The history of time travel began, at least according to James Gleick’s new book, Time Travel: A History, in 1895 when H.G. Wells published his novel The Time Machine. That’s not to say that no one had thought about traveling through time before, but those journeys had happened through supernatural means or the unexpected effects of getting conked on the head. Wells, Gleick explains, was the first to connect the notion of moving through time with science.
Will we someday be able to time-travel through virtual reality, as in William Gibson’s 2015 novel The Peripheral? Or will the past, present, and future exist on a Möbius strip, as in the seminal Doctor Who episode “Blink,” where the Doctor, trapped in 1969, appears to be having a spontaneous conversation with a woman in 2007, only he’s on a DVD, reading lines from a script that she hasn’t given him yet?
Sat 10/29, 4:30 PM, Ryan Center for the Musical Arts, 70 Arts Circle Dr, Evanston, 312-494-9509, tickets.chicagohumanities.org, $15, $10 students and teachers.
