Bewildering Stories welcomes...

Fred Russell

Fred Russell is the pen name of an American-born writer living in Israel. He has published two novels and a collection of science-fiction satires.

A Very Brief Meditation on Space and Time is an erudite but readable essay on a current “hot topic” in science, particularly cosmology: What is time, anyway? The author cites luminaries of popularized science such as Stephen Hawking and Isaac Asmov, as well as classic philosophers.

One might echo Oscar Wilde’s acerbic epigram, “Time is a waste of money.” However, the essay seems to arrive at a conclusion similar to Carlo Rovelli’s in The Order of Time. Bewildering Stories can even claim to have arrived at it first with a motto of long standing: “Everything we perceive comes to us from the past. Everything we do goes into the future.”

One may well ask, “Pardon the expression but wait a minute. Doesn’t that motto mean that my past is someone else’s future, and vice-versa? And what does it imply about the present, pray tell?” As it will have been being said — pardon the future ridiculous tense — the topic is open to good discussions.

Fred Russell’s bio sketch can be found here.

Welcome to Bewildering Stories, Fred. We hope to hear from you again soon and often!