Isn't J. Strauss a character of Isaac Asimov? The man who accidentally travels through time by a lightbeam passing through his lab? Man, it's way to long since last time I read Asimov ...
Found it, and I was almost right. The book is: Pebble in the Sky and the character is Joseph Schwartz. From Chicago, 1949, thrown into Asimov's Galactic Empire story ... Cool book, as far as I remember ... Anyway, I'm dawdlin' ...
That socalled time machine looks like an old fashioned electrical radiator to me. I had one such as that one myself, but it grew tired and had to be pensioned. And it ate away the kilowatts too ...
:-) Paul