The Light of Other Days

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"Light of Other Days" is also a science fiction short story by Bob Shaw.

The Light of Other Days is a 2000 science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, which explores the development of wormhole technology to the point where information can be passed instantaneously between points in the space-time continuum.

Plot summary

First pure information is sent via gamma rays, then a development allows light waves to travel. The media corporation who develops this advance can spy on anyone anywhere it chooses. A logical development from the laws of space-time allows light waves to be detected from the past. This enhances the wormhole technology into a "time viewer" where anyone opening a wormhole can view events and people from any point throughout time and space.

When the technology is released to the general public, it effectively destroys all secrecy and privacy. The novel looks at the philosophical issues that arise from the world's population (increasingly suffering from ecological and political disturbances) being aware that they could be under constant observation by anyone, or that they could observe anyone without their knowledge. Anyone is able to observe the true past events of their families and their heroes. An underground forms which attempts to escape this observation; corruption and crime are drastically reduced; nations discover the true causes and outcomes of international conflicts; and religions worldwide are forced to reevaluate their divine histories. As the underground movement grows, it utilizes a direct neural interface coupled with the unlimited communication provided by the wormhole technology to develop a group mind.

One of the central themes of the novel is that history is biased towards viewpoints of the person who wrote it. Hence many great "historical" events often did not occur as they now are collectively remembered. For example during the book's progression; the time viewer technology shows that Jesus was the illegitimate son of a Roman Centurion and that Moses was based on a collection of stories rather than the actions of a real person.

In a climactic time-viewing experiment at the end of the novel, a time hole is opened to the beginning of life on Earth and it is discovered that all existing life is descended from a biological sample placed by intelligent beings (labeled Sisyphans) who inhabited the Earth over three billion years ago, trying to preserve genetic samples when geological and climatic changes threatened an extinction level event.

Trivia

A time viewer is also used in Clarke's Childhood's End, although it plays a minor role in the plot. Clarke discusses this device and its use in other science fiction in the afterword to the novel.

Release details

• 2000, USA, Voyager (ISBN 0-00-224704-6), Pub date 18 September 2000, hardback (First edition)

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