A Time Travel Problem

     While reading ", A Man in His Time, the Best of Brian W. Aldes" I came across one of the most perplexing time travel problems I've ever encountered. Of course my first real exposure to time travel was "Back to the Future" starring Michael J. Fox. I'm sure I'd heard of, and maybe had read it, the famous story "The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells by that time, but the DeLorean  ripping through space time to save Doc was bigger than life up on the silver screen. Since then, I've read 100's time travel stories and probably heard of just as many movies, but the title story of "A Man in His Time" proposes a time travel problem that is really hard to wrap your mind around. A quick set up of the plot and then I'm going to post the last part of the story I found on Archive.org.  

       In the story Captain Jack Westermark just returned from Mars. On the return, the capsule crashed on Earth, killing seven other astronauts. Jack survives, but has a big problem. He is living 3.077 minutes in the future. Apparently , stuck on "Mars time". The story involves Jack's mom, wife and counselor, Mr. Stackpole trying to understand how to interact with Jack. Here is the final scene in the story. If this doesn't melt your mind, I don't' know what will.

     "The sun had broken through, sucking moisture from the

damp garden. It was now unmistakably autumn. She rounded

the corner of the house, stepped round the rose bed, and

looked into her husband’s study.

Shaken, she saw he leaned half over the table. His hands

were over his face, blood ran between his fingers and dripped

on to an open magazine on the table top. She was aware of

Stackpole sitting indifferently beside the electric fire.

She gave a small cry and ran round the house again, to be

met at the back door by Mrs. Westermark.

‘‘Oh, I was just — Janet, what is it?”

“Jack, Mother! He’s had a stroke or something terrible!”

“But how do you know?”

“Quick, we must phone the hospital — I must go to him,”

Mrs. Westermark took Janet’s arm. “Perhaps we’d better

leave it to Mr. Stackpole, hadn’t we? I’m afraid ”

“Mother, we must do what we can. I know we’re amateurs.

Please let me go.”

“No, Janet, we’re — it’s their world. I’m frightened. They’ll

come if they want us.” She was gripping Janet in her fright.

Their wild eyes stared momentarily at each other as if seeing

something else, and then Janet snatched herself away. “I must

go to him,” she said.

She hurried down the hall and pushed open the study door.

Her husband stood now at the far end of the room by the

window, while blood streamed from his nose.

“Jack!” she exclaimed. As she ran towards him, a blow from

the empty air struck her on the forehead, so that she staggered

aside, falling against a bookcase. A shower of smaller volumes

from the upper shelf fell on her and round her. Exclaiming,

Stackpole dropped his notebook and ran round the table to

her. Even as he went to her aid, he noted the time from his

watch: 10*24.

Aid after 10*24 tidiness of bed

Westermark’s mother appeared in the doorway.

‘‘Stay where you are,’* Stackpole shouted, “or there will be

more trouble! Janet, you see what you’ve done. Get out of

here, will you? Jack, I’m right with you — God knows what

you’ve felt, isolated without aid for three and a third minutes 1”

Angrily, he went across and stood within arm’s length of his

patient. He threw his handkerchief down on to the table.

“Mr. Stackpole ” Westermark’s mother said tenta-

tively from the door, an arm round Janet’s waist.

He looked back over his shoulder only long enough to say,

“Get towels! Phone the Research Hospital for an ambulance

and tell them to be here right away.”

By midday, Westermark was tidily in bed upstairs and the

ambulance staff, who had treated him for what after all was

only nosebleed, had left. Stackpole, as he turned from closing

the front door, eyed the two women.

“I feel it is my duty to warn you,” he said heavily, “that

another incident such as this might well prove fatal. This time

we escaped very lightly. If an5rthing else of this sort happens, I

shall feel obliged to recommend to the board that Mr. Wester-

mark is moved back to the hospital.”

Current way to define accidents

“He wouldn’t want to go,” Janet said. “Besides, you are

being absurd; it was entirely an accident. Now I wish to go

upstairs and see how he is.”

“Just before you go, may I point out that what happened

was not an accident — or not as we generally define accidents,

since you saw the results of your interference through the

study window before you entered. Where you were to

blame ”

‘‘But that’s absurd ” both women began at once. Janet

went on to say, “I never would have rushed into the room as I

did had I not seen through the window that he was in

trouble.”

“What you saw was the result on your husband of your later

interference.”

In something like a wail, Westermark’s mother said, “I

don’t understand any of this. What did Janet bump into when

she ran in?”

“She ran, Mrs. Westermark, into the spot where her hus-

band had been standing 3*3077 minutes earlier. Surely by now

you have grasped this elementary business of time inertia?”

When they both started speaking at once, he stared at them

until they stopped and looked at him. Then he said, “We had

better go into the living-room. Speaking for myself, I would

like a drink.”

He helped himself, and not until his hand was round a glass

of whisky did he say, “Now, without wishing to lecture to you

ladies, I think it is high time you both realized that you are

not living in the old safe world of classical mechanics ruled

over by a god invented by eighteenth-century enlightenment.

All that has happened here is perfectly rational, but if you are

going to pretend it is beyond your female understandings ”

“Mr. Stackpole,” Janet said sharply. “Can you please keep

to the point without being insulting? Will you tell me why

what happened was not an accident? I understand now that

when I looked through the study window I saw my husband

suffering from a collision that to him had happened three and

something minutes before and to me would not happen for

another three and something minutes, but at that moment I

was so startled that I forgot ”

“No, no, your figures are wrong. The total time lapse is only

3*3077 minutes. When you saw your husband, he had been

hit half that time — 1*65385 minutes — ago, and there was

another 1*65385 minutes to go before you completed the

action by bursting into the room and striking him.”

“But she didn't strike him!” the older woman cried.

Firmly, Stackpole diverted his attention long enough to

reply. ‘‘She struck him at 10*24 Earth time, which equals io*20

plus about 36 seconds Mars or his time, which equals 9*59 or

whatever Neptune time, which equals 1 56 and a half Sirius

time. It’s a big universe, Mrs. Westermark! You will remain

confused as long as you continue to confuse event with time.

May I suggest you sit down and have a drink?^’"

       I don't drink, but I may sit down and have one myself. The half time part makes no sense and just thinking about living 3.077 minutes in the future while the rest of the world goes on around you is very difficult. Drop a comment if you'd like to explain this last scene in the story.