Chapter 1 Summary

The book opens in the home of the Time Traveler. The dinner guests include the narrator, the Medical Man, the Psychologist and Mr. Filby, and the Very Young Man. After dinner, the Time Traveler and his guests sit in the smoking room and become involved in a discussion of science. The Time Traveler tells his guests that geometry is based on a misconception. He begins to speak of the Fourth Dimension, which is Time. He tells his guests that modern science has overlooked the Fourth Dimension, which he tells them is no different from the other three. The reason it is overlooked, according to the Time Traveler, is that this is the dimension in which humans move throughout their lives.

The Time Traveler speaks of scientists working on models and mathematics of the Fourth Dimension and mentions Professor Newcomb of the New York...