The Light of Other Days
The Light of Other Days is a 2000 science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter.
Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.
The Light of Other Days concerns the development of wormhole technology to the point where information can be passed instantaneously between points in the space-time continuum.
First pure information is sent via gamma rays, then a development allows light waves to travel. The media corporation who develops this advance can spy on anywhere it chooses. A logical development from the laws of space-time allows light waves to be detected from the past. This changes the wormhole technology into a "time viewer" where anyone opening a wormhole can view events and people from any point throughout time and history.
Revolutionary historic discoveries are made throughout the book's progression, among them the total disproof of ghosts and extra-terrestrial life. The time viewer technology also shows that Jesus was the bastard son of a Roman Centurion and that the legend of Moses was based on a collection of stories rather than the actions of a real person.
In a climatic time viewing experiment at the end of the novel, a time hole is opened to beginning of life on Earth and it is discovered that all life is based on an experiment conducted by intelligent beings, who inhabited the Earth over 3 billion years ago, and preserved genetic samples when geological and climatic changes caused an Extinction Level Event.
The novel looks at the philosophical issues that arise from the world's population (increasingly suffering from ecological and political disturbances) being aware that they could be under constant observation from the future, whilst simultaneously being able to look at the past events of their families and their heroes. An underground forms which attempts to usurp the observation; nations discover the true causes and outcomes of international conflicts; and religions worldwide are forced to reevaluate their divine histories.
ISBN 0-00-224704-6
"Light of Other Days" is a science fiction short story by Bob Shaw.
