"But the method," I insisted, "the method of traveling through time? How is that accomplished? Cannell spoke of a theory he had concerning it. And he gave you those notes—"
"I've examined those notes," Lantin said, "and rough and fragmentary as they are, I think that in them lies the secret of time-traveling. Cannell knew something of modern science, Wheeler, and the conclusions he drew concerning the Raider are significant. It was his theory that as time is the fourth dimension of matter, there is no basic reason why we can't move at will along that dimension. We can move as we wish in the other three, up-and-down, right-and-left, and back-and-forward, so why not in the fourth, that is, sooner-or-later?
"And his idea, as expressed in his notes, was that the Raider's movement along the time-dimension was based on electronic acceleration. You know the electronic system as well as I, and realize that the smallest division of matter, the atom, is nothing but a number of electrons, or particles of electricity, revolving around a nucleus. Cannell believed, and I think he was right, that that movement of electrons is the basis of the movement along the time-dimension.
"To make you understand that, let me take an example. Suppose all motion on earth stopped entirely, so that there was not the least bit of visible motion in earth or heavens. Sun, moon, stars, ships, clocks, trains, rivers, people, every form of motion stopping completely, so that the earth was a completely motionless world. Then would it not be a timeless world also? In other words, without change there would be no such thing as time, for time depends on and is measured by change. So that all movement along the fourth or time-dimension is intimately related to movement along the other three or space-dimensions.
"It is exactly the same with a single, isolated object. Take a metal ball, for instance. It moves steadily along the time-dimension, from the past toward the future, only because the electrons that compose it are constantly moving along the space-dimensions, are constantly revolving around their nucleus, at the same unvarying speed. If you stopped that revolving of electrons, the ball of metal would become static, timeless, would cease to move along the time-dimension. But suppose instead of stopping the electronic movement, you accelerated it, speeded it up? Then the ball of metal whose electronic activity was thus accelerated would move on through time faster. Everything around it would still move along the time-dimension at the same rate, but it would be going faster, would speed on into the future, ahead of the things around it. And the more its electronic motion was accelerated, the farther into the future it would go.
"In the same way, if the electronic motion was reversed, the metal ball would go backward along the time-dimension, would speed back into the past. Thus you see how such a principle could be applied practically and enable one to speed into past or future at will, simply by accelerating or reversing the motion of the electrons making up his vehicle, or car."
"It seems reasonable," I admitted, "but the difficulty remains, for how could the movement of electrons be thus accelerated or reversed at will? Why, no man has ever even seen an electron, or ever will, they're so infinitesimally tiny. Then how affect their speeds, their directions?"
"You mention a difficulty," Lantin replied, "but it could be overcome, Wheeler. As you say, no man has ever seen an electron, but for all that, men have done some strange things with electrons. They have shot them through films of water-vapor and have thus been able to record their speeds and courses, without seeing the actual electrons. And just recently, an American scientist was able to change the course of electronic motion entirely, and shoot a stream of electrons in any direction at will, the so-called cathode rays. When that has been done, it doesn't seem altogether impossible to change their motion in another way, by accelerating or reversing it."
"But there's another thing, Lantin," I said; "even though you achieved the impossible and found a way of time-traveling, how would you find Cannell? How could you find him, without knowing what age or what place the Raider has taken him to? It seems like hunting for a needle in a haystack, a thousand times magnified in difficulty."
Without answering, Lantin went to a cabinet and brought forth a big globe, which he placed on the table before me. "I have a theory on that, too," he said. "Note the lines I've drawn on this globe," he added, indicating some long black pencil-lines that had been drawn on the round surface in the region of the Pacific Ocean.