Old short story about time travel: not physical, just as onlookers

Question

I’m trying to find a science fiction short story I read in the late 70s/early 80s, possibly in an older anthology: it was likely written in the 50s or 60s.

It’s about time travel and its limits: basically, humanity has found a way to travel backwards in time but not physically, just as onlookers.

So it’s used in forensics to travel back to when a crime has been committed and see who the felon is: I remember one of the characters saying that if you’ve been murdered they cannot prevent that nor bring you back to life but at least they have the means to capture your murderer.

I think they’re using kind of floating balls with built-in cameras for the task but I’m not sure about this, it could be from another story.

Answer 1

I suggested in a comment that the story might be The Dead Past by Isaac Asimov, and although it is only a vague match to the description a reply suggests it might be the story so I'll post more details.

The story hinges around a technology called the chronoscope that allows users to see images from the past, but no time travel is involved. The chronoscope works because the particles called neutrinos travel from the past to the present¹ and can be detected as images from the past.

The mismatch with the question is because the chronoscope was suppressed as soon as it was realised that "the past" is any time more than a moment ago and the chronoscope's ability to image from a moment ago makes it able to spy on anyone anywhere in the world. So it is not used for catching murderers or indeed solving any crimes.

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¹ neutrinos do indeed travel from the past to the present, but sadly only at one second per second

Answer 2

I seem to remember one such story by Orson Scott Card, part of his "Pastwatch" series (it has novels such as this; the GoodReads entry is about the largest novel, The Redemption of Christopher Columbus).

"Pastwatch I" machines supplied exactly what you said, and were used for both historical research and murder solving. I remember some observation such as, "there was no longer such a thing as an unsolved murder".

Answer 3

"Time Exposures", a novelette by Wilson Tucker, first published in the 1971 anthology Universe 1 edited by Terry Carr. You might have read it in one of these compilations, among which is the 1979 anthology The 13 Crimes of Science Fiction (Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh, eds.), which can be borrowed from the Internet Archive (free but registration required).

This is a story about police investigating a crime scene with the aid of a camera that can photograph the recent past. However, the camera is not in a "floating ball", and nobody remarks on the fact that "if you’ve been murdered they cannot prevent that nor bring you back to life."

From the editorial blurb in Universe 1:

a quiet, matter-of-fact account of crime solving in the future, with a police camera that can photograph up to fourteen hours into the past.

From the story:

The camera itself was a heavy, unwieldy instrument and was lifted onto the tripod with a certain amount of hard grunting and a muttered curse because of a nipped finger. When it was solidly battened to the tripod, Talbot picked a film magazine out of the supply case and fixed it to the rear of the camera. A lens and the timing instrument was the last to be fitted into place. He looked to make sure the lens was clean.

Talbot focused on the front door, and reached into a pocket for his slide rule. He checked the time now and then calculated backward to obtain four exposures at nine o'clock, nine-five, nine-ten, and nine-fifteen, which should pretty well bracket the arrival of the janitor and toy shop employee. He cocked and tripped the timer, and then checked to make sure the nylon film was feeding properly after each exposure. The data for each exposure was jotted down in a notebook, making the later identification of the prints more certain.

The plainclothesman broke his stony silence. "I've never seen one of those things work before."

Talbot said easily: "I'm taking pictures from nine o'clock to nine-fifteen this morning; If I'm in luck I'll catch the janitor opening the door. If I'm not in luck I'll catch only a blurred movement—or nothing at all—and then I'll have to go back and make an exposure for each minute after nine until I find him. A blurred image of the moving door will pinpoint. him."

"Good pictures?" He seemed skeptical.

"At nine o'clock? Yes. There was sufficient light coming in that window at nine and not too much time has elapsed. Satisfactory conditions. Things get sticky when I try for night exposures with no more than one or two lamps lit; that simply isn't enough light. I wish everything would happen outdoors at noon on a bright day—and not more than an hour ago!"

The detective grunted and inspected the ticking camera. "I took some of your pictures into court once. Bank robbery case, last year. The pictures were bad and the judge threw them out and the case collapsed."

"I remember them," Talbot told him. "And I apologize for the poor job. Those prints were made right at the time limit; fourteen hours, perhaps a little more. The camera and the film are almost useless beyond ten or twelve hours—that is simply too much elapsed time. I use the very best film available but it can't find or make a decent image more than twelve hours in the past. Your bank prints were nothing more than grainy shadows; that's all I can get from twelve to fourteen hours."

Answer 4

Very low likelihood of what you are looking for but in the "Fuller's Apprentice" by Angela Holder, mages dispensed justice by using spells to go back in time to witness prior events. Include for completeness of time-travel-without-physically-going-back-in-time.

Answer 5

Kristine Katherine Rusch has a story called "Blood Trail" with a similar theme https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7119958-blood-trail

Answer 6

Another long shot: "Crimescan", a short story by Colin Kapp in Galaxy Magazine, March-April 1973, available at the Internet Archive. As far as the ISFDB knows, the story was only reprinted in foreign language anthologies; so if you read it in English in the late 1970s, it would have been in an old magazine.

The device in the story, called the Eidochron, was not operated by the police, but by a secret private group called Crimescan, which solved crimes and provided anonymous tips to the police. The story opens with the axe murder of a young woman which is solved by Crimescan; it ends with Crimescan desctoying their equipment to keep it from falling into the hands of Federal agents who are trying to track them down and grab the Eidochron for their own use.

Answer 7

I'm surprised that no one mentioned the only-partial match "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed" by aLFRED Bester.

"Time Exposures" is a closer match to the question, but isn't the sought-after story.

So. Bester's story -- after years, I just re-read it to compare -- is less of a match; however it matches in three respects.

(1) Although not at the level of "humanity" finding time travel -- A professor and inventor "has found a way to travel backwards in time but not physically, just as onlookers."

(2) It is not quite that he went "backwards in time but not physically, just as onlookers." He did, however, (A) fail to affect the desired result of killing his wife via timeline intervention, and (B) became more physically insubstantial himself every time he returned from a time-trip. This becomes evident physically, and with both humans on the telephone and computer voice interactions can not hear him.

"She will have ceased to exist,” Hassel muttered, blowing smoke out of the revolver. “I’ll be a bachelor. I may even be married to somebody else... Good God! Who?” Hassel waited impatiently for the automatic recall of the time machine to snatch him back to his own laboratory. He rushed into his living room. There was his redheaded wife, still in the arms of a man.

And

He fought with the telephone, which seemed to weigh a hundred tons, and at last managed to get through to the library. “Hello, Library? This is Henry.” “Who?” “Henry Hassel.” “Speak up, please.” “HENRY HASSEL!”

(3) "possibly in an older anthology: it was likely written in the 50s or 60s."

It was written in 1958 and appeared in several anthologies in the next few years.

There is, however, no mention of cameras or solving criminal cases. But rather, a funny story about a professor who became a criminal.

Or would have, except that his murders had no affect on anyone else's timeline.