Editing Time travel (section)

== History of the concept ==

=== Mythical time travel ===

[[File:Irvington statue of Rip van Winkle.jpg|thumb|Statue of [[Rip Van Winkle]] in [[Irvington, New York]]]]

Some ancient myths depict a character skipping forward in time. In Hindu mythology, the ''[[Vishnu Purana]]'' mentions the story of King Raivata [[Kakudmi]], who travels to heaven to meet the creator [[Brahma]] and is surprised to learn when he returns to Earth that many ages have passed.<ref>{{citation|section-url=http://www.mythfolklore.net/india/encyclopedia/revati.htm|last1=Dowson|first1=John|section=Revati|title=A classical dictionary of Hindu mythology and religion, geography, history, and literature|year=1879|publisher=[[Routledge]]|access-date=2009-08-20|archive-date=2017-09-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170907064810/http://www.mythfolklore.net/india/encyclopedia/revati.htm|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{citation|url=https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/vp/vp093.htm#page_355|title=The Vishnu Purana: Book IV: Chapter I|access-date=2022-01-08|archive-date=2022-05-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220527102631/https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/vp/vp093.htm#page_355|url-status=live}}</ref> The Buddhist [[Pāli Canon]] mentions the relativity of time. The [[Payasi]] Sutta tells of one of the [[Gautama Buddha|Buddha]]'s chief disciples, Kumara [[Mahākāśyapa|Kassapa]], who explains to the skeptic Payasi that time in the Heavens passes differently than on Earth.<ref>{{citation|title=Indian Philosophy|edition=7|author=Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya|publisher=People's Publishing House, New Delhi|year=1964|author-link=Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya}}</ref> The Japanese tale of "[[Urashima Tarō]]",<ref name=Yorke>{{cite journal|title=Malchronia: Cryonics and Bionics as Primitive Weapons in the War on Time|first=Christopher|last=Yorke|journal=[[Journal of Evolution and Technology]]|volume=15|issue=1|date=February 2006|pages=73–85|url=http://jetpress.org/volume15/yorke-rowe.html|access-date=August 29, 2009|archive-date=May 16, 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060516005834/http://www.jetpress.org/volume15/yorke-rowe.html|url-status=live}}</ref> first described in the ''[[Manyoshu]]'', tells of a young fisherman named Urashima-no-ko ({{lang|ja|浦嶋子}}) who visits an undersea palace. After three days, he returns home to his village and finds himself 300 years in the future, where he has been forgotten, his house is in ruins, and his family has died.<ref>{{cite book|title=Folklore, myths, and legends: a world perspective|first=Donna|last=Rosenberg|publisher=[[McGraw-Hill]]|year=1997|isbn=978-0-8442-5780-8|page=421}}</ref> 

=== Abrahamic religions ===
One tradition in Judaism has [[Moses sees Rabbi Akiva (Menachot 29b)|Moses transported by God to the study hall of Rabbi Akiva]], where he is perplexed by the later evolution of the faith. Another Talmudic story concerns [[Honi HaMe'agel]], a miracle-working sage of the 1st century BC, who was a historical character to whom various myths were attached. While traveling one day, Honi saw a man planting a [[carob]] tree and asked him about it. The man explained that the tree would take 70 years to bear fruit, and that he was planting it not for himself but for the generations to follow him. Later that day, Honi sat down to rest but fell asleep for 70 years; when he awoke, he saw a man picking fruit from a fully mature carob tree. Asked whether he had planted it, the man replied that he had not, but that his grandfather had planted it for him.<ref name="Talmud">Babylonian Talmud Taanit 23a [http://www.mechon-mamre.org/b/l/l2803.htm Hebrew/Aramaic text at Mechon-Mamre] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200809103228/http://www.mechon-mamre.org/b/l/l2803.htm|date=2020-08-09}}</ref><ref name="ChoniLATimes2000">{{cite news |author=Margaret Snyder |date=August 29, 2000 |title=Community Commentary |url=https://www.latimes.com/socal/glendale-news-press/news/tn-gnp-xpm-2000-08-29-export45571-story.html |access-date=November 10, 2022 |newspaper=[[The Los Angeles Times]]}}</ref>

In Christian tradition, there is a similar story of "the [[Seven Sleepers]] of [[Ephesus]]", which recounts a group of early Christians who hid in a cave circa 250 AD, to escape the persecution of Christians during the reign of the [[Roman Empire|Roman]] emperor [[Decius]]. They fell into a sleep and woke some 200 years later during the reign of [[Theodosius II]], to discover that the Empire had become Christian.<ref>Benko, Stephhen (1986). ''Pagan Rome and the Early Christians'',
Indiana University Press. {{ISBN|978-0253203854}}</ref><ref name="Saint Rip">{{cite web |last1=Thorn |first1=John |title=Saint Rip |url=http://www.nyfolklore.org/pubs/voic36-1-2/st-rip.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171018210936/http://www.nyfolklore.org/pubs/voic36-1-2/st-rip.html |archive-date=18 October 2017 |access-date=21 June 2017 |website=nyfolklore.org |publisher=Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore}}</ref> This Christian story is recounted by [[Islam]] and appears in a [[Sura]] of the [[Quran]], Sura [[Al-Kahf]].<ref>[http://irebd.com/quran/english/surah-18/ Quran Surah Al-Kahf]</ref> The version recalls a group of young monotheists escaping from persecution within a cave and emerging hundreds of years later. This narrative describes divine protection and time suspension.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Yahya |first1=Farouk |title=Chapter 8 Talismans with the Names of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus/Aṣḥāb al-Kahf in Muslim Southeast Asia |chapter=Talismans with the Names of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus/Aṣḥāb al-Kahf in Muslim Southeast Asia |url=https://brill.com/edcollchap/book/9789004529397/BP000009.xml?language=en |website=Brill |publisher=Malay-Indonesian Islamic Studies |access-date=December 7, 2023 |date=December 5, 2022|pages=209–265 |doi=10.1163/9789004529397_010 |isbn=978-90-04-52939-7 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Cave of the Seven Sleepers |url=https://madainproject.com/cave_of_the_seven_sleepers |website=Madain Project |access-date=December 7, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Blakeley |first1=Sasha |title=The Seven Sleepers |url=https://study.com/academy/lesson/seven-sleepers-story-significance.html |website=Study.com |access-date=December 7, 2023 |date=April 24, 2023}}</ref> 

Another similar story in the Islamic tradition is of [[Uzair]] (usually identified with the Biblical [[Ezra]]) whose grief at the [[Destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians]]  was so great that God took his soul and brought him back to life after Jerusalem was reconstructed. He rode on his revived donkey and entered his native place. But the people did not recognize him, nor did his household, except the maid, who was now an old blind woman. He prayed to God to cure her blindness and she could see again. He meets his son who recognized him by a mole between his shoulders and was older than he was.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Renda |first=G'nsel |year=1978 |title=The Miniatures of the Zubdat Al- Tawarikh |url=http://kilyos.ee.bilkent.edu.tr/~history/Ext/Zubdat.html |journal=Turkish Treasures Culture /Art / Tourism Magazine}}</ref><ref>Ibn Kathir, Stories of the Prophets, translated by Shaikh muhammed Mustafa Gemeiah, Office of the Grand Imam, Sheikh al-Azhar, El-Nour Publishing, Egypt, 1997, Ch.21, pp.322-4</ref>

=== Science fiction ===
{{further|Time travel in fiction}}

Time travel themes in [[science fiction]] and the media can be grouped into three categories: immutable timeline; mutable timeline; and alternate histories, as in the interacting-[[many-worlds interpretation]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Grey |first=William |title=Troubles with Time Travel |journal=Philosophy |volume=74 |issue=1 |pages=55–70 |year=1999 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/S0031819199001047|s2cid=170218026  |issn = 0031-8191}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Rickman |first=Gregg |title=The Science Fiction Film Reader |publisher=Limelight Editions |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-87910-994-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780879109943}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Schneider |first=Susan |title=Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-4051-4907-5}}</ref> The non-scientific term 'timeline' is often used to refer to all physical events in history, so that where events are changed, the time traveler is described as creating a new timeline.<ref name="Prucher">{{Cite book|last=Prucher|first=Jeff|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iYzi8m8FbEsC&pg=PA230|title=Brave new words|isbn=978-0-19-530567-8|language=en|access-date=2022-12-29|archive-date=2023-03-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324181802/https://books.google.com/books?id=iYzi8m8FbEsC&pg=PA230|url-status=live}}</ref>

Early science fiction stories feature characters who sleep for years and awaken in a changed society, or are transported to the past through supernatural means. Among them ''[[The Year 2440|L'An 2440, rêve s'il en fût jamais]]'' (''The Year 2440: A Dream If Ever There Was One'', 1770) by [[Louis-Sébastien Mercier]], ''[[Rip Van Winkle]]'' (1819) by [[Washington Irving]], ''[[Looking Backward]]'' (1888) by [[Edward Bellamy]], and ''[[The Sleeper Awakes|When the Sleeper Awakes]]'' (1899) by H. G. Wells. Prolonged sleep is used as a means of time travel in these stories.<ref>{{citation|title=The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature|chapter=Utopia, dystopia, and science fiction|author=Peter Fitting|editor=Gregory Claeys|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2010|pages=138–139}}</ref> 

The date of the earliest work about backwards time travel is uncertain. The Chinese novel ''[[A Supplement to the Journey to the West]]'' ({{Circa|1640}}) by Dong Yue features magical mirrors and jade gateways that connect various points in time. The protagonist [[Sun Wukong]] travels back in time to the "World of the Ancients" ([[Qin dynasty]]) to retrieve a magical bell and then travels forward to the "World of the Future" ([[Song dynasty]]) to find an emperor who has been exiled in time. However, the time travel is taking place inside an illusory dream world created by the villain to distract and entrap him.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dong |first1=Yue |translator-first1=Shuen-fu |translator-last1=Lin |translator-first2=Larry James |translator-last2=Schulz |first2=Chengẻn |last2=Wu| title=The Tower of Myriad Mirrors: A Supplement to Journey to the West |series=Michigan classics in Chinese studies |location=Ann Arbor |publisher=Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan |isbn=9780892641420 |year=2000 |edition=2nd }}</ref> [[Samuel Madden (author)|Samuel Madden]]'s ''[[Memoirs of the Twentieth Century]]'' (1733) is a series of letters from British ambassadors in 1997 and 1998 to diplomats in the past, conveying the political and religious conditions of the future.<ref name="madden">{{cite book|last=Alkon|first=Paul K.|title=Origins of Futuristic Fiction|publisher=The University of Georgia Press|year=1987|isbn=978-0-8203-0932-3|url=https://archive.org/details/originsoffuturis00alko}}</ref>{{rp|95–96}} Because the narrator receives these letters from his [[guardian angel]], Paul Alkon suggests in his book ''Origins of Futuristic Fiction'' that "the first time-traveler in English literature is a guardian angel".<ref name="madden" />{{rp|85}} Madden does not explain how the angel obtains these documents, but Alkon asserts that Madden "deserves recognition as the first to toy with the rich idea of time-travel in the form of an artifact sent backward from the future to be discovered in the present".<ref name="madden"/>{{rp|95–96}} In the science fiction anthology ''Far Boundaries'' (1951), editor [[August Derleth]] claims that an early short story about time travel is ''An Anachronism; or, Missing One's Coach'', written for the ''Dublin Literary Magazine''<ref>{{cite journal|title=An Anachronism; or, Missing One's Coach|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jfPAwAnj9JUC&pg=RA4-PA701|date=June 1838|journal=Dublin University Magazine|volume=11|access-date=2022-05-11|archive-date=2023-03-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324181751/https://books.google.com/books?id=jfPAwAnj9JUC&pg=RA4-PA701|url-status=live}}</ref> by an anonymous author in the [https://books.google.com/books?id=jfPAwAnj9JUC&pg=RA4-PA665 June 1838 issue].<ref name="derleth">{{cite book|last=Derleth|first=August|author-link=August Derleth|title=Far Boundaries|publisher=Pellegrini & Cudahy|year=1951}}</ref>{{rp|3}} While the narrator waits under a tree for a [[Stagecoach|coach]] to take him out of [[Newcastle upon Tyne]], he is transported back in time over a thousand years. He encounters the Venerable [[Bede]] in a [[monastery]] and explains to him the developments of the coming centuries. However, the story never makes it clear whether these events are real or a dream.<ref name="derleth" />{{rp|11–38}} Another early work about time travel is ''The Forebears of Kalimeros: Alexander, son of Philip of Macedon'' by [[Alexander Veltman]] published in 1836.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Lib.ru/Классика: Акутин Юрий. Александр Вельтман и его роман "Странник"|url=http://az.lib.ru/w/welxtman_a_f/text_0090.shtml|access-date=2022-12-29|website=az.lib.ru|archive-date=2011-06-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606034550/http://az.lib.ru/w/welxtman_a_f/text_0090.shtml|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:A Christmas Carol - Mr. Fezziwig's Ball.jpg|thumb|Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig dance in a vision shown to Scrooge by the [[Ghost of Christmas Past]].]] [[Charles Dickens]]'s ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'' (1843) has early depictions of mystical time travel in both directions, as the protagonist, Ebenezer Scrooge, is transported to Christmases past and future. Other stories employ the same template, where a character naturally goes to sleep, and upon waking up finds themself in a different time.<ref name="Scrooge">{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.towson.edu/~flynn/timetv.html|title=Time Travel Literature|access-date=October 28, 2006|author=Flynn, John L.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060929071327/http://www.towson.edu/~flynn/timetv.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive -->|archive-date=September 29, 2006|year=1995|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia Galactica}}</ref> A clearer example of backward time travel is found in the 1861 book ''Paris avant les hommes'' (''Paris before Men'') by the French botanist and geologist [[Pierre Boitard]], published posthumously. In this story, the protagonist is transported to the prehistoric past by the magic of a "lame demon" (a French pun on Boitard's name), where he encounters a [[Plesiosauria|Plesiosaur]] and an apelike ancestor and is able to interact with ancient creatures.<ref name="boitard">{{cite book|last=Rudwick|first=Martin J. S.|title=Scenes From Deep Time|publisher=The University of Chicago Press|year=1992|pages=166–169|isbn=978-0-226-73105-6}}</ref> [[Edward Everett Hale]]'s "Hands Off" (1881)<ref>{{cite book|title=Hands Off|last=Hale|first=Edward Everett|publisher=J. Stilman Smith & Co.|year=1895|url=https://archive.org/details/handsoff00halegoog/mode/2up}}</ref> tells the story of an unnamed being, possibly the soul of a person who has recently died, who interferes with ancient Egyptian history by preventing [[Joseph (Genesis)|Joseph]]'s enslavement. This may have been the first story to feature an [[alternate history]] created as a result of time travel.<ref name="Nahin2001" >{{cite book|last=Nahin|first=Paul J.|title=Time machines: time travel in physics, metaphysics, and science fiction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=39KQY1FnSfkC&pg=PA54|publisher=Springer|year=2001|isbn=978-0-387-98571-8|access-date=2020-10-20|archive-date=2023-03-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324181758/https://books.google.com/books?id=39KQY1FnSfkC&pg=PA54|url-status=live}}</ref>{{rp|54}}

=== Early time machines ===
{{main| Time machine (device)}}
One of the first stories to feature time travel by means of a machine is "[[The Clock that Went Backward]]" by [[Edward Page Mitchell]],<ref>{{cite web|last=Page Mitchell|first=Edward|title=The Clock That Went Backward|url=http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a2221.pdf|access-date=December 4, 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111015110200/http://horrormasters.com/Text/a2221.pdf|archive-date=October 15, 2011}}</ref> which appeared in the ''[[The Sun (New York)|New York Sun]]'' in 1881. However, the mechanism borders on fantasy. An unusual clock, when wound, runs backwards and transports people nearby back in time. The author does not explain the origin or properties of the clock.<ref name="Nahin2001" />{{rp|55}} [[Enrique Gaspar y Rimbau]]'s ''El Anacronópete'' (1887) may have been the first story to feature a vessel engineered to travel through time.<ref name="firsttimemachine">{{cite journal|last=Uribe|first=Augusto|title=The First Time Machine: Enrique Gaspar's Anacronópete|journal=[[The New York Review of Science Fiction]]|volume=11, no. 10|issue=130|page=12|date=June 1999}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Gaspar|first=Enrique|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yAUiSP_Mr6wC&pg=PT17|title=The Time Ship: A Chrononautical Journey|date=2012-06-26|publisher=Wesleyan University Press|isbn=978-0-8195-7239-4|language=en|access-date=2022-12-29|archive-date=2023-03-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324181757/https://books.google.com/books?id=yAUiSP_Mr6wC&pg=PT17|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Andrew Sawyer]] has commented that the story "does seem to be the first literary description of a time machine noted so far", adding that "Edward Page Mitchell's story ''The Clock That Went Backward'' (1881) is usually described as the first time-machine story, but I'm not sure that a clock quite counts".<ref>{{cite news|last=Westcott|first=Kathryn|title=HG Wells or Enrique Gaspar: Whose time machine was first?|work=BBC News|date=9 April 2011|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12900390|access-date=August 1, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140329161914/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12900390|archive-date=March 29, 2014}}</ref> [[H. G. Wells]]' ''[[The Time Machine]]'' (1895) popularized the concept of time travel by mechanical means.<ref name="britannica1">{{cite encyclopedia|last=Sterling|first=Bruce|url=http://www.britannica.com/art/science-fiction/Major-science-fiction-themes#toc235731|title=science fiction &#124; literature and performance :: Major science fiction themes|publisher=Britannica.com|date=August 27, 2014|access-date=November 27, 2015|archive-date=October 5, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151005152142/http://www.britannica.com/art/science-fiction/Major-science-fiction-themes#toc235731|url-status=live}}</ref>