Just for a bit of fun you have just invented a time machine where are you going to?
Im off to sit on the white cliffs of Dover and watch the Battle of Britain unfold with my digital camera & my movie camera with my tin hat on.
Then im off to sit at the edge of Biggin Hill and watch the Spitfires take off & along to the bomber base and watch the B17 do the same.
I may also go back and tell myself not to get involved with my ex wife!!
Where are you off and why?
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I'm nipping back to 1975 and I'm going to stick a few quid into a new company called Microsoft...
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I'm nipping back to 1605, bringing Guido back, stopping off in 1997..:-)
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Never mind the odd century - I'd like to see dinosaurs wandering around. Then watch the asteroid hit, from a safe distance.
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Funnily enough, I did consider a fred along these lines when a particle was discovered that exceeded the speed of lite,
And ... I would go back to 1066 and tell Harold to keep his ed down, like.
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There is a book out called "The Light of Other Days" by Arthur C Clarke that explores this subject very well - they invent a machine that can only view history not actually travel back.
Think of all the old unsolved crimes that could be solved.
I like the Battle of Britain viewpoints, that would be superb.
How about the moment our sun ignites? Could take your breath away!
The Picts (hope I got that right) painted blue and chasing the Romans away at Dover would be quite cool.
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>>The Picts (hope I got that right) painted blue and chasing the Romans away at Dover would be quite cool<<
The Picts were from what is now Scotland zippo, it would have been the Iceni that chased the Diegos away at Dover.
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'Tis a Sunday and I wasn't going to get the encyclopedia out (Google).
Thanks for the correction Dog!
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>>Thanks for the correction Dog!<<
Cheers m8 - that's the one subject I was good at in skool, History,
And Geography (does that make 2)
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How about the moment our sun ignites? Could take your breath away!
Douglas Adams wrote this up quite well in the "Restaurant at the end of the universe" I often wondered whether he was in fact a time traveller. I worked for a whole with someone who knew him well.
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>> Douglas Adams wrote this up quite well in the "Restaurant at the end of the
>> universe" I often wondered whether he was in fact a time traveller. I worked for
>> a whole with someone who knew him well.
>>
Are you serious?
What makes you think he may be a time traveller?
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Wee robot dog? They all have one y'know.
:-)
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Not really, but he did have a rare insight..
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Take one of these with you Dog - should see off a few Normans
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d84r8gMGxFQ
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Sun 25 Sep 11 at 14:40
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>>Take one of these with you Dog - should see off a few Normans<<
I often wonder "what are you like" God, if you made us in your image!
Still, A tool like that would come in handy for any baliffs, in the Essex area, maybe ;}
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Listen you lot, this is closer than you think.
"Only weeks since mathematicians proved it couldn’t be done, CERN boffins have put the smile back on sci-fi fans’ faces everywhere by discovering neutrinos travelling faster than light.
The astonishing results, reported by Reuters and others, came as the result of the OPERA experiment in which 15,000 beams of neutrinos were fired from Geneva to the Gran Sasso in Italy.
While the researchers are still advocating “prudence” in the face of these results, they believe their observations – in which the neutrinos made the 730 km journey 60 nanoseconds faster than light would have done – are accurate.
What this means is, in our time based world, the stuff arrived before it was sent.
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>> the stuff arrived before it was sent.
... so at a certain moment there would have been two of it...
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>> Listen you lot, this is closer than you think.
>>
>> "Only weeks since mathematicians proved it couldn’t be done, CERN boffins have put the
>> smile back on sci-fi fans’ faces everywhere by discovering neutrinos travelling faster than light.
>>
>> The astonishing results, reported by Reuters and others, came as the result of the OPERA
>> experiment in which 15,000 beams of neutrinos were fired from Geneva to the Gran Sasso
>> in Italy.
>>
>> While the researchers are still advocating “prudence” in the face of these results, they believe
>> their observations – in which the neutrinos made the 730 km journey 60 nanoseconds faster
>> than light would have done – are accurate.
>>
>>
>> What this means is, in our time based world, the stuff arrived before it was
>> sent.
>>
You can hold me to this, but if this research pans out and neutrinos are travelling faster than the speed of light, I'll make a £500 donation to a C4P charity of choice. Will even post a picture of the cheque an' all.
There's an elementary mistake somewhere - put it this way, if it's true, the fundamental consequences to causality mean that it's probably easier to just increase the speed of light in textbooks.
Last edited by: Alfa Floor on Sun 25 Sep 11 at 16:35
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Here's a pre-print of the paper;
static.arxiv.org/pdf/1109.4897.pdf
Not being into particle physics, it's all Greek to me.
The vital test will be if another group can replicate the results.
The interesting thing, is that IF the results are replicated, the scientific community WILL accept them, and the new result will be used to spur on further work to increase our understanding.
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Do these guys work on global warming, (or whatever they are calling it this week)?
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my car is travelling at 60 miles an hour, my headlights are on therefor the light emitting from my headlight is the speed of light plus 60...it aint rocket science
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>> my car is travelling at 60 miles an hour, my headlights are on therefor the
>> light emitting from my headlight is the speed of light plus 60...it aint rocket science
Err if that's your theory then please dont design rockets
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He can design rockets - just please don't build them anywhere near us!
Starts white car, turns on white headlights, drives away fast, car turns red, headlights stay the same colour.
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I'd start off back in the Roman times and visit an arena to see gladiators fight... (when I come to power they'll be reinstated for criminals).
Then I'd go forward to 1065 and tell everyone we must repel those Norman Frenchies and become over lord, splitting all the lands they took so my ancestors, ie ME wouldn't have to work so hard and then skip go to 1914 and tell Archduke Ferninand Not to go to Sarajevo , it could be catastrophic for you and millions of people , then go to 1968 and stop the pilot trying to take off from Munich, then go to 1969 and see how NASA faked the space landing - Finally go to the early 1980's and persuade Ferguson to join Spurs.
What a day that would be
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> then go to 1969 and see how NASA faked the space landing -
And when you found out it really happened, what then?
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>> I'd start off back in the Roman times and visit an arena to see gladiators
>> fight... (when I come to power they'll be reinstated for criminals).
>> Then I'd go forward to 1065 and tell everyone we must repel those Norman Frenchies
>> and become over lord, splitting all the lands they took so my ancestors, ie ME
>> wouldn't have to work so hard and then skip go to 1914 and tell Archduke
>> Ferninand Not to go to Sarajevo , it could be catastrophic for you and millions
>> of people , then go to 1968 and stop the pilot trying to take off
>> from Munich, then go to 1969 and see how NASA faked the space landing -
>> Finally go to the early 1980's and persuade Ferguson to join Spurs.
>> What a day that would be
>>
A day that destroyed the world as we know it.
IF you did go back, and make one small change, then ALL history would be changed.
For instance, no Great War, would mean;
people surviving who didn't -raising the world population,
slowing technological advances,
family history's changing - many of us could fail to have been born...
And many other things changing.
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The Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip. Princip had been unable to get near his intended victim and given up his attempt and left the route that the Archduke's car was taking through Sarajevo.
By one of the most momentous errors in history, the Archdukes driver took a wrong turn into the very street where Princip stood, and to compound the error stalled the car when he realised his error. Princip saw his opportunity and seized it, shooting the Archduke with his pistol.
This story gives me goose pimples to think of what fate served up to the world by this "mistake".
Postscript. Modern research believes that the drive must have been using SatNav.
(OK I made that bit up)
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>> This story gives me goose pimples to think of what fate served up to the
>> world by this "mistake".
Nothing would have changed. The war was going to start anyway, the murder of the arch duke was just an excuse, another would have been found had he left Sarajevo fit and well.
History is like that, it has far too much bulk and momentum to be affected by one man.
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>> History is like that, it has far too much bulk and momentum to be affected
>> by one man.
>>
Well, that is the classic Marxist view of Historical Inevitability, of course, and it explains the vast majority of cases.
Sometimes (very rarely) someone comes along with a vision, ideas and force of personality which does change the course of history. Maybe the two most famous examples are Napoleon and Hitler.
Very rarely has one man been able to cause so much trouble. (Until Chris Bangle came along)
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>> Very rarely has one man been able to cause so much trouble.
Quite a few dead and bereaved folk in the middle east might think the Blair was in the running, and his American mate, their current replacements carry on this fine tradition.
Peace envoy!!! i'll never get me head round that one.
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>> my car is travelling at 60 miles an hour, my headlights are on therefor the
>> light emitting from my headlight is the speed of light plus 60...it aint rocket science
Relatively speaking. ;>)
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>>
>> What this means is, in our time based world, the stuff arrived before it was
>> sent.
>>
But that's basing time on the old assumptions. If this really is possible, then you can't assume that time actually moves in the way we think it does. Maybe it only does when you try to measure it.
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>>There is a book out called "The Light of Other Days" by Arthur C Clarke that explores this subject very well - they invent a machine that can only view history not actually travel back<<
Another book by AC/C worth a flick through is Childhood's End = Brilliant!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood%27s_End
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Last week and buy a lottery ticket :-)
There's so much you could do. I'd get rid of Simon Cowell for a start.
Might need to learn lots about science and spend some time chatting to Tesla.
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>> Might need to learn lots about science and spend some time chatting to Tesla.
i think you would be shocked.
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Just finished reading 'The Time Traveller's Wife' last week; a jolly good read.
BTW the best 'historical' book I've read (sort of like going back in time) is 'Dr Dolittle and the Secret Lake', where ancient giant turtle Mudface recounts his experience with Noah during and after the Flood.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Dolittle_and_the_Secret_Lake
Might be interesting to travel back to around 0AD in the Middle East and see what actually happened...
EDIT: regarding that Jesus chap, not the Flood
Last edited by: Focus on Sun 25 Sep 11 at 21:33
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Or how about this variation? Travel back in time with a piece of modern technology like a Land Rover and a supply of fuel. You'd either end up being burned at the stake or made King. ( if it didn't break down of course )
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Go back far enough and all you'd need would be a box of matches.
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Turning up in the Tardis or the Delorean will look out of place at most of these places unless it's cloaked!
How would we get by without the correct clothes and money & the language as im told 1940's English was different to today never mind much earlier than that.
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I'm in my early 50s and my dad was about the same age as I am now when I was born. His speech patterns were certainly different to modern ones. More clipped in some ways yet more elaborate in others. Very evenly spoken and impeccably courteous at all times even if the situation didn't warrant it. Fewer linguistic short cuts than now perhaps. Copperplate handwriting too. The main character in "Foyle's War" reminds me of him in that respect. Even down to the clothes in fact. He loved cars too. His father taught him to drive in the early 1920s, of course he never passed a test, just went down to the Post Office and bought a licence to go with his first car.
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>>Might be interesting to travel back to around 0AD in the Middle East and see what actually happened...
EDIT: regarding that Jesus chap, not the Flood<<
Wrong epoch - JC and the Flood were nigh-on 2000 years apart.
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I daresay you might raise some eyebrows just by going back more than 6000 years...
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>> >>Might be interesting to travel back to around 0AD in the Middle East and see
>> what actually happened...
>> EDIT: regarding that Jesus chap, not the Flood<<
>>
>> Wrong epoch - JC and the Flood were nigh-on 2000 years apart.
Yeh - the edit was an attempt to clarify that the trip to 0AD was nothing to do with the Flood.
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More evidence that this flood actually happened (creating the Med) - worth a trip:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanclean_flood
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>>worth a trip:<<
5.33 million years ago, nah - might not be able to get back again :-}
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This talk of time travel reminds me of a nice short Science Fiction story that I once read.
In the story, a man greets his friend who has just at that instant returned from a trip far into the future.
He asks him "What is the future like?" The man can't remember. They check his notebooks and his camera - both blank.
Just then the time traveler says that actually there IS something that he can remember, and it is this: When he was ready to return to his own time, the people of the future offered him the option of remembering either everything that he had seen or nothing that he had seen.
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You would have to be very careful when travelling back in time not to interact in any way with anybody or anything.
Not killing someone who might unknowingly have been your ancestor would be an obvious one. But being the unwitting cause of the delay that meant he didn't meet his future wife would be equally devastating.
Remember probably every single person you meet will be your ancestor.
That is probably why in the best time-travel stories the traveller is invisble and is warned on no account to touch anyone.
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How about if we go right back to the beginning and do the geezer who's rib became Eve,
What then?
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Tell Adam that apples are poisonous.
EDIT: ah sorry - he's already been 'done' :)
Last edited by: Focus on Mon 26 Sep 11 at 09:32
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>>Tell Adam that apples are poisonous<<
They make nice apple pies though :)
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The way I try to explain it to the missus is that we have not long been out of the cave and look what we have achieved since then, look at what we have achieved in the last hundred years,
Now imagine a hundred years time, a thousand years time, a million years time, 100 million years time
(a billion years?)
It’s not if time travel is possible – it’s just a question of time.
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>>
>> It’s not if time travel is possible – it’s just a question of time.
>>
You mean if we just wait patiently we'll reach the future anyway ? :)
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So assuming time travel will become possible, all the time travellers currently visiting must be hiding themselves pretty well :)
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>> So assuming time travel will become possible, all the time travellers currently visiting must be
>> hiding themselves pretty well :)
Thanks, I thought I was making a pretty good job of it.
Damn, that's blown it.
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>> Thanks, I thought I was making a pretty good job of it.
Agreed - everyone would assume a time traveller would win the lottery and drive a decent car.
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If the universe is full of parallel realities then it could be entirely possible to travel in time and alter events without those in current realities noticing as new ones would pop up where events changed the course of things and they'd play themselves out. You wouldn't be able to kill your ancestors in your reality but create another one where they did didn't exist in the first place.
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>
>> You wouldn't be able to kill your ancestors in your reality but create another one
>> where they did didn't exist in the first place.
>>
Ah, clever.
There's an old thriller by I think John Dickson Carr about someone who goes back in time to Restoration days in order to investigate a famous poisoning. He goes back as the victim's husband, secure in the belief that history would not cheat, and that he really was innocent and had been aquitted of murder, as the newspapers had reported.
But once back in time the awful truth dawns that in fact he had committed the deed, but his family had hushed it up and falsified the news reports. He faced execution, having walked back into a trap.
By a cunning plot he escaped from prison under a false identity, thus ensuring two versions of the same events - the "real" one, and the only verifiable but "false" one.
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" look at what we have achieved in the last hundred years,"
Hmmm - degradation of the planets natural resources , extinction of thousands of species of plants and animals, global wars, famine, massive over-population, nuclear weapons, global warning, pollution of the world's oceans.
On the positive side we do have the Apple ipad.
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The grand days of the British Empire!
............but only if I was one of the rulers!
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Y’all thinking from your present perspective, do you really think an advanced race of Earthlings would want to make contact with us warlike hairy snip apes?
And who’s to say ‘they’ haven’t been here before, or some of our leaders are advanced beings from the future,
like David Miliband for instance.
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 26 Sep 11 at 12:55
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Thing is, time travel is already happening. Go and stand near a neutron star for a bit and by the time you come back, you'll be a loooong way into the future. Every time you get on a plane time passes ever-so-slightly more slowly, and these effects are so pronounced for satellites that it's necessary to make daily corrections to the clocks onboard.
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>>Every time you get on a plane time passes ever-so-slightly more slowly<<
So do aircrew live appreciably longer than Earthbound individuals (or does it just seem longer due to the Doppler effect)
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>> >>Every time you get on a plane time passes ever-so-slightly more slowly<<
>>
>> So do aircrew live appreciably longer than Earthbound individuals (or does it just seem longer
>> due to the Doppler effect)
They might live a millisecond or two longer but for being bombarded with cosmic rays which knocks a year or two off.
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We still have a cave mentality Dog.Watch a group of people the way they behave :>)
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(can't remember whether there was a separate speed of light thread, but as it was mentioned in this one...)
BBC2 tonight 9pm: Faster Than the Speed of Light?
In this film, Professor Marcus du Sautoy explores one of the most dramatic scientific announcements for a generation. In clear, simple language he tells the story of the science we thought we knew, how it is being challenged, and why it matters.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016bys2
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>> BBC2 tonight 9pm: Faster Than the Speed of Light?
Snippet (relevant to Dog's question about life span of air crew): time on the GPS satellites runs 7 microseconds per day slower than time on earth due to their speed.
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Excellent programme. I even understood some of it.
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>> >> BBC2 tonight 9pm: Faster Than the Speed of Light?
>>
>> Snippet (relevant to Dog's question about life span of air crew): time on the GPS
>> satellites runs 7 microseconds per day slower than time on earth due to their speed.
>>
>>
But the interesting thing about this, was that GPS would give errors of about 2km (over 24hrs?) if the system did not correct for this variation!
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Back to the OP's question. Mons 1914 and 1940 France. Probably with a side dish of the American War of Independence.
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Main course of duck would be recommended in that case I'd say...
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Plenty of Kevlar and/or a light tank.
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Twice a year I go to a trade show held at the old Berlin Templehof airport. It's an exhibition centre now but they've kept all the original internal features and architecture. That feels very much like a time machine. If you squint and let your imagination wander a bit...
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If time slows down the faster we travel, could there be a speed at or exceeding lightspeed at which we wouldn't age?
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Aye maybe, but there'd be a lot of fatal crashes. Your average airbag wouldn't help !
Last edited by: Humph D'Bout on Wed 19 Oct 11 at 22:37
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>>Aye maybe, but there'd be a lot of fatal crashes. Your average airbag wouldn't help !<<
Can you leave the wife out of this please!
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1760, and introduce James Brindley to H&S legislation. That would have stopped the industrialisation of Britain...
Rome c 2000 years ago, to watch the Romans in action; I suspect one would feel remarkably at home. Whilst I'm there perhaps I'd pop over to Greece to have a word with Hero and suggest he use his steam engine for more than a toy and start the industrial revolution nearly 2000 years early.
And then I'd like to visit London at regular intervals over the last 300ish (or even 500) years to see just how it hasn't changed.
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Thu 20 Oct 11 at 12:40
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20/10/2012. To a library with a year's back copies of the FT and a working photocopier and enough money to copy each weekend's share prices..
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I'd like to FF to 2020 n' see if we're still ere!
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Time Machine where to? - Runfer D'Hills
