There is a short story by Ray Bradbury called A Sound of Thunder. It concerns time travel, and a company that offers this service to big game hunters.

Much care is taken care to allow the killing of dinosaurs that are about to die, no others--so not to affect the future, our present.

However, one hunter, accidentally, steps upon a butterfly. When he arrives back--all is changed.

This story dates to the late 40's, I think. Is this a case where the creative imagination prefigures the scientific intellect?

Can it be possible, that at the furthest reaches of the knowable, it is not science that leads--or the desire to control--but imagination--the desire to create?


This has also be dramatised in the Ray Bradbury Theatre, a television program.