When an apparent madman, James Richard Cloud, pops in on Professor Ellery Howard of Gotham
University with claims of building a machine that can see all of time and retrieve objects
from time, it seems normal that the professor is about to boot him out. But the professor’s
assistant arrives and recognizes a certain sensibility in the madman’s mathematical notes,
all of which leads to a personal viewing of the machine that quickly hiccups and delivers a
man from the 23rd century who insists on being shown around nighttime New York City.
You know some of the modern theories about the fourth dimension. How Einstein and others
suppose that the fourth dimension of space is time. Well, I don’t want to claim any one
else’s laurels, but that was my view even before the name of Einstein was heard of.
I’ve been working at it for thirty-five years. It’s my belief too that the fourth
side of space is time, and that, in a sense, all time exists simultaneously and
eternally—although on some other plane than ours—just as all space exists
simultaneously and eternally.
DEBUT
“The Man from Tomorrow,” in Amazing Stories Quarterly,Spring/Summer
1933.
VARIANTS
Debut. “The Man from Tomorrow,” in Amazing Stories Quarterly,Spring/Summer 1933.
You know some of the modern theories about the fourth dimension. How Einstein and others
suppose that the fourth dimension of space is time. Well, I don’t want to claim any one
else’s laurels, but that was my view even before the name of Einstein was heard of.
I’ve been working at it for thirty-five years. It’s my belief too that the fourth
side of space is time, and that, in a sense, all time exists simultaneously and
eternally—although on some other plane than ours—just as all space exists
simultaneously and eternally.
1 English variant