Timeline Essay, Research Paper

TIMELINE

Timeline by Michael Crichton, was a very exciting book about time travel and what the Dark Ages were like. Timeline also taught about the basics of quantum physics that would make it possible to achieve such a spectacular feat. Be prepared as you read this book to leap into the horrible, dangerous would of the year 1387.

Timeline started out with a group of scientists/archaeologists digging at an ancient castle site. This site was in a French valley with two main castles, Castelgard and La Roque, a monastery, and a mill. This was the site that ITC, a quantum research facility, picked to go back into time to research. Through quantum physics, ITC was able to make a machine that sent objects and people to a parallel universe that was different from this one. This was the basis of the whole story. Professor Johnston, the leader of the digging group, got curious as to how ITC knew more about the site than he did. Robert Doniger, the owner of ITC, decided that he would show the professor how they knew so much about the site. While the professor was back in time, he wandered out into the open field and got trapped inside the medieval world by the Dordogne River. Doniger then got the brilliant idea of sending back some of the other archaeologists to try and find Professor Johnston because they would know the spots where he would most likely be. The group of four, Andre Marek, Chris Hughes, Kate Erickson, and David Stern flew to the New Mexico site to find the professor. During the pre-tests to see it they were physically capable of going back through the machine, David Stern decided that he was not going to go because he did not trust the machines. The five of them, the three other archaeologists, and the two guides went back to the Dordogne valley in 1387. Right off the bat when they got there, a group of knights saw the futuristic people and chopped off the head of one guide and shot the other guide full of arrows. That left the archaeologists on their own to find the professor. Right away they were astonished by how the castles looked and by how quiet it was. Facing many problems, they soon found out who the professor was in the medieval world and found him. This was a time of war, however, which presented many difficulties in getting out, not to mention the fact that the machines had broken back home and the ITC crew did not think that the shields would hold up. The machine got up and running only two minutes before the batteries on the caller device to get the machine to the group would have run out. Luckily they did not need to call the machines until the very last second, and they got back to 1999 in one piece.

One of the best parts of the book, I thought, was when Baretto, a guide, brought back some modern weapons to the medieval world, even though he was not supposed to. Then when he got shot by the knights, Baretto called the machine and tried to throw a grenade, but he could not throw it and the grenade went off in the ITC laboratory, ruining the machines. This made the whole book interesting because the group of archaeologists stuck in 1387 could not get back until the machines were fixed; otherwise, there might have been transcription errors which meant that one or more of the people could end up mutated.

I think the major theme in the novel was that all technological advances may not be for the good. Even though a time machine would help people learn and understand more about what happened in the past, this machine could change the course of history. It was not likely that one person could change the course of history because one person can not do a whole lot to change a major event, but it is possible that a change could occur. The change might be good at the time, but it could lead to the destruction of the world sooner than it was meant to be.

I thought that Timeline was a very interesting book because of the concepts that it had in it. It grabbed my attention right from the start because I am interested in the medieval world and what went on back then. I am interested as well in the possibility of time travel, and thinking that maybe someday it will be possible through quantum physics made the book all the more appealing. Although this book was filled with educational facts, it was very captivating, and not too many books can be educational and hold my attention at the same time.

If you are interested in the Dark Ages or the thoughts of time travel, or even if you just want to read an exciting book, this is just the book for you. If I were to rate this book on a scale of one to ten, it would receive a ten because it was interesting from the beginning to the end, and had me thinking about stimulating possibilities the whole way through. I can t wait to see the movie!