{"id":25010,"date":"2025-11-09T18:23:52","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T22:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/?p=25010"},"modified":"2025-11-09T18:23:54","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T22:23:54","slug":"alfred-bester-the-men-who-murdered-mohammed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/short-stories\/alfred-bester-the-men-who-murdered-mohammed\/25010\/","title":{"rendered":"Alfred Bester: The Men Who Murdered Mohammed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Synopsis: <\/strong>\u201cThe Men Who Murdered Mohammed\u201d is a science fiction short story written by Alfred Bester, published in 1958 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction<\/em>. The story follows Professor Henry Hassel, who, after discovering his wife’s infidelity, builds a time machine with the intention of erasing her existence by altering historical events. However, as he murders key figures from the past, Hassel discovers that time is a much more complex matter than he had expected. With a mixture of dark humor and temporal paradoxes, Bester questions the nature of time and the consequences of manipulating it.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"Alfred<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Men Who Murdered Mohammed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Alfred Bester
(Full story)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a man who mutilated history. He toppled empires and uprooted dynasties. Because of him, Mount Vernon should not be a national shrine, and Columbus, Ohio, should be called Cabot, Ohio. Because of him the name Marie Curie should be cursed in France, and no one should swear by the beard of the Prophet. Actually, these realities did not happen, because he was a mad professor; or, to put it another way, he only succeeded in making them unreal for himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, the patient reader is too familiar with the conventional mad professor, undersized and overbrowed, creating monsters in his laboratory which invariably turn on their maker and menace his lovely daughter. This story isn\u2019t about that sort of make-believe man. It\u2019s about Henry Hassel, a genuine mad professor in a class with such better-known men as Ludwig Boltzmann (see<\/em> Ideal Gas Law), Jacques Charles and Andr\u00e9 Marie Amp\u00e8re (1775\u20131836).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone ought to know that the electrical ampere was so named in honor of Amp\u00e8re. Ludwig Boltzmann was a distinguished Austrian physicist, as famous for his research on black-body radiation as on Ideal Gases. You can look him up in Volume Three of the Encyclopaedia Britannica<\/em>, BALT to BRAI. Jacques Alexandre C\u00e9sar Charles was the first mathematician to become interested in flight, and he invented the hydrogen balloon. These were real men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were also real mad professors. Amp\u00e8re, for example, was on his way to an important meeting of scientists in Paris. In his taxi he got a brilliant idea (of an electrical nature, I assume) and whipped out a pencil and jotted the equation on the wall of the hansom cab. Roughly, it was: dH<\/em> = ip<\/em>dl<\/em>\/r<\/em>2<\/sup> in which p<\/em> is the perpendicular distance from P<\/em> to the line of the element dl<\/em>; or dH<\/em> = i<\/em>\u2009sin\u03c6dl<\/em>\/r<\/em>2<\/sup>. This is sometimes known as Laplace\u2019s Law, although he wasn\u2019t at the meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, the cab arrived at the Acad\u00e9mie. Amp\u00e8re jumped out, paid the driver and rushed into the meeting to tell everybody about his idea. Then he realized he didn\u2019t have the note on him, remembered where he\u2019d left it, and had to chase through the streets of Paris after the taxi to recover his runaway equation. Sometimes I imagine that\u2019s how Fermat lost his famous \u201cLast Theorem,\u201d although Fermat wasn\u2019t at the meeting either, having died some two hundred years earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or take Boltzmann. Giving a course in Advanced Ideal Gases, he peppered his lectures with involved calculus, which he worked out quickly and casually in his head. He had that kind of head. His students had so much trouble trying to puzzle out the math by ear that they couldn\u2019t keep up with the lectures, and they begged Boltzmann to work out his equations on the blackboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boltzmann apologized and promised to be more helpful in the future. At the next lecture he began, \u201cGentlemen, combining Boyle\u2019s Law with the Law of Charles, we arrive at the equation pv<\/em> = p<\/em>0<\/sub>v<\/em>0<\/sub>(1 + at<\/em>). Now, obviously, if a<\/sub>Sb<\/sup><\/em> = f(x<\/em>)dx<\/em>\u2241(a<\/em>), then pv<\/em> = RT<\/em> and v<\/sub>S<\/em>f(x<\/em>,y<\/em>,z<\/em>)dV<\/em>=0. It\u2019s as simple as two plus two equals four.\u201d At this point Boltzmann remembered his promise. He turned to the blackboard, conscientiously chalked 2 + 2 = 4, and then breezed on, casually doing the complicated calculus in his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jacques Charles, the brilliant mathematician who discovered Charles\u2019s Law (sometimes known as Gay-Lussac\u2019s Law), which Boltzmann mentioned in his lecture, had a lunatic passion to become a famous paleographer\u2014that is, a discoverer of ancient manuscripts. I think that being forced to share credit with Gay-Lussac may have unhinged him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He paid a transparent swindler named Vrain-Lucas 200,000 francs for holograph letters purportedly written by Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and Pontius Pilate. Charles, a man who could see through any gas, ideal or not, actually believed in these forgeries despite the fact that the maladroit Vrain-Lucas had written them in modern French on modern notepaper bearing modern watermarks. Charles even tried to donate them to the Louvre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, these men weren\u2019t idiots. They were geniuses who paid a high price for their genius because the rest of their thinking was other-world. A genius is someone who travels to truth by an unexpected path. Unfortunately, unexpected paths lead to disaster in everyday life. This is what happened to Henry Hassel, professor of Applied Compulsion at Unknown University in the year 1980.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody knows where Unknown University is or what they teach there. It has a faculty of some two hundred eccentrics, and a student body of two thousand misfits\u2014the kind that remain anonymous until they win Nobel prizes or become the First Man on Mars. You can always spot a graduate of U.U. when you ask people where they went to school. If you get an evasive reply like: \u201cState,\u201d or \u201cOh, a freshwater school you never heard of,\u201d you can bet they went to Unknown. Someday I hope to tell you more about this university, which is a center of learning only in the Pickwickian sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, Henry Hassel started home from his office in the Psychotic Psenter early one afternoon, strolling through the Physical Culture arcade. It is not true that he did this to leer at the nude coeds practicing Arcane Eurythmics; rather, Hassel liked to admire the trophies displayed in the arcade in memory of great Unknown teams which had won the sort of championships that Unknown teams win\u2014in sports like Strabismus, Occlusion and Botulism. (Hassel had been Frambesia singles champion three years running.) He arrived home uplifted, and burst gaily into the house to discover his wife in the arms of a man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There she was, a lovely woman of thirty-five, with smoky red hair and almond eyes, being heartily embraced by a person whose pockets were stuffed with pamphlets, microchemical apparatus and a patella-reflex hammer\u2014a typical campus character of U.U., in fact. The embrace was so concentrated that neither of the offending parties noticed Henry Hassel glaring at them from the hallway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, remember Amp\u00e8re and Charles and Boltzmann. Hassel weighed one hundred and ninety pounds. He was muscular and uninhibited. It would have been child\u2019s play for him to have dismembered his wife and her lover, and thus simply and directly achieve the goal he desired\u2014the end of his wife\u2019s life. But Henry Hassel was in the genius class; his mind just didn\u2019t operate that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hassel breathed hard, turned and lumbered into his private laboratory like a freight engine. He opened a drawer labeled DUODENUM and removed a .45-caliber revolver. He opened other drawers, more interestingly labeled, and assembled apparatus. In exactly seven and one half minutes (such was his rage), he put together a time machine (such was his genius).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Hassel assembled the time machine around him, set a dial for 1902, picked up the revolver and pressed a button. The machine made a noise like defective plumbing and Hassel disappeared. He reappeared in Philadelphia on June 3, 1902, went directly to No. 1218 Walnut Street, a red-brick house with marble steps, and rang the bell. A man who might have passed for the third Smith Brother opened the door and looked at Henry Hassel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMr. Jessup?\u201d Hassel asked in a suffocated voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou are Mr. Jessup?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou will have a son, Edgar? Edgar Allan Jessup\u2014so named because of your regrettable admiration for Poe?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third Smith Brother was startled. \u201cNot that I know of,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not married yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou will be,\u201d Hassel said angrily. \u201cI have the misfortune to be married to your son\u2019s daughter. Greta. Excuse me.\u201d He raised the revolver and shot his wife\u2019s grandfather-to-be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe will have ceased to exist,\u201d Hassel muttered, blowing smoke out of the revolver. \u201cI\u2019ll be a bachelor. I may even be married to somebody else.\u2026 Good God! Who?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hassel was thunderstruck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s it,\u201d he growled. \u201cA family tradition of faithlessness. Well, we\u2019ll see about that. We have ways and means.\u201d He permitted himself a hollow laugh, returned to his laboratory, and sent himself back to the year 1901, where he shot and killed Emma Hotchkiss, his wife\u2019s maternal grandmother-to-be. He returned to his own home in his own time. There was his redheaded wife, still in the arms of another man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut I know<\/em> the old bitch was her grandmother,\u201d Hassel muttered. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t miss the resemblance. What the hell\u2019s gone wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hassel was confused and dismayed, but not without resources. He went to his study, had difficulty picking up the phone, but finally managed to dial the Malpractice Laboratory. His finger kept oozing out of the dial holes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSam?\u201d he said. \u201cThis is Henry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHenry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll have to speak up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHenry Hassel!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, good afternoon, Henry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTell me all about time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTime? Hmmm\u2026\u201d The Simplex-and-Multiplex Computer cleared its throat while it waited for the data circuits to link up. \u201cAhem. Time. (1) Absolute. (2) Relative. (3) Recurrent. (1) Absolute: period, contingent, duration, diurnity, perpetuity\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSorry, Sam. Wrong request. Go back. I want time, reference to succession of, travel in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sam shifted gears and began again. Hassel listened intently. He nodded. He grunted. \u201cUh huh. Uh huh. Right. I see. Thought so. A continuum, eh? Acts performed in past must alter future. Then I\u2019m on the right track. But act must be significant, eh? Mass-action effect. Trivia cannot divert existing phenomena streams. Hmmm. But how trivial is a grandmother?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat are you trying to do, Henry?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKill my wife,\u201d Hassel snapped. He hung up. He returned to his laboratory. He considered, still in a jealous rage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGot to do something significant,\u201d he muttered. \u201cWipe Greta out. Wipe it all out. All right, by God! I\u2019ll show \u2019em.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hassel went back to the year 1775, visited a Virginia farm and shot a young colonel in the brisket. The colonel\u2019s name was George Washington, and Hassel made sure he was dead. He returned to his own time and his own home. There was his redheaded wife, still in the arms of another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDamn!\u201d said Hassel. He was running out of ammunition. He opened a fresh box of cartridges, went back in time and massacred Christopher Columbus, Napoleon, Mohammed and half a dozen other celebrities. \u201cThat ought to do it, by God!\u201d said Hassel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He returned to his own time, and found his wife as before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His knees turned to water; his feet seemed to melt into the floor. He went back to his laboratory, walking through nightmare quicksands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat the hell is significant?\u201d Hassel asked himself painfully. \u201cHow much does it take to change futurity? By God, I\u2019ll really change it this time. I\u2019ll go for broke.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He traveled to Paris at the turn of the twentieth century and visited a Madame Curie in an attic workshop near the Sorbonne. \u201cMadame,\u201d he said in his execrable French, \u201cI am a stranger to you of the utmost, but a scientist entire. Knowing of your experiments with radium\u2014 Oh? You haven\u2019t got to radium yet? No matter. I am here to teach you all of nuclear fission.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He taught her. He had the satisfaction of seeing Paris go up in a mushroom of smoke before the automatic recall brought him home. \u201cThat\u2019ll teach women to be faithless,\u201d he growled.\u2026 \u201cGuhhh!\u201d The last was wrenched from his lips when he saw his redheaded wife still\u2014 But no need to belabor the obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hassel swam through fogs to his study and sat down to think. While he\u2019s thinking I\u2019d better warn you that this is not a conventional time story. If you imagine for a moment that Henry is going to discover that the man fondling his wife is himself, you\u2019re mistaken. The viper is not Henry Hassel, his son, a relation, or even Ludwig Boltzmann (1844\u20131906). Hassel does not make a circle in time, ending where the story begins\u2014to the satisfaction of nobody and the fury of everybody\u2014for the simple reason that time isn\u2019t circular, or linear, or tandem, discoid, syzygous, longinquitous, or pandicularted. Time is a private matter, as Hassel discovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMaybe I slipped up somehow,\u201d Hassel muttered. \u201cI\u2019d better find out.\u201d He fought with the telephone, which seemed to weigh a hundred tons, and at last managed to get through to the library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHello, Library? This is Henry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHenry Hassel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSpeak up, please.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHENRY HASSEL!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh. Good afternoon, Henry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat have you got on George Washington?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Library clucked while her scanners sorted through her catalogues. \u201cGeorge Washington, first president of the United States, was born in\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFirst president? Wasn\u2019t he murdered in 1775?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cReally, Henry. That\u2019s an absurd question. Everybody knows that George Wash\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDoesn\u2019t anybody know he was shot?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy whom?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn 1775.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow did you manage to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a revolver.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, I mean, how did you do it two hundred years ago?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a time machine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, there\u2019s no record here,\u201d Library said. \u201cHe\u2019s still doing fine in my files. You must have missed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI did not miss. What about Christopher Columbus? Any record of his death in 1489?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut he discovered the New World in 1492.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe did not. He was murdered in 1489.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith a forty-five slug in the gizzard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou again, Henry?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no record here,\u201d Library insisted. \u201cYou must be one lousy shot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will not lose my temper,\u201d Hassel said in a trembling voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy not, Henry?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause it\u2019s lost already,\u201d he shouted. \u201cAll right! What about Marie Curie? Did she or did she not discover the fission bomb which destroyed Paris at the turn of the century?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe did not. Enrico Fermi\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI personally taught her. Me. Henry Hassel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverybody says you\u2019re a wonderful theoretician, but a lousy teacher, Henry. You\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGo to hell, you old biddy. This has got to be explained.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI forget. There was something on my mind, but it doesn\u2019t matter now. What would you suggest?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou really have a time machine?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course I\u2019ve got a time machine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen go back and check.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hassel returned to the year 1775, visited Mount Vernon, and interrupted the spring planting. \u201cExcuse me, colonel,\u201d he began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The big man looked at him curiously. \u201cYou talk funny, stranger,\u201d he said. \u201cWhere you from?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, a freshwater school you never heard of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou look funny too. Kind of misty, so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTell me, colonel, what do you hear from Christopher Columbus?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot much,\u201d Colonel Washington answered. \u201cBeen dead two, three hundred years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen did he die?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYear fifteen hundred some-odd, near as I remember.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe did not. He died in 1489.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGot your dates wrong, friend. He discovered America in 1492.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCabot discovered America. Sebastian Cabot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNope. Cabot came a mite later.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have infallible proof!\u201d Hassel began, but broke off as a stocky and rather stout man, with a face ludicrously reddened by rage, approached. He was wearing baggy gray slacks and a tweed jacket two sizes too small for him. He was carrying a .45 revolver. It was only after he had stared for a moment that Henry Hassel realized that he was looking at himself and not relishing the sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy God!\u201d Hassel murmured. \u201cIt\u2019s me, coming back to murder Washington that first time. If I\u2019d made this second trip an hour later, I\u2019d have found Washington dead. Hey!\u201d he called. \u201cNot yet. Hold off a minute. I\u2019ve got to straighten something out first.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hassel paid no attention to himself; indeed, he did not appear to be aware of himself. He marched straight up to Colonel Washington and shot him in the gizzard. Colonel Washington collapsed, emphatically dead. The first murderer inspected the body, and then, ignoring Hassel\u2019s attempt to stop him and engage him in dispute, turned and marched off, muttering venomously to himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t hear me,\u201d Hassel wondered. \u201cHe didn\u2019t even feel me. And why don\u2019t I remember myself trying to stop me the first time I shot the colonel? What the hell is going on?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considerably disturbed, Henry Hassel visited Chicago and dropped into the Chicago University squash courts in the early 1940s. There, in a slippery mess of graphite bricks and graphite dust that coated him, he located an Italian scientist named Fermi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRepeating Marie Curie\u2019s work, I see, dottore<\/em>?\u201d Hassel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fermi glanced about as though he had heard a faint sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRepeating Marie Curie\u2019s work, dottore<\/em>?\u201d Hassel roared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fermi looked at him strangely. \u201cWhere you from, amico<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cState.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cState Department?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust State. It\u2019s true, isn\u2019t it, dottore<\/em>, that Marie Curie discovered nuclear fission back in nineteen ought ought?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo! No! No!\u201d Fermi cried. \u201cWe are the first, and we are not there yet. Police! Police! Spy!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis time I\u2019ll go on record,\u201d Hassel growled. He pulled out his trusty .45, emptied it into Dr. Fermi\u2019s chest, and awaited arrest and immolation in newspaper files. To his amazement, Dr. Fermi did not collapse. Dr. Fermi merely explored his chest tenderly and, to the men who answered his cry, said, \u201cIt is nothing. I felt in my within a sudden sensation of burn which may be a neuralgia of the cardiac nerve, but is most likely gas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hassel was too agitated to wait for the automatic recall of the time machine. Instead he returned at once to Unknown University under his own power. This should have given him a clue, but he was too possessed to notice. It was at this time that I (1913\u20131975) first saw him\u2014a dim figure tramping through parked cars, closed doors and brick walls, with the light of lunatic determination on his face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He oozed into the library, prepared for an exhaustive discussion, but could not make himself felt or heard by the catalogues. He went to the Malpractice Laboratory, where Sam, the Simplex-and-Multiplex Computer, has installations sensitive up to 10,700 angstroms. Sam could not see Henry, but managed to hear him through a sort of wave-interference phenomenon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSam,\u201d Hassel said, \u201cI\u2019ve made one hell of a discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re always making discoveries, Henry,\u201d Sam complained. \u201cYour data allocation is filled. Do I have to start another tape for you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut I need advice. Who\u2019s the leading authority on time, reference to succession of, travel in?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat would be Israel Lennox, spatial mechanics, professor of, Yale.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow do I get in touch with him?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t, Henry. He\u2019s dead. Died in \u201975.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat authority have you got on time, travel in, living?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWiley Murphy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMurphy? From our own Trauma Department? That\u2019s a break. Where is he now?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a matter of fact, Henry, he went over to your house to ask you something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hassel went home without walking, searched through his laboratory and study without finding anyone, and at last floated into the living room, where his redheaded wife was still in the arms of another man. (All this, you understand, had taken place within the space of a few moments after the construction of the time machine; such is the nature of time and time travel.) Hassel cleared his throat once or twice and tried to tap his wife on the shoulder. His fingers went through her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExcuse me, darling,\u201d he said. \u201cHas Wiley Murphy been in to see me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he looked closer and saw that the man embracing his wife was Murphy himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMurphy!\u201d Hassel exclaimed. \u201cThe very man I\u2019m looking for. I\u2019ve had the most extraordinary experience.\u201d Hassel at once launched into a lucid description of his extraordinary experience, which went something like this: \u201cMurphy, u<\/em> – v<\/em> = (u<\/em>\u00bd<\/sup> – v<\/em>\u00bc<\/sup>)(ua<\/sup><\/em> + ux<\/sup><\/em> + vy<\/sup><\/em>) but when George Washington F(x<\/em>)y<\/em>+<\/sup>dx<\/em> and Enrico Fermi F(u<\/em>\u00bd<\/sup>)dx<\/em>dt<\/em> one half of Marie Curie, then what about Christopher Columbus times the square root of minus one?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Murphy ignored Hassel, as did Mrs. Hassel. I jotted down Hassel\u2019s equations on the hood of a passing taxi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo listen to me, Murphy,\u201d Hassel said. \u201cGreta dear, would you mind leaving us for a moment? I\u2014For heaven\u2019s sake, will you two stop that nonsense? This is serious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hassel tried to separate the couple. He could no more touch them than make them hear him. His face turned red again and he became quite choleric as he beat at Mrs. Hassel and Murphy. It was like beating an Ideal Gas. I thought it best to interfere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHassel!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCome outside a moment. I want to talk to you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He shot through the wall. \u201cWhere are you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOver here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re sort of dim.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo are you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho are you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy name\u2019s Lennox. Israel Lennox.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIsrael Lennox, spatial mechanics, professor of, Yale?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe same.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut you died in \u201975.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI disappeared in \u201975.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat d\u2019you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI invented a time machine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy God! So did I,\u201d Hassel said. \u201cThis afternoon. The idea came to me in a flash\u2014I don\u2019t know why\u2014and I\u2019ve had the most extraordinary experience. Lennox, time is not a continuum.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a series of discrete particles\u2014like pearls on a string.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEach pearl is a \u2018Now.\u2019 Each \u2018Now\u2019 has its own past and future. But none of them relate to any others. You see? if a<\/em> = a<\/em>1<\/sub> + a<\/em>2<\/sub>ji<\/em> + x<\/sup>ax<\/em>(b<\/em>1<\/sub>)\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNever mind the mathematics, Henry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a form of quantum transfer of energy. Time is emitted in discrete corpuscles or quanta. We can visit each individual quantum and make changes within it, but no change in any one corpuscle affects any other corpuscle. Right?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWrong,\u201d I said sorrowfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat d\u2019you mean, \u2018Wrong\u2019?\u201d he said, angrily gesturing through the cleave of a passing coed. \u201cYou take the trochoid equations and\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWrong,\u201d I repeated firmly. \u201cWill you listen to me, Henry?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, go ahead,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHave you noticed that you\u2019ve become rather insubstantial? Dim? Spectral? Space and time no longer affect you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHenry, I had the misfortune to construct a time machine back in \u201975.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo you said. Listen, what about power input? I figure I\u2019m using about 7.3 kilowatts per\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNever mind the power input, Henry. On my first trip into the past, I visited the Pleistocene. I was eager to photograph the mastodon, the giant ground sloth, and the saber-tooth tiger. While I was backing up to get a mastodon fully in the field of view at f\/6.3 at 1\/100th of a second, or on the LVS scale\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNever mind the LVS scale,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile I was backing up, I inadvertently trampled and killed a small Pleistocene insect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAha!\u201d said Hassel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was terrified by the incident. I had visions of returning to my world to find it completely changed as a result of this single death. Imagine my surprise when I returned to my world to find that nothing had changed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOho!\u201d said Hassel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI became curious. I went back to the Pleistocene and killed the mastodon. Nothing was changed in 1975. I returned to the Pleistocene and slaughtered the wildlife\u2014still with no effect. I ranged through time, killing and destroying, in an attempt to alter the present.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen you did it just like me,\u201d Hassel exclaimed. \u201cOdd we didn\u2019t run into each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot odd at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI got Columbus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI got Marco Polo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI got Napoleon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought Einstein was more important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMohammed didn\u2019t change things much\u2014I expected more from him<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know. I got him too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat do you mean, you got him too?\u201d Hassel demanded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI killed him September 16, 599. Old Style.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy, I got Mohammed January 5, 598.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI believe you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut how could you have killed him after I killed him?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe both killed him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy boy,\u201d I said, \u201ctime is entirely subjective. It\u2019s a private matter\u2014a personal experience. There is no such thing as objective time, just as there is no such thing as objective love, or an objective soul.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you mean to say that time travel is impossible? But we\u2019ve done it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo be sure, and many others, for all I know. But we each travel into our own past, and no other person\u2019s. There is no universal continuum, Henry. There are only billions of individuals, each with his own continuum; and one continuum cannot affect the other. We\u2019re like millions of strands of spaghetti in the same pot. No time traveler can ever meet another time traveler in the past or future. Each of us must travel up and down his own strand alone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut we\u2019re meeting each other now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re no longer time travelers, Henry. We\u2019ve become the spaghetti sauce.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSpaghetti sauce?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes. You and I can visit any strand we like, because we\u2019ve destroyed ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen a man changes the past he only affects his own past\u2014no one else\u2019s. The past is like memory. When you erase a man\u2019s memory, you wipe him out, but you don\u2019t wipe out anybody else\u2019s. You and I have erased our past. The individual worlds of the others go on, but we have ceased to exist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat d\u2019you mean, \u2018ceased to exist\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith each act of destruction we dissolved a little. Now we\u2019re all gone. We\u2019ve committed chronicide. We\u2019re ghosts. I hope Mrs. Hassel will be very happy with Mr. Murphy.\u2026 Now let\u2019s go over to the Acad\u00e9mie. Amp\u00e8re is telling a great story about Ludwig Boltzmann.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE END<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Men Who Murdered Mohammed\u201d is a science fiction short story written by Alfred Bester, published in 1958 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The story follows Professor Henry Hassel, who, after discovering his wife’s infidelity, builds a time machine with the intention of erasing her existence by altering historical events. However, as he murders key figures from the past, Hassel discovers that time is a much more complex matter than he had expected. With a mixture of dark humor and temporal paradoxes, Bester questions the nature of time and the consequences of manipulating it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[1468,552,570],"class_list":["post-25010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-stories","tag-alfred-bester","tag-science-fiction","tag-united-states","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":559,"label":"Short stories"}],"post_tag":[{"value":1468,"label":"Alfred Bester"},{"value":552,"label":"Science fiction"},{"value":570,"label":"United States"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/lecturia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Alfred-Bester-Los-hombres-que-asesinaron-a-Mahoma.webp",1024,1024,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Juan Pablo Guevara","author_link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/author\/spartakku\/"},"comment_info":"","category_info":[{"term_id":559,"name":"Short stories","slug":"short-stories","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":559,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":419,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":559,"category_count":419,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Short stories","category_nicename":"short-stories","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":1468,"name":"Alfred Bester","slug":"alfred-bester","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1468,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":552,"name":"Science fiction","slug":"science-fiction","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":552,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":121,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":570,"name":"United States","slug":"united-states","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":570,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":294,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}