Tests confirm the date of the parchment and the ink, but the group's handwriting expert insists that the note's not a forgery or a coincidence. Some things become clearer when ITC contacts the group and reluctantly reveals that the company's developed a technology that allows people to travel into other potential universes by moving through wormholes in quantum foam. Professor Johnston insisted on trying out the technology and was trapped in another universe in the 14th century. His students are expected to take the same trip and find and retrieve him. It's not time travel, an ITC vice president insists vehemently.
Time travel is impossible.
Regardless, the professor has to be rescued by someone familiar with the medieval monastery he visited, and presumably familiar with his habits and with the time period. Johnston's assistants agree, but they quickly find out that their knowledge of the real truth behind the written history is limited at best. The amazing financial success of the Jurassic Park movie adaptation may have been the last nail in the coffin of Michael Crichton's literary ambition. Timeline takes that trend to a new low. It's crammed with enough glib pseudo-scientific theorizing and medieval factoids to resemble Crichton's earlier, more erudite books, but it's also crammed with chases, explosions, and plot holes that a T. Rex could amble through.