Timeline | Themes & Symbolism

Timeline Significant Topics

Scientific Hubris

The Introduction to Timeline grounds the entire novel in the author's overarching theme of scientific hubris. Crichton discusses the history of physics in the Introduction. He explains how nineteenth-century physicists arrived at the premature conclusion that they had completely described the workings of the physical world. These scientists chose to ignore some rather unusual discoveries at the tail end of the century because the discoveries did not mesh with existing scientific theory. These discoveries would eventually reshape science's conception of the physical world. Ironically, states Crichton, the physicists of the twentieth century arrived at the same conclusion, that they, too, had fully grasped the nature of the physical world. Crichton foreshadows his theme of scientific hubris by stating that once again, some unusual discoveries have been made which threaten to completely revolutionize science's conception of the world.

Crichton does not limit his theme of scientific hubris to the physicists at...
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