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Why didn't other objects occupy the same space as the Time Traveller?


In the 2002 version of The Time Machine, the Time Traveller travels from the year 1899 to 802701.


During the time travelling sequence, the world around the time machine changes, but it changes around the machine itself.


If he was travelling through time, how would the world around him know or adapt and avoid the space that the machine was taking up?


Why wouldn't the materials occupy the same space as the Traveller, just not the same time?



Answer



The Time Machine creates a bubble around it when it is operating. Thus protecting it from the changes experienced outside the time bubble. It moves in both space and time, relative to its original starting point. It temporarily displaces the matter as it passes through it on its journey.


main character operating the Time Machine



It seems to me in the original Time Machine that Alexander Hartdegen arrives inside a rock face at one point. The appearance of the Time Machine causes the matter that would have been occupying the space within rock to be gone. No evidence to suggest whether it was permanent or not.


When something is both inside the bubble and outside the bubble (like the necklace, hand, or Morlock) they experience both passages of time simultaneously.


Morlock reaching to the inside of the Time Machine


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