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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

How to Build a Time Machine

book by Paul Davies

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 8, 2026
Entity authorityQ2986129 ↗
Source-derived summary

How to Build a Time Machine by Paul Davies is a 2002 physics book that discusses the possibilities of time travel. It was published by Penguin Books.

Synopsis

In this book, Davies discusses why time is relative, how this relates to time travel, and then lays out a "blueprint" for a real time machine. This is explored whilst also discussing paradoxes which allow a more constructive approach. It is a realistic, albeit fantastical, book.

Editorial summary

“How to Build a Time Machine” enters the record as book by Paul Davies. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Build, Time and Machine can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2002—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2002. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Build, Time and Machine.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“How to Build a Time Machine” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Build, Time and Machine provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2986129. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2002.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “How to Build a Time Machine”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow How to Build a Time Machine primary sources, How to Build a Time Machine archive and Build research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “How to Build a Time Machine”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “How to Build a Time Machine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.