In the 25th century — more precisely, in the year 2484 — people live in a peaceful world. Thus, mankind is horrified when CML (Central Brain of Mankind), the main supercomputer managing the fate of humankind and Earth, announces an upcoming disaster. It has spotted a huge space object on a collision course with Earth. The impact is unavoidable, and the prediction is that a significant part of the Earth will be destroyed.

But there is hope. Professor Filip, biographer of the greatest physicist ever, Adam Bernau, offers a plan to save mankind: time travel to the past. Adam Bernau was a genius mathematician and physicist of the 20th and 21st centuries, and winner of the Nobel Prize. In his memoirs, Bernau stated that in his childhood he wrote down in his notebook a short formula that would allow the moving of whole continents, worlds and planets. This may save the Earth.

Professor Filip selects a four-member team for the trip, and their expedition begins. They plan to spend just a few hours in the past to save the formula from being burned by a fire in Adam Bernau's home, but something goes wrong, and they are forced to spend several weeks there. In the end they realize that the so-called formula was just a juvenile imagining of Adam Bernau and they return to the future, taking with them the old Mr Drchlík, who has helped them much in the past. Mr Drchlík notices the Central Brain standing asymmetrically and fixes this with a wooden wedge, and suddenly the Central Brain realizes an error in its calculation. The whole expedition had been unnecessary.