Technical Error

by Arthur C. Clarke

Release: December 1946
Format: Short Story
Genre: Science Fiction
Audience: Adults
Content: Definite Time Travel
Original Language: English

When Dick Nelson is accidentally exposed to a tremendous electromagnetic field, he comes out with his body reversed left-to-right, essentially a death sentence since certain necessary stereoisomers will be unavailable in the reverse form in his diet. The solution is to flip Dick over once again, requiring a trip through the fourth dimension (spatial) and a bit of time travel to boot. The head physicist assures Nelson that this is purely a spatial fourth dimension that he’ll be flipped over in.

“You say that Nelson has been rotated in the Fourth Dimension; but I thought Einstein had shown that the Fourth Dimension was time.”

Hughes groaned inwardly.

“I was referring to an additional dimension of space,” he explained patiently.

DEBUT

“Technical Error,” in Fantasy, December 1946.

VARIANTS

1 English variant

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Groupings

Cited in Time Machines by Paul J. Nahin ()

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY: We haven’t yet mapped out the time travel itinerary.