the United States, Markham is killed in a plane crash when the pilots fly too close to one of the clouds and experience seizures.
In the past storyline, now advanced into 1963, Bernstein refuses to give up on the signals. He is rewarded when the signal noise is also observed in a laboratory at Columbia University
. Using hints in the message, Ramsey replicates the conditions of the bloom in a controlled experiment and realizes the danger it represents. Bernstein finds out that the astronomical coordinates given in the message represent where the Earth will be in 1998 due to the solar apex
. He also receives a more coherent, despairing message from the future. Having built a solid case, Bernstein goes public and publishes his results.
This decision has monumental consequences. On November 22, a high school student in Dallas is sent by his physics teacher to the Texas School Book Depository
to get a copy of Bernstein's findings. There he interrupts Lee Harvey Oswald
's assassination attempt on President John F. Kennedy
, attacking the shooter and sending the would-be fatal third shot awry. Though seriously injured, Kennedy survives. This paradox creates an alternate universe and forever ends the contact with the original 1998.
The concluding chapters portray the 1998 of the original timeline as a bleak, failing world, the intensified ecological disaster taking a noticeable toll on the human way of life. Peterson retreats to a fortified country farmhouse which he has obviously prepared well in advance. Renfrew continues to send out signals (including the more coherent one that Gordon receives) until the building's generator gives out. Before it does, however, he receives a signal purportedly from the year 2349.
In the final chapter, set in the alternate 1974, an awards ceremony is held for achievement in science. In light of Kennedy's survival, the United States President giving out the awards is William Scranton
, who is said to have defeated Bobby Kennedy due to a telephone tapping
scandal. The scientists whose work stemmed from the signal are honored, including Bernstein, who receives the Enrico Fermi Prize for his discovery of the tachyon.
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writer Gregory Benford
Gregory Benford
Gregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine...
(with unbilled co-author Hilary Foister). It won the 1980 Nebula and British Science Fiction Awards, and the 1981 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
Campbell award (best novel)
The John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for best science fiction novel was created in 1973 by writers and critics Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss to honor Campbell's name...
. The novel was widely hailed by both critics of science fiction and mainstream literature for its fusion of detailed character development and interpersonal drama with more standard science fiction fare such as time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
and ecological issues
Pocket Books
Pocket Books
Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.- History :Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry...
used the title of this book for their science fiction imprint
Imprint
In the publishing industry, an imprint can mean several different things:* As a piece of bibliographic information about a book, it refers to the name and address of the book's publisher and its date of publication as given at the foot or on the verso of its title page.* It can mean a trade name...
.
Plot summary
The story is written from two viewpoints, equidistant from the novel's publication in 1980. The first thread is set in a 1998 ravaged by ecological disasters such as algal bloomAlgal bloom
An algal bloom is a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae in an aquatic system. Algal blooms may occur in freshwater as well as marine environments. Typically, only one or a small number of phytoplankton species are involved, and some blooms may be recognized by discoloration...
s and dieback
Dieback
Dieback may refer to a number of plant problems and diseases including:* Forest dieback caused by acid rain, heavy metal pollution, or imported pathogens* The death of regions of a plant or similar organism caused by physical damage, such as from pruning...
s on the brink of large scale extinction
Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
s. Various other events are mentioned in passing, such as student riots and an event of nuclear terrorism
Nuclear terrorism
Nuclear terrorism denotes the use, or threat of the use, of nuclear weapons or radiological weapons in acts of terrorism, includingattacks against facilities where radioactive materials are present...
against New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
which took place before the events of the novel. This thread follows a group of scientists in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
connected with the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
and their attempts to warn the past of the impending disaster by sending tachyon
Tachyon
A tachyon is a hypothetical subatomic particle that always moves faster than light. In the language of special relativity, a tachyon would be a particle with space-like four-momentum and imaginary proper time. A tachyon would be constrained to the space-like portion of the energy-momentum graph...
-induced messages to the astronomical position the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
occupied in 1962–1963. Given the faster-than-light
Faster-than-light
Faster-than-light communications and travel refer to the propagation of information or matter faster than the speed of light....
nature of the tachyon, these messages will effectively reach the past. These efforts are led by John Renfrew, an Englishman, and Gregory Markham, an American most likely modeled on Benford himself. Overseeing their efforts is Ian Peterson, a womanizing member of the World Council.
The second thread is set in the University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
, in La Jolla, California, in 1962 where a young scientist, Gordon Bernstein, discovers anomalous noise in a physics experiment relating to spontaneous resonance and indium antimonide. He and his student assistant, Albert Cooper (also likely based on the author and his experiences at UCSD), discover that the noise is coming in bursts timed to form Morse Code
Morse code
Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
.
The resulting message is made of staccato sentence fragments and jumbled letters, due to the 1998 team's efforts to avoid a grandfather paradox
Grandfather paradox
The grandfather paradox is a proposed paradox of time travel first described by the science fiction writer René Barjavel in his 1943 book Le Voyageur Imprudent . The paradox is this: suppose a man traveled back in time and killed his biological grandfather before the latter met the traveler's...
. Their aim is to give the past researchers enough information to start efforts on solving the pending ecological crisis, but not enough that the crisis will be entirely solved (thus making a signal to the past unnecessary and creating a paradox).
Due to the biological nature of the message, Professor Bernstein shares the message with a professor of biology, Michael Ramsey. Since the message also gives astronomical coordinates, he also shares it with Saul Shriffer, a fictional scientist who is said to have worked with Frank Drake
Frank Drake
Frank Donald Drake PhD is an American astronomer and astrophysicist. He is most notable as one of the pioneers in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, including the founding of SETI, mounting the first observational attempts at detecting extraterrestrial communications in 1961 in Project...
on Project Ozma
Project Ozma
Project Ozma was a pioneering SETI experiment started in 1960 by Cornell University astronomer Frank Drake, at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank, West Virginia. The object of the experiment was to search for signs of life in distant solar systems through interstellar radio waves...
. Initially, these characters fail to understand the true meaning of the message. Ramsey believes it to be an intercepted military dispatch hinting at Soviet bioterrorism
Bioterrorism
Bioterrorism is terrorism involving the intentional release or dissemination of biological agents. These agents are bacteria, viruses, or toxins, and may be in a naturally occurring or a human-modified form. For the use of this method in warfare, see biological warfare.-Definition:According to the...
, while Shriffer thinks the message is of extraterrestrial origin. Shriffer goes public with this theory, mentioning Bernstein in his findings. However, Bernstein's overseer, Isaac Lakin, is skeptical of the messages and wants Bernstein to keep working on his original project and ignore the signal. As a result of this interruption in their experimentation, Bernstein is denied a promotion and Cooper fails a candidacy examination. The signal also exacerbates difficulties in Bernstein's relationship with his girlfriend, Penny.
In 1998, Peterson recovers a safe deposit box
Safe deposit box
A safe deposit box or wrongly referred to as a safety deposit box is an individually-secured container, usually held within a larger safe or bank vault. Safe deposit boxes are generally located in banks, post offices or other institutions...
in La Jolla containing a piece of paper indicating that the messages were received. Meanwhile, it is clear that the viral nature of the algal bloom is spreading it faster and through more mediums than originally expected. Strange yellow clouds that have been appearing are said to be a result of the viral material being absorbed through the water cycle
Water cycle
The water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle or H2O cycle, describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth. Water can change states among liquid, vapor, and solid at various places in the water cycle...
, and it soon affects the planet's agriculture as well, resulting in widespread cases of food poisoning. Flying to the United States, Markham is killed in a plane crash when the pilots fly too close to one of the clouds and experience seizures.
In the past storyline, now advanced into 1963, Bernstein refuses to give up on the signals. He is rewarded when the signal noise is also observed in a laboratory at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. Using hints in the message, Ramsey replicates the conditions of the bloom in a controlled experiment and realizes the danger it represents. Bernstein finds out that the astronomical coordinates given in the message represent where the Earth will be in 1998 due to the solar apex
Solar apex
The solar apex is the direction that the Sun travels with respect to the Local Standard of Rest. In lay terms, it's the "target" within the Milky Way that the Sun appears to be "chasing" as it orbits the galaxy...
. He also receives a more coherent, despairing message from the future. Having built a solid case, Bernstein goes public and publishes his results.
This decision has monumental consequences. On November 22, a high school student in Dallas is sent by his physics teacher to the Texas School Book Depository
Texas School Book Depository
The Texas School Book Depository is the former name of a seven-floor building facing Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas . Located on the northwest corner of Elm and North Houston Streets, at the western end of downtown Dallas, its address is 411 Elm Street. The building is notable for its connection to...
to get a copy of Bernstein's findings. There he interrupts Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald was, according to four government investigations,These were investigations by: the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the Warren Commission , the House Select Committee on Assassinations , and the Dallas Police Department. the sniper who assassinated John F...
's assassination attempt on President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, attacking the shooter and sending the would-be fatal third shot awry. Though seriously injured, Kennedy survives. This paradox creates an alternate universe and forever ends the contact with the original 1998.
The concluding chapters portray the 1998 of the original timeline as a bleak, failing world, the intensified ecological disaster taking a noticeable toll on the human way of life. Peterson retreats to a fortified country farmhouse which he has obviously prepared well in advance. Renfrew continues to send out signals (including the more coherent one that Gordon receives) until the building's generator gives out. Before it does, however, he receives a signal purportedly from the year 2349.
In the final chapter, set in the alternate 1974, an awards ceremony is held for achievement in science. In light of Kennedy's survival, the United States President giving out the awards is William Scranton
William Scranton
William Warren Scranton is a former U.S. Republican Party politician. Scranton served as the 38th Governor of Pennsylvania from 1963 to 1967. From 1976 to 1977, he served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations.-Early life:...
, who is said to have defeated Bobby Kennedy due to a telephone tapping
Telephone tapping
Telephone tapping is the monitoring of telephone and Internet conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitoring connection was an actual electrical tap on the telephone line...
scandal. The scientists whose work stemmed from the signal are honored, including Bernstein, who receives the Enrico Fermi Prize for his discovery of the tachyon.
See also
- Source of Benford's law of controversy
- Thrice Upon a TimeThrice Upon a TimeThrice Upon A Time is a science fiction novel by James P. Hogan, first published in 1980. Unlike most other time travel stories, Thrice Upon A Time considers the ramifications of sending messages into the past and/or receiving messages from the future, rather than the sending of physical objects...
, by James P. Hogan
External links
- Timescape at Worlds Without End