Isaac Newton

Tag Area: Real-World Character
Feature Film

Lem’s Star Diaries

Czarna komnata profesora Tarantogi

  • Professor Tarantoga's black room
  • by Stanisław Lem
  • in Noc księżycowa (Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1963) [Published as a TV script (“widowisko telewizyjne”) the year before the 1964 Polish TV broadcast.]

Professor Tarantoga saves human civilization! After using his chronopad to investigate the leading scientists and artists in history, Tarantoga concludes that without exception they are lazy drunkards. So naturally, he sends smart young people into various eras to invent differential calculus, to paint the Mona Lisa, etc.—all while a pair of police inspectors have their eye on him. —based on Wikipedia
A pencil sketch of an odd bird standing on the head of a dog-like robot
                with a full moon in the sky.
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Finalizing History


In early 1960, Perry Mason author Earl (not Erle) Stanley Gardner and his wife host John W. Campbell, Robert Heinlein, Clifford Simak, Edward Teller, Ronald Reagan, Douglas MacArthur and Jackie Kennedy to discuss a shared dream in which a time-traveling alien requires them to pick one person to eliminate from history as a prerequisite to a final revision of mankind’s history. —Michael Main
If one of these people dies young, that will pay your debt.
A grid of nine black-and-white head shots of the people in “Finalizing
                History” by Richard K. Lyon.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Flash Fiction

Best. Scientist. EVER.


You head out on a quick, rollicking ride back through time, with an unknown pursuer and an ambiguous conclusion. —Tandy Ringoringo
You come to the conclusion that you can correct everything if you stop yourself before you steal the time machine.
Stylized outline of a rocket launching in a green circular seal for
                Daily Science Fiction.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel