The Masks of Time [antikvár]

ONE *A MEMOIR OF this sort should be^n with some kind of statement of personal involvement, I suppose: I was tlie man, I was there, I suffered And in fact my involvement with the improbable events of the past twelve months was great. I knew thé man from the future. I followed him on his nightmare orbit arpimd our world. I was with him at the end.But not at the beginning. And so, if I am^to tell a complete tale of him, it must be a more-than-complete tale of me. When Vornan-19 arrived in our era, I was so far removed from even the most extraordinary current matters that I did not find out about it for several weeks. Yet eventually I was drawn into the whirlpool he created , as were you, all of you, as was each of us everywhere.I am Leo Garfield. My age is fifty-two as of tonight, the fifth of December, 1999. I am unmarriedby choice and in excellent health. I live in Irvine, California, and hold the Schultz Chair of Physics at the University of California. My work concerns the time-reversal of subatomic particles. I have never taught in the classroom. I have several young graduate students whom I regard, as does the University, as my pupils, but there is no formal instruction in the usual sense in our laboratory. I have devoted most of my adult life to time-reversal physics, and I have succeeded mainly in inducing a few electrons to turn on their tails and flee into the past. I once thought that a considerable achievement.At the time of Vornan-19's arrival, a little less than one year ago, I had reached an impasse in my work and had9