Accidental Time Machine discussion -- What if you had a personal time machine...

[Helen]

If you suddenly found yourself with your own personal time machine where would you go and why? Would you stay there or keep traveling?

[Jon]

My secret dream has always been to go back two thousand years (give or take a few) and observe first hand what really happened in Roman occupied Jerusalem. Only to observe, not to participate or alter anything.

[Cathy]

I'd go back and write down my mom's recipes. And meet my great-grandmother as a young woman, she was a hoot. But then back to the present. I like refrigeration and clean bathrooms and showers, and air conditioning. I don't know about traveling to the future, I think I'd be too scared. As curious as I am (do we ever meet aliens or settle on other planets? Do we preserve or destroy the Earth?), it seems too risky.

[Libby]

Jon wrote: "My secret dream has always been to go back two thousand years (give or take a few) and observe first hand what really happened in Roman occupied Jerusalem. Only to observe, not to participate or a..."

I'd love to take that trip. There are so many interesting time periods in history I'd love to see firsthand. I'd skip the future - I'll get there eventually, I'd hop all over the past. A time anthropologist - how amazing would that be! You'd have to follow the prime directive though – noninterference - which could prove pretty difficult at times.

[Lara Amber]

I wouldn't want to view historical events. I'm more interested in the society then the famous stuff (hence my degree in sociology). So I would just want to live in the time periods visited. Though I would be hooking up a trailer to the time machine packed with supplies so I have the modern amenities with me. I'd be that witch woman in the woods with her house on wheels. :)

Lara Amber

[Brad]

I think I'd want to go forward more than backward. I can read about what happened in the past, but I'll never get to see the far future unless I travel. My curiousity would give me no choice.

[NumberLord]

Jon wrote: "My secret dream has always been to go back two thousand years (give or take a few) and observe first hand what really happened in Roman occupied Jerusalem. Only to observe, not to participate or a..."

Have you read Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man?
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60...

[Jim]

I'd like to go back to the US Constitutional Convention, listen to the deliberations & meet some of the people.

[Paul]

Like Brad, I'd want to go forward. Say in hops of a century. Stay a while, see what's new, what's the same, then hop forward again and again until I get to a time when everything is totally incomprehensible. Then stay there.

Wouldn't that be great?

[Jon]

NumberLord wrote: "Have you read Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man?"

No, I haven't. In fact, I haven't ever read anything by Moorcock. My loss I'm sure.

[Kevin]

I am much more pragmatic than the rest of you.

I would go forward as far as I could need to. see it they ever invent those nanobots that keep you young forever. Give me the fountain of youth and a sports almanac and home I come thank you very much.

[Daniel]

I'd visit the ancient sites of the Great Pyramids, the Mayan Temples, the Nazca lines, Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, Easter Island, the Gate of the Sun and other archaeological sites to see when, how and why they were constructed and by whom.

[bsc]

No one has mentioned dinosaurs? Of course, my personal time machine would have stealth mode so I wouldn't have to worry about being eaten.

[Lara Amber]

I've never gotten the fascination with dinosaurs. Now I might pick the decades I visit by the fashions I could wear. I look damn good in a corset. :)

Lara Amber

[Leslie Ann]

I'd love to visit the court of Elizabeth I. She's one of the most fascinating women in history and I've read just about everything written about her, both factual and historical fiction.

[Brad]

Lara Amber wrote: "I've never gotten the fascination with dinosaurs. Now I might pick the decades I visit by the fashions I could wear. I look damn good in a corset. :)"

I've always wanted to wear a codpiece, come to think of it ;)

[Kevin]

well we could all meet in KC and have a time travel costume party

[Jon]

Kevinalbee wrote: "well we could all meet in KC and have a time travel costume party"

For some strange reason "Time Warp" is running through my head as a background soundtrack. :P

[Marc]

Orson Scott Card has a novel called Pastwatch The Redemption of Christopher Columbus about a group that goes back in time to prepare the Native Americans for the coming of the Europeans. The problem with a personal time machine is that one man can't do a lot on his own. Asimov had a story called The Red Queen's Race, about a man who had developed a time machine and wanted to send the scientific knowledge of the current day back to the Roman Empire and Ancient Greece.

[Maria]

I'd have to learn Hebrew first, but then I'd go back to 30'ish AD. It would be amazing to hear Jesus teach "live".

[Libby]

Jim wrote: "I'd like to go back to the US Constitutional Convention, listen to the deliberations & meet some of the people. "

That would be very interesting as well - especially since there is so much argument as to what teh Founding Fathers intended when drafting certain portion of the Constitution.

[Jeff]

Who ever said we had to choose between back and forward? I would do both. I would love to see some of the great composers in action (since I am a musician). Was Mozart really as wacky as that movie made him out to be? Did Chopin really have a beard on only one side of his face? Was Beethoven really deaf when he conducted his last symphony? I'd like to see all that in person. But then, I would be interested to see how things look in a hundred years. Do we ever get flying cars like the Jetsons? Do we ever get rocket packs? Will we ever terraform the moon, or ever Mars? I probably wouldn't ever stay in one time, unless I found one that I was extremely comfortable in (or unless my time machine broke or got stolen...).

[Lara Amber]

Kiwiria,

If you want to hear Jesus teach you would need to learn Aramaic, not Hebrew.

Lara Amber

[Libby]

Lara Amber wrote: "Kiwiria,

If you want to hear Jesus teach you would need to learn Aramaic, not Hebrew.

Lara Amber"

Good point ;-) I believe the Bible was written in Hebrew (Old Testament), Aramaic and Greek. Jesus would have predominately spoken Aramaic.

[Kevin]

to hear Jesus teach

There is a good Book That Jon turned me on to years ago about a Preist who did just that. But when he got back there he discovered jesus was a child with downs syndrome. He in effect took the place Of jesus all the way to the crusifiction.

very interesting book.

[Maria]

Lara Amber, I know. I just couldn't remember the word for it in English, and figured that if I wrote Hebrew it'd at least get my point across ;-)

[Richard]

OK, another late addition:

Although I wasn't too fond of the book, I'd do what the renegade chrono-researcher of To Say Nothing of the Dog did: go back to all the priceless relics that were lost to time and retrieve them just as they were being destroyed.

Starting with the library at Alexandria, if it turns out there was such a thing, and then jumping back to all those lost Greek manuscripts hinted at in the surviving ones.

And all the artwork destroyed in war, such as the allied bombings in WWII.

Plenty to keep busy, but after that maybe go back and start collecting actual specimens of those intermediate evolutionary specimens that remain mysterious.

[Marc]

For the library at Alexandria etc., get copies made and store them someplace safely, then come back to the present and dig them up again, just so they'll have the right age.

[Phyllis]

It might be interesting to find out if Atlantis ever did exist--and where we might find it now. But I like the whole Dr. Who concept, where you get a Time Lord as your own personal tour guide. And the fact that his time machine can travel through outer space as well as time. Without a guide you might endanger the whole space/time continuum. ;-)

[Richard]

Marc wrote: "For the library at Alexandria etc., get copies made and store them someplace safely, then come back to the present and dig them up again, just so they'll have the right age."

Well, maybe if what you want is to make money -- or you just want museum artifacts. But I'm not interested in faking artifacts, just the knowledge that was lost. For example, just six or seven plays by Aeschylus have survived (one is of dispute authorship), but he probably wrote eighty or so.

[Ubik]

You all might consider me boring or whatever, but I would go back to right about the 1890s and just......live.

For as much as Im curious about the future (terraforming other planets, inventions, etc) not if the human culture is going to be what it is now or worse. My only wish would be that I could bring my Magic cards with me and the music, books, and movies that I love. I guess theyd have to just live on in my memory...

[Ubik]

You all might consider me boring or whatever, but I would go back to right about the 1890s and just......live.

For as much as Im curious about the future (terraforming other planets, inventions, etc) not if the human culture is going to be what it is now or worse. My only wish would be that I could bring my Magic cards with me and the music, books, and movies that I love. I guess theyd have to just live on in my memory...

[Richard]

Hmmm, before modern medicine? Before refrigeration or decent household heating systems? When men could beat their wives and children and it wasn't even considered unusual? Before women had the vote, of course. I'd re-read The Jungle (first published 1905) and investigate whether dental care was available and check the average life expectancy, then think about cold beer and hot soapy showers and stay right here...

[Marc]

Ubik wrote: "You all might consider me boring or whatever, but I would go back to right about the 1890s and just......live."

Have you read Jack Finney's Time and Again?

[Mawgojzeta]

Brad wrote: "I think I'd want to go forward more than backward. I can read about what happened in the past, but I'll never get to see the far future unless I travel. My curiousity would give me no choice."

I agree.

Although, if I could change how my personal life went (replace myself or act as a "guide" to my younger self), I would go back to about 12 years old and do it.

[Ron]

Good point. Knowing what you know now, going back to when you were twelve could be very helpful: like Bruce Willis in The Kid (2000).

[Alex]

I would gather all the textbooks from beginning to advanced mathematics, physics, biology, you name it, and I would put them in a large portable book case. Then I would take them back to, I don't know, Newton's time, and hand him all the books on math, physics, and whatnot and give all the others to that subjects pertinent scientist at the time. Then I would come back to present day, and witness the changes.

Would you be able to jump across time lines? Is there a parallel world where Socrates didn't take the hemlock? Where the Germans won? Where Eve didn't eat the fruit?

I would be a meddler in time. Screw temporal laws, I want to see what happens.

[Richard]

Alex wrote: "Then I would take them back to, I don't know, Newton's time..."

Funny you should mention Newton. I'd forgotten until then that someone wrote a short story about someone meddling in history using time travel.

The protagonist had been frustrated that the great genius Newton had spent so much time studying theology when he could have been making yet more scientific contributions. So the meddler decided that, since he had been limited to what could be calculated with pen & ink, what Newton really needed was a calculator -- this would at least make him vastly more productive.

Unfortunately he hadn't realized that such a device would appear supernatural to someone of Newton's age, and the red LED numerals (this was before LCD calculators -- quite a few years ago) spooked Newton, making him believe the offer was from the devil (I think the demonstration multiplication provided by the time traveler may have had the unfortunate product of 666, even).

That the forces of darkness had taken such an interest in him scared Newton and made him decide to devote enough of the remainder of his working life to spiritual understanding in order to save his soul.

Which, of course, is what Newton did -- it just turned out the time traveler had caused what he had found so disagreeable in the first place.

[Marc]

That is the usual side-effect of temporal meddling.

[Deanne]

I've been researching my family tree for about 5 years, so I'd probably go back to 1580 to try and find out if my ancestor Thomas of Rempstone was descended from the 7th Duke of Northumberland. Also have a few other ancestors to visit, would love to meet these people I've discovered.