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AS Level Science and Society

Critical Review of Scientific Reading

Title: The Time Machine

Author: H. G. Wells

ISBN: 0-75382-013-7

Edition: 2004, Everyman Paperback

Publisher: Orion

Original Publication Date: 1895

Pages: 81

Review of whole novella, chapters 112

For my review of scientific reading, I chose to read H. G. Wells famous The Time Machine,

originally published in 1895. The book centres on an unnamed Victorian scientist who has

created a machine that can travel through time, and how he explains his story of travelling

to the year 802,701 to a group of disbelieving peers.

There are two main scientific ideas explored through this novel; the first, the exploration

and understanding of time travel and second, the evolution of the human race and planet

Earth. H. G. Wells explains his own theories of travelling through time in the first chapter

exploring it, just as Einstein, as simply another dimension to our 3-diemsional world. The

Time Traveller uses examples of geometry to explain time as a dimension, for example, if a

line with width nilhas no mathematical existence; can a cube with no duration exist? He

quotes, There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space

except that our consciousness moves along it. He then goes on to show his group of peers

his miniature time machine and, in front of them, sends it to another point in Time. His

friend, and unnamed psychologist, explains that it cannot be seen travelling through this

fourth dimension (for example, seen sitting on the table as the men came in) as it is

travelling to fast for us to observe.

Another scientific issue explored in this novel is the future of the human race and our

planet. When the Time Traveller is stranded in the year 802,701, he makes and dismisses

several theories as to how the world has come to the way it is. The first people he meets are

the Eloi: short, elfin, and childlike creatures that never work and spend all day eating or

playing. At this point he observes that over time, the human race reached a point where all

its needs were taken care of and everyone was equal, a communist society, so we then

never needed to work fell into bliss and ignorance. He later questions how the Eloi obtain

their fine clothes, and later discovers the Morlocks, a subterranean, ape-like race that feed

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off the Eloi in return for manufacturing their clothes. His later theory is that as the higher

classes continued in their state of bliss, the working classes were evermore forced into hard

labour underground, until they eventually evolved into two separate species. The Time

Traveller also travels further into the future to the end of the Earth, and sees how the planet

has become rocky and barren, and the sun has become bright red and swelled to manytimes its current size.

Personally, I enjoyed this book very much, and can see why it has been so widely praised

over the years. I didnt know that these theories of time and space even existed in the 19th

century, nor that the concepts of evolution and star-life were so widely accepted. I am a fan

of science fiction in general, and it was interesting to read such an old book, as most of the

books I read are from the last decade and this allowed me to broaden my range of material.

I enjoyed the prose and the language, and I liked the fact that these scientific ideas, many of

which I had not come across before, were explained so wellthey were simple and easy to

understand, without the author being patronising. I also liked the ending, where the TimeTraveller leaves hastily but never returns. Though unsatisfying and slightly frustrating, I

believe it suits the novel well and gives it a sense of mystery.

This book was written for a wide audience as a novella and not as a scientific paper, and as

such is written in a style that is easy to understand. It is from the perspective of a man

telling a story to his guests and as a result the prose is exciting and tense, though at times

calmer and thought-provoking as well. This was one of Wells first books, and was a launch-

pad for his writing careerhe had previously been in a number of jobs, including a drapers

apprentice, however his scholarship to Normal School of Science in South Kensington in

1884 allowed him to study biology, where he could study and form his opinions on the

evolution of man and the future of the planet. Through it he expresses his personal opinions

on society and politics, mans triumph of technology over nature, criticism of Englands Class

system and the fall of humanity due to lack of compassion or morality, presented in his story

of a time machine.

Overall, I believe that this book is very effective, as it allowed H.G. Well to express his ideas

and concerns on Englands society at that time, whilst simultaneously presenting to his

audience ideas of physics and time travel in the context of his imaginative and creative

story.

References and Bibliography

H. G. Wells, The Time Machine, Orion books (chapters 112, approx. 33,000 words)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells 04.05.13

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine 04.05.13

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wellshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wellshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machinehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machinehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machinehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells