The Equations of Dr Who (short story)

The Equations of Dr Who was a two-page prose story published by World Distributors in September 1965 in the Doctor Who Annual 1966.

The story notably focused on Dr Who as being a human mathematician above all else, a genius whose titular equations about spacetime were what allowed him to construct the TARDIS. These positions on the Doctor's species and the Doctor's early life, as well as on the origins of his Ship, would later come to be contradicted by mainstream continuity after the TV story The War Games introduced the idea of the Doctor as a renegade Time Lord who, while he was something of a specialist in the building of TARDISes back home, had actually stolen the TARDIS with which he had run away from his original time and place.

Summary
Alone in all of humanity, Dr Who understands the correct equations of Space and Time which lock the two together into one Idea, the Idea of the Living Matter. He sets out to build the TARDIS in the knowledge that his travels must be in Time as well as Space, and constructs all of the intricate electronic elements of his vessel on that basis: his "materialisations" draw distances and ages together in one simplifying pattern.

Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor is able to see for himself all of the dimensions and multi-dimensions which his colleagues on Earth can only speculate about, dimensions all existing together in one place with all the infinite others. He is thus able to make the concept of size irrelevant to the interior of his ship.

Dr Who faces the awe-inspiring reality of Space and Time, and with "wonderful human courage", sets out to explore the Space-Time Universe in every shape and place and time he encounters.

Characters

 * Dr Who

Continuity

 * The Doctor has difficulties remembering where he actually came from and quite why he started his journeys through Time and Space. (PROSE: Cold Fusion)
 * The Doctor invented TARDIS, an unparalleled scientific wonder. (PROSE: Who is Dr Who?, TV: The Chase)