A Black Wing Flapping
In his The Time Machine, H.G. Wells penned an exceptionally vivid description of what the passage of time would look like if speeded up in relation to an observer (that is, in relation to someone traveling through time). I've always thought it rather poetic, and a bit terrifying to contemplate as well, particularly in its evocation of the alternation of night and day under such circumstances:
As I put on pace, night followed day like the flapping of a black wing. The dim suggestion of the laboratory seemed presently to fall away from me, and I saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky, leaping it every minute, and every minute marking a day. I supposed the laboratory had been destroyed and I had come into the open air. I had a dim impression of scaffolding, but I was already going too fast to be conscious of any moving things. The slowest snail that ever crawled dashed by too fast for me. The twinkling succession of darkness and light was excessively painful to the eye. Then, in the intermittent darknesses, I saw the moon spinning swiftly through her quarters from new to full, and had a faint glimpse of the circling stars. Presently, as I went on, still gaining velocity, the palpitation of night and day merged into one continuous greyness; the sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue, a splendid luminous color like that of early twilight; the jerking sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch, in space; the moon a fainter fluctuating band; and I could see nothing of the stars, save now and then a brighter circle flickering in the blue.
At one time I had one of the "sunlight" clocks or whatever they're called installed on my computer as a screensaver. I was fascinated to watch the zones of night and day moving steadily and inexorably across the map of the world. It drove home how quickly time was passing, much as did the ticking of our mantel clock (still on our mantel, but unwound for many a month now).
Now you can buy a wall-mounted version of that sunlight clock/map--it's called the Geochron
--and, yes, it's a geek toy--I should say a geek CEO toy, because it's not particularly cheap. And, yes, I would like to have one on my wall.
[Tags: days literature gadgets books geek life night science tech technology science fiction clocks maps]
As I put on pace, night followed day like the flapping of a black wing. The dim suggestion of the laboratory seemed presently to fall away from me, and I saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky, leaping it every minute, and every minute marking a day. I supposed the laboratory had been destroyed and I had come into the open air. I had a dim impression of scaffolding, but I was already going too fast to be conscious of any moving things. The slowest snail that ever crawled dashed by too fast for me. The twinkling succession of darkness and light was excessively painful to the eye. Then, in the intermittent darknesses, I saw the moon spinning swiftly through her quarters from new to full, and had a faint glimpse of the circling stars. Presently, as I went on, still gaining velocity, the palpitation of night and day merged into one continuous greyness; the sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue, a splendid luminous color like that of early twilight; the jerking sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch, in space; the moon a fainter fluctuating band; and I could see nothing of the stars, save now and then a brighter circle flickering in the blue.
At one time I had one of the "sunlight" clocks or whatever they're called installed on my computer as a screensaver. I was fascinated to watch the zones of night and day moving steadily and inexorably across the map of the world. It drove home how quickly time was passing, much as did the ticking of our mantel clock (still on our mantel, but unwound for many a month now).
Now you can buy a wall-mounted version of that sunlight clock/map--it's called the Geochron
[Tags: days literature gadgets books geek life night science tech technology science fiction clocks maps]
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