time track n.

= timeline n.

Time Travel

  • 1931 E. Hamilton Ten Million Years Ahead in Weird Tales Apr.–May 304/2 page image Edmond Hamilton bibliography

    We know that matter moves along this time-dimension from the past toward the future at an unchangeable speed, like a locomotive following its track. We can not speed up our movement on that track, or reverse it, or stop or even slow it, but move forward always at the same rate. But suppose that this time-track we follow doubled back upon itself so that a point really far ahead of us on it would be close beside us in reality, just as a railway track or road sometimes doubles back upon itself so that a point which you will not reach on it for hours is right beside you? Then we could short-cut across to that point and reach a time actually millions of years ahead in the future!

  • 1942 M. Jameson Anachron, Inc. in Astounding Science-Fiction Oct. 62/1 page image Malcolm Jameson bibliography

    They said that the prognosis following a Confederate victory was not good and that we have to assume the moral responsibility for the sort of futures we set up in these branch time-tracks we generate, even if they have no effect on us.

  • 1945 ‘L. O'Donnell’ The Code in Astounding Science-Fiction July 29/2 page image C. L. Moore bibliography

    But you can’t go back to the beginning. You can’t even go back along your timetrack. Because the train is moving on, it isn’t where it was twenty, fifty, eighty years before, and if you try to retrace your steps, you’re walking along a strange road. It isn’t quite spatial or temporal, really.

  • 1947 ‘M. Leinster’ Time to Die in Astounding Science-Fiction Jan. 145/2 page image Murray Leinster bibliography

    It’s branching time tracks… That’s the idea! There can be more than one past, and more than one present, and more than one future. An old speculation. You do something, and it sets you on one time track rather than another. If you could go back, you could do something else and get on another time track.

  • 1959 C. Oliver Transfusion in Astounding Science Fiction June 52/1 page image Chad Oliver bibliography

    The bones are real, I’ve held them in my hands, and they’re still in place in the museums. No amount of twaddle about alternate time-tracks and congruent universes is going to change that.

  • 1961 ‘G. Whitley’ All Laced Up in New Worlds Science Fiction (#112) Nov. 66 page image A. Bertram Chandler bibliography

    ‘What about something really good?… Anti-gravity, or the interstellar drive?’ ‘And shunt the world on to a different Time Track?’

  • 1971 U. K. Le Guin Lathe of Heaven (1973) vii.103 Ursula K. Le Guin bibliography

    But I knew you did, as soon as I thought about it, because they weren’t in that other—time-track or whatever it is.

  • 1983 R. Silverberg Needle in a Timestack in Conglomeroid Cocktail Party 267 page image Robert Silverberg bibliography

    Whatever the symptom, it always meant the same thing: your time-track has been meddled with, your life has been retroactively transformed.

  • 1992 B. Searles On Books in Asimov’s Science Fiction Feb. 169/2 page image Baird Searles

    The matter transmitters lead to alternate time tracks, opening up even more territory for our lost adventurers to keep track of (as it were).

  • 2011 G. Mann Paradox Lost (Doctor Who) 16 page image George Mann bibliography

    The old girl seems to want to take us somewhere in a bit of a hurry and she’s jumping a few time tracks in order to do it. Just like a needle skipping in the grooves of an old record.


Research requirements

antedating 1931

Earliest cite

Edmond Hamilton, in Weird Tales

Research History
Katrina Campbell submitted a cite from a reprint of A. Bertram Chandler (writing as "George Whitley")'s "All Laced Up"; Mike Christie verified the cite in the 1961 original magazine appearance.
Katrina Campbell submitted a cite from a reprint of Michael Moorcock's "Flux"; Mike Christie verified the cite in the 1963 first magazine appearance.
Mike Christie submitted a 1949 cite from a letter by Warren Carroll in Astounding.
Jeff Prucher submitted a 1977 cite from an article by Brian Aldiss in Brian Ash's "A Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction".
Mike Christie submitted a 1947 cite from Murray Leinster's "Time to Die".
Douglas Winston submitted a cite from a reprint of Robert Silverberg's "Stepsons of Terra"; Mike Christie verified the cite in the 1958 first edition.
Mike Christie submitted a 1945 cite from C. L. Moore (writing as "Laurence O'Donnell")'s "The Code".
Mike Christie submitted a 1943 cite from Lewis Padgett's "The World Is Mine".
Mike Christie submitted a 1942 cite from Malcolm Jameson's "Anachron, Inc.".
Bee Ostrowsky submitted a 1931 cite from Edmond Hamilton's "Ten Million Years Ahead," in Weird Tales.

Fred Galvin found a reference in the ISFDB to David Plimmer's 1941 story "Man From the Wrong time-Track", but consulting the text of the story revealed it to be a story of future/past time-travel, rather than the "sideways in time" parallel worlds sense that we want.

Last modified 2023-12-28 17:03:18
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.