The Toynbee Convector
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
"The Toynbee Convector" is a science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury.
The Toynbee of the title is probably Arnold J. Toynbee, who proposed that civilisation must have a challenge to respond to in order to flourish.
It has been speculated that this short story may have helped inspire the anonymous creator of the Toynbee tiles found in the streets of several major cities.
In the story the protagonist is a man who claims to have invented a time machine and travelled forwards in time from the present day and then returned. As evidence he has films and other records showing that man has developed an advanced civilisation with many marvellous and helpful inventions. However he also claims to have then destroyed the machine deliberately to prevent anyone else doing the same.
Initially, the people of the present day are sceptical of the protagonist's claims, but they are unable to explain or disprove the authenticity of the records brought from the future. Inspired by the vision of the utopian future, many people begin projects to fulfil the vision and invent the machines the traveller saw. When we reach the time the original traveller claimed to have visited we find that mankind has indeed made tremendous improvements in his civilisation, inspired by him. However the future bears little resemblance to what was portrayed in the record he claimed to bring back.
