NationStates Jolt Archive

Okay, your time machine is fueled and ready to go. Your mission is to go back in time to any point in history and as efficiently as possible, changing history for the better.

However, you cannot kill anyone to do it or cause physical injury either directly or indirectly to anyone. Of course, a radical change of history could cause the deaths of people, but that is normal. WHat I mean is that you cannot cause death or injury as a direct or indirect result of your immediate actions.

Where would you go and what would you do?

Me, I would go back in time to about March of 2000, and arrange to trip George W. Bush so that he lands in the deepest gooiest mudpit I could find. Preferably with news cameras everywhere.

Me, I would go back in time to about March of 2000, and arrange to trip George W. Bush so that he lands in the deepest gooiest mudpit I could find. Preferably with news cameras everywhere.

Hey, you can't do that. Bush would probably drown in the mudpit! You said we can't kill anyone!

Hey, you can't do that. Bush would probably drown in the mudpit! You said we can't kill anyone!

I'm sure a member of the press or his entourage would rescue him. But I'd stick around and rescue him myself between fits of laughter. Just in case.

I would go back to Quebec, 30,000 B.C., and encourage a butterfly to flap its wings.

I would find the person who invented government and do everything to distract them for as long as they lived so they would never get the chance to. Or maybe I'd stop Hitler's parents from raising him poorly.

I'd go back in time to about... six years ago, and do things over again. Is that allowed?

Convince Franz Ferdinand that it's really not a good time to go to Sarajevo. Totally different 20th Century.

I would go back to the start of the Roman Empire/End of the Roman Republic and stop Varus from getting his army killed. This in turn would mean that Germany et cetera would become 'Romanized' and the traditional Franco-German rift would not exist because they would be sharing the one culture, which means no Napolean and probably no world wars in Europe and Africa, and possibly in Asia too.

Or if I couldn't go back that far I would stop the assassination of Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand who was heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, preventing the outbreak of WW1, which resulted directly from his death. This in turn would also stop Germany falling to Hitler, however it may be that this leaves Europe open to the Soviets if, without WW1 they can still gain enough support for the revolution.

Or I could provide Stalin's mother with a condom! ;)

Or teach Hitler how to paint people. If Hitler could paint people he would have been accepted into art college in Austria which means he would not have gone back to Germany and joined the army. Were Hitler not in the army he would never have been assigned by the army to investigate the Nazi party. If he had not investigated the party he never would have become its leader and subverted it, nor would the party have overthrown the Weimar republic. Had they not overthrown the Weimar republic they would not have invaded Poland, thus no WW2.

Convince Franz Ferdinand that it's really not a good time to go to Sarajevo. Totally different 20th Century.

Argh! You beat me to it! Only because when I tried to post it the first time the page died on me! :mad: Ohh well... :)

Argh! You beat me to it! Only because when I tried to post it the first time the page died on me! :mad: Ohh well... :)

Hey, my nation's motto isn't "For all whom miss 1908" for nothin'... :D

I'd go back about 50 years and give my boss's parents a pamphlet on contraception.

-or-

I'd go back to 2000 and convince Al Gore that he didn't invent the internet.

Well I thought about going back to Vienna during the twenties and buying Hitlers paintings so he'd stick to art.......

But I figure that a world war would likely happen even if Adolf never entered politics.

So I'd probably go back 26 years and kick myself in the ass to take a certain action I considered but didn't.

I regretted not doing it almost immediately and ever since.

So I'd probably go back 26 years and kick myself in the ass to take a certain action I considered but didn't.

I regretted not doing it almost immediately and ever since.

Come on, you can't leave it at that.

Do tell. Unless it will harm my fragile little mind :p

Convince Franz Ferdinand that it's really not a good time to go to Sarajevo. Totally different 20th Century.
no no, tell the dumbass driver thats the WRONG DAMN ROAD

Come on, you can't leave it at that.

Do tell. Unless it will harm my fragile little mind :pIt's highly personal and somewhat painful to recall.

I was 17 and it involved an abortion, let's just leave it at that.

Sorry you can't escape the paradox. If you go back in time to change history there's no way you could possibly meet the event horizon of the exact circumstance of you travel back chronologically the first time. Even if you had a time machine that actually worked it wouldn't. You could go forward in time though, but you wouldn't be able to go back because of the paradox.

It's highly personal and somewhat painful to recall.

I was 17 and it involved an abortion, let's just leave it at that.

Sincere apologies, I can delete these posts if you wish.

I would go back to 1770's America with lots of free tea.

Sincere apologies, I can delete these posts if you wish.Thanks for the offer but not necessary.

Sometimes pain is therapy.

I'd convince the Romans that yes, a steam engine is really a remarkably useful thing to have after all.

I would go back in time a few days and screw with my mind.... mwahahaha

I would go to 1861, get Lincoln really drunk, and convince him to let the South become its own country, because after all, the North doesn't really need them. The USA can just go get oil from Alaska and whatever else it might need...besides, that would mean George W. Bush would never become President of the U.S., since Texaqs joined the CSA.

Sorry you can't escape the paradox. If you go back in time to change history there's no way you could possibly meet the event horizon of the exact circumstance of you travel back chronologically the first time. Even if you had a time machine that actually worked it wouldn't. You could go forward in time though, but you wouldn't be able to go back because of the paradox.

Details, details! Hush up and let us have our fun.

I'd go back and convince Jesus he should write his own words down so others wouldn't do it for him and screw up his message.

I would go to 1861, get Lincoln really drunk, and convince him to let the South become its own country, because after all, the North doesn't really need them. The USA can just go get oil from Alaska and whatever else it might need...besides, that would mean George W. Bush would never become President of the U.S., since Texaqs joined the CSA.
Bush was born in Connecticut. >_> It's a common misconception.
Now, assuming that time travel works the way I see it to, regarding alternate universes and the like...I think I would probably jump back to around 900 AD and see exactly why the Mayan civilization collapsed and see if I could prevent it. Barring that, I'd take all of the Mayan scripture before the Spanish burned them so they could be translated in the here and now.

Bush was born in Connecticut. >_> It's a common misconception.
Now, assuming that time travel works the way I see it to, regarding alternate universes and the like...I think I would probably jump back to around 900 AD and see exactly why the Mayan civilization collapsed and see if I could prevent it. Barring that, I'd take all of the Mayan scripture before the Spanish burned them so they could be translated in the here and now.

That's a good one. well done!

I'd be curious to see what exactly happened to the Anasazi too. Only about 200 years dif.

Sorry you can't escape the paradox. If you go back in time to change history there's no way you could possibly meet the event horizon of the exact circumstance of you travel back chronologically the first time. Even if you had a time machine that actually worked it wouldn't. You could go forward in time though, but you wouldn't be able to go back because of the paradox.
But then again if if time travel were at all possible wouldn't it cause a paradox regardless? To travel through space-time at any speed other than that which it is designed for wouldn't be a bad thing? If time is "supposed" to move forever forward, and one being was able to go backward, or for that matter forward more than they should would that not create another warp in the space-time continuum making a paradox if for another reason? The presense of this being in a location other than that which it should be in could easily create a paradox, just as it would going into the past. Or maybe I'm wrong and this was all for nothing. Blah.

Other than that. I would probably travel to Greece in between wars. For that small time you'll find it that way. Might be nice to visit the foundation for "western" civilization in a time of beauty. Hopefully find a way to jump the gun, maybe take uber amounts of history books with me and thwart actions resulting in major war whilst directing the wars that do come in ways to lessen their intensity. Regardless of how I attempt to stop the war it would probably still happen anyway. So I would use my "foresight" to lessen loss.

Temporal travel is a pardox in its own. No need o figure out new ones :)
I for one hope they never invent a time machine. If they do, the world would most proably be changed every second due to every person messing with time. And who would get the machine? Of course world leaders and they would surely send someoe to "fix" the past and make them more powerful. So I say leave the past be.

Other than that, I'd go shake hands with Julius Gaius Ceasar :D

But then again if if time travel were at all possible wouldn't it cause a paradox regardless? To travel through space-time at any speed other than that which it is designed for wouldn't be a bad thing? If time is "supposed" to move forever forward, and one being was able to go backward, or for that matter forward more than they should would that not create another warp in the space-time continuum making a paradox if for another reason? The presense of this being in a location other than that which it should be in could easily create a paradox, just as it would going into the past. Or maybe I'm wrong and this was all for nothing. Blah.

Other than that. I would probably travel to Greece in between wars. For that small time you'll find it that way. Might be nice to visit the foundation for "western" civilization in a time of beauty. Hopefully find a way to jump the gun, maybe take uber amounts of history books with me and thwart actions resulting in major war whilst directing the wars that do come in ways to lessen their intensity. Regardless of how I attempt to stop the war it would probably still happen anyway. So I would use my "foresight" to lessen loss.
Not at all; you're assuming that time travel occurs soley within one universe, plus there is most likely another method beyond acceleration to lightspeed within normal space-time. Quantum theory currently states that anything that can happen, does happen, in different quantum realities. Therefore, if you travel through time and, say, kill your own grandfather, that does not cause a paradox. Rather, you create a new universe, one bereft of you. When you return to your own time, you're still in that alternate universe. Thus, the only way to get back to the other universe, unless you're able to switch realities, is to reverse the actions.
Technically, of course, even if you only go back for a second or two you still return to an alternate universe because you disrupted air molucules and what not, though the change is so minor that you'd never notice.

Am I allowed to go back and stop my parents meeting? Or would that count as causing indirect harm to someone? Does it make a difference that I'm the person I stop from living?

If I could go back in time, I would pimp-slap Eve if she even thought about eating that apple.
OR
Give the native americans firearms technology to even the playing field a little bit.

Can you take more than just yourself?

If so, then I'd get everyone in the world and take them back to the beginning to sort out what happened once and for all - as a result, no more annoying religious arguments on here.

If not, I'd take up a course on hypnotism, go back to the planning of Iraq and hypnotise Bush into telling the public the truth about why he wanted to go to war in a live broadcast.

I would go back in time a few days and screw with my mind.... mwahahaha
see, now that would be cool. You'd be all 'wtf' for a few days and then see this post and be like 'haha, funny me.'
Wait, that would work only if the from the future you made sure the from the past you see the post.

I want a pet butterfly. To know I'm making a difference.

I would actually travel forward.

Travelling backward sucks. Can you imagine living in a time period better than this? No X-Box, internet and McDonalds for Gawds sake! How can you survive?

By going forwards again afterwards. :rolleyes:

Okay Just got an idea. I would travel backwards to my grandparents or parents time and ask them to buy shares in Coca-cola, Nike and others that were still small. Microsoft too yeah.

Okay, your time machine is fueled and ready to go. Your mission is to go back in time to any point in history and as efficiently as possible, changing history for the better.
The only problem is, or course, that time travel is impossible.

Okay, you have gone back in time. You want to trip Bush. You trip Bush. Once this is done, you no longer have any reason to go back in time, meaning you never did. If you never did, then Bush didn't trip, leaving you back on square one.

Let's look at a different problem then.
Let's say that changing something is possible without putting the universe in an infinite loop.
Once you change something, you have arranged for a new future. For everything you change a new branch will be made.


-----------A-------------------B-------------
______D___ \_____________C__________

You are at 'B' and you go back to 'A'. There you change something. Time will then branch off into a new future ('C') making it impossible to go back to 'B'. If you try to go back to 'A' you will only find yourself in 'D'. The past of the new future you have created. In fact, you change the course of time just by existing.


What about traveling forwards in time then?
This one is easy. It is impossible due to the simple fact that the future hasn't happened yet.
Let's pretend it is possible then. Can you go forward in time and meet yourself? No. Because the moment you step into the future, you disappear from the present.


Something that might be possible, however, is to see a sub-dimensional "echo" of the past. Only theoretical, of course, but still quite facinating.

The only problem is, or course, that time travel is impossible.

Okay, you have gone back in time. You want to trip Bush. You trip Bush. Once this is done, you no longer have any reason to go back in time, meaning you never did. If you never did, then Bush didn't trip, leaving you back on square one.

Let's look at a different problem then.
Let's say that changing something is possible without putting the universe in an infinite loop.
Once you change something, you have arranged for a new future. For everything you change a new branch will be made.


-----------A-------------------B-------------
______D___ \_____________C__________

You are at 'B' and you go back to 'A'. There you change something. Time will then branch off into a new future ('C') making it impossible to go back to 'B'. If you try to go back to 'A' you will only find yourself in 'D'. The past of the new future you have created. In fact, you change the course of time just by existing.


What about traveling forwards in time then?
This one is easy. It is impossible due to the simple fact that the future hasn't happened yet.
Let's pretend it is possible then. Can you go forward in time and meet yourself? No. Because the moment you step into the future, you disappear from the present.


Something that might be possible, however, is to see a sub-dimensional "echo" of the past. Only theoretical, of course, but still quite facinating.
Hey, if you look back to the second page, you'll see that my theory--which is backed up by quantum theory--proves that completely untrue. Nice try though.

Hey, if you look back to the second page, you'll see that my theory--which is backed up by quantum theory--proves that completely untrue. Nice try though.

Since when did a "theory" PROVE anything.

Since when did a "theory" PROVE anything.
>_> I'm using the word theory in the scientific sense, which makes it more solid than in the laymen sense. Basically, my theory has proof to back it up through experimentation in quantum mechanics, therefore, it technically disproves his.

>_> I'm using the word theory in the scientific sense, which makes it more solid than in the laymen sense. Basically, my theory has proof to back it up through experimentation in quantum mechanics, therefore, it technically disproves his.

you mean. it theoretically disproves his.

you mean. it theoretically disproves his.
Well, yes, but that's semantics.

Well I'd prolly go back and beat up this one Neo-Nazi I know back when he was at his worst, within an inch of his life (He wouldn't be dead, so it's technically non-lethal)

Or I'd somehow go back to connect the dots for the FBI and CIA so they could prevent 9/11.

Or perhaps stop WWI from occuring, like many people said before

no need for anyone else to go back in time. I have already made everything perfect when I went back in time and stopped Eve from sinning. Women wont even have to go through child birth anymore. Your welcome ladies, now could you hand me an extra large fig leaf?

I'd go back 1,000 years to China and try and convince them that with their superior technology (one word: gunpowder), they could rule the world. :cool:

I would probably go back to August 28th and fix a little mistake a made...regarding a friend I was supposed to meet somewhere.

Let's look at a different problem then.
Let's say that changing something is possible without putting the universe in an infinite loop.
Once you change something, you have arranged for a new future. For everything you change a new branch will be made.


-----------A-------------------B-------------
______D___ \_____________C__________

You are at 'B' and you go back to 'A'. There you change something. Time will then branch off into a new future ('C') making it impossible to go back to 'B'. If you try to go back to 'A' you will only find yourself in 'D'. The past of the new future you have created. In fact, you change the course of time just by existing.


In academic circles, this is called the Back to the Future II theory. Who wants to live in a world where Biff is a millionaire?

I'd go back to the day before the election in 2000 and brainwash voters so that they all voted for Gore. It'd result in LESS death! Either that or go back to this year's election and make sure that Kerry won.

I'd go back to the day before the election in 2000 and brainwash voters so that they all voted for Gore. It'd result in LESS death! Either that or go back to this year's election and make sure that Kerry won.
You don't know for sure it would have caused less death...but I won't go any further to say that either way, things could have just as likely happened as they did. I really don't think who the President is made a difference.

In academic circles, this is called the Back to the Future II theory. Who wants to live in a world where Biff is a millionaire?
I'm guessing Biff.

I think everyone so far has caused a paradox. Not Good! You have to change something that will not effect in the future in anyway. If your whole purpose for going back was to teach Hitler to share his cookies with the other children, then there would be no need to go back because you would have never heard of Hitler. If you didn't go back, then Hitler would still be messed up so you'd have to go back.

I given this a lot of thought over the years and it seems to me that the only way to do it without making a paradox would be to go back in time and give some African kid a toy for Kwanza. That way, there will always be more African kids without toys, so nothing in the future would change dramatically enough to change your thinking.

Or go pick up a piece of trash in a complete remote area. Take your pick.

Time travel, eh? I would go back to a point in time before the newspaper he worked for fired Karl Marx and beg/cajole/threaten them into keeping him on. :D

Theoretically, I can pick up trash without leaving my livingroom.

i would go back and kill my younger self so that in the future i would not have gone back and killed myself :p

Give the native americans firearms technology to even the playing field a little bit.

Actually, all you would have do is provide native americans with a broad spectrum flu vaccine and the standard array of vaccines given to third world travellers. Germs were far more effective at wiping out the populations of the americas than guns or horses. Perhaps instructions on making penecillin and the concept of microbiology. While you were there on your vaccination campaign, liberate the natives from their misconception that any pale faced visitors with thunder sticks and strange beasts were anything but men.

Also would like to respond to the proviso that one cannot kill or cause death while downtime: Preventing a death or causing one to live when they would have died could have consequenses as profound has just going back in time and simply capping Cortez or Hitler with a 9.

Oh yeah. And I would go downtime to 1995 and throw everything I had at Yahoo! stock.

Of course going back in time would add your mass and the mass of the time machine to the past, which would completely throw off the universes delicate balance. You'd also be taking mass out of your origanal time. Just a thought.

I'd go back and lock up the weirdo that invented the waffle. Why would anyone want to eat a square, dry, crunchy (or wet and mushy if maple syrup is added) disgusting waffle, when they could eat a delicious round pancake? Pancakes rock.
Also, I'm pretty sure Hitler invaded Poland because he accidentally ate waffles for breakfast.

i would go back and kill my younger self so that in the future i would not have gone back and killed myself :p

Killing is frowned upon in this thread. :mad:

i would go back and kill my younger self so that in the future i would not have gone back and killed myself :p


I thought I would never find someone as intellegent as me. I send you my admiration.

I'd go back to the day before the election in 2000 and brainwash voters so that they all voted for Gore. It'd result in LESS death! Either that or go back to this year's election and make sure that Kerry won.

Sadaam would still be having his henchmen rape and kill thousands of people, dumping them into mass graves.
The Sudan would still have having thousands slaughtered.
The world would stand by and think that since they have peace, that it's peaceful everywhere.
Less death without Bush isn't a fact.

Sorry you can't escape the paradox. If you go back in time to change history there's no way you could possibly meet the event horizon of the exact circumstance of you travel back chronologically the first time. Even if you had a time machine that actually worked it wouldn't. You could go forward in time though, but you wouldn't be able to go back because of the paradox.

unless rather than seeing time as a fixed strand that exists to the exclusions of all possibilities, perhaps it is a web of possibilities and there is an existent domain containing every possibility that has ever not happened in this time line - in this case if you go back to your set time of divergence (i.e. where you want to make the historical change), adjust the circumstances as you see fit, then travel forward along that line to witness the conclusion of the chain of events you started. on this basis all a time machine needs to be able to do to avoid the paradox is be able to selectively skip through the web of alternate realities.

are we allowed to save a life?

are we allowed to save a life?

yeah i think so. i'd save kurt cobain then laugh as he faded away into obscurity as his wife left him with their child and went on to become a hollywood actor.

Convince Franz Ferdinand that it's really not a good time to go to Sarajevo. Totally different 20th Century.
Probably be better off spending your time trying to convince Wilhem II not to sack Bismarck.

As for the paradoxes thing, well, I'm sure there's way that the universe has of dealing with that. Probably by not making (I'm using language pretty loosely here) backwards time travel possible, that or we're less in control of our actions than we often like to think (i.e. time travel occurs, but it's already adjusted for, and the way people behave is limited by physical laws that never allowed them to do paradoxical things). Or there's the many-worlds stuff, but I don't like that.

I think World War 1 would have happened regardless of Ferdinan being assassinated, Europe was pretty damn tense at the time.
Anyway, both WWI and WWII led to WAY to much technological advancement to be without some server consequences if they suddenly didnt happen, we most likely would have had about a billion smaller wars, or maybe just one big one.
Just think, without WWI the US might have become totaly isolationist, Russia would either still be Tsarist, or would dissolve into a bunch of small states, and Paraguay would take over the world O_O

What would I do?
I would go back to X-billion BC and kill as many butterflies as I could find.

I'd go back about 65 million years and see how the dinosaurs REALLY died out. Or go back to the beginning of time and see how the world REALLY started.

Or go back a few years and stop Gigli from EVER being made. Yeah, that's what I'd do.

i think i'd find out when my parents concieved me (had sex to have me)... run in slap my dad on the ass and scream "I'M YOUR SON FROM THE FUTURE"... point to what was going on and scream "THAT'S ME......HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" and then hope my dad finishes up and still has me.
That will change my dad being nice and he'll go to jail for beating my mom up and he won't form the alliances he has now and take over the world and destroy all of humanity even himself (he's a little....insane) :eek: :( :confused: ;) :fluffle: :D
those were fun

I think World War 1 would have happened regardless of Ferdinan being assassinated, Europe was pretty damn tense at the time.
Anyway, both WWI and WWII led to WAY to much technological advancement to be without some server consequences if they suddenly didnt happen, we most likely would have had about a billion smaller wars, or maybe just one big one.
Just think, without WWI the US might have become totaly isolationist, Russia would either still be Tsarist, or would dissolve into a bunch of small states, and Paraguay would take over the world O_O

What would I do?
I would go back to X-billion BC and kill as many butterflies as I could find.

Whats this deal with butterflies?? Is it some inside joke or is there somehting else in history with butterflies??

Changing the past is impossible, after you go back and change somthing, it would remove the reason for going back, and you would never have gone back, and then it would never get changed. Then you would go back to change it, and it would start all over, the universe would get sucked into an endless cycle, and time would stop.
Only thing you could do in the past, would be observe. Could go into the future though, look at stuff, steal technology, the whole bit.

The past is done, leave it alone, look to the future.

I would go around with my love potion and DO all the greastest women of the world in various openings...

i think i'd find out when my parents concieved me (had sex to have me)... run in slap my dad on the ass and scream "I'M YOUR SON FROM THE FUTURE"... point to what was going on and scream "THAT'S ME......HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" and then hope my dad finishes up and still has me.
That will change my dad being nice and he'll go to jail for beating my mom up and he won't form the alliances he has now and take over the world and destroy all of humanity even himself (he's a little....insane) :eek: :( :confused: ;) :fluffle: :D
those were fun


No way! Id turn my mom over and do her in the ass and go "im your son in the future daddy get the pussy i get to TAP THIS ASS"

i think i'd find out when my parents concieved me (had sex to have me)... run in slap my dad on the ass and scream "I'M YOUR SON FROM THE FUTURE"... point to what was going on and scream "THAT'S ME......HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" and then hope my dad finishes up and still has me.
That will change my dad being nice and he'll go to jail for beating my mom up and he won't form the alliances he has now and take over the world and destroy all of humanity even himself (he's a little....insane) :eek: :( :confused: ;) :fluffle: :D
those were fun
you been watching that crazy ass comic too much


suck my back!

Probably be better off spending your time trying to convince Wilhem II not to sack Bismarck.


Maybe, but Bismarck was getting a bit senile anyway, and I'm not sure he'd have made life much better for Kaiser Bill. It might have been more useful to convince the Tsar to say in the Three Emperor's League and not align with France, too...

Whats this deal with butterflies?? Is it some inside joke or is there somehting else in history with butterflies??
It's a reference to the butterfly effect, a shorthand for a concept of chaos theory that states that the smallest factors can influence their surroundings in profound ways. The idea behind the butterfly effect is that a butterfly in one hemisphere can flap its wings and, by affecting the air currents, drastically alter the weather on the other side of the world.

i'd eat lots of beans and then i would go back ~15 billion years ( to the big bang) :D

or i'd convert mohammed to christianity :)

Go back in time to when the first hominids were competing with non-hominid species for survival and feed and protect the hominid's competitors. If it works out it will give them an evolutionary advantage and humans will be prevented from ever evolving.

I would go back to ancient Egypt and hide a 'Robosapian' in Tutten Karmins (sp?) tomb, then back in the 20th Centuary when archioligists discover the ancient dancing robot they will be thoroughly confused.

I would go back to ancient Egypt and hide a 'Robosapian' in Tutten Karmins (sp?) tomb, then back in the 20th Centuary when archioligists discover the ancient dancing robot they will be thoroughly confused.
YAY FOR CONFUSED EGYPTOLOGISTS!!! Though then they would come to the conclusion that it had been tampered with and that their technology was somewhow flawed. So what you do is go forward, get a super robot from the future, then bring it there, so that the technology surpasses theirs by far. Then the dating will be ancient, but they will have a new picture of ancient eygpt.

YAY FOR CONFUSED EGYPTOLOGISTS!!! Though then they would come to the conclusion that it had been tampered with and that their technology was somewhow flawed. So what you do is go forward, get a super robot from the future, then bring it there, so that the technology surpasses theirs by far. Then the dating will be ancient, but they will have a new picture of ancient eygpt.

Can we program the super-advanced robot to administer atomic wedgies?

I'd go back in time and place a bunch of video cameras around Dallas to see who really shot JFK.

Then, I'd go back a second time with the video of the shooting and show the shooters the video before they do it. That'd freak them out.

Sorry you can't escape the paradox. If you go back in time to change history there's no way you could possibly meet the event horizon of the exact circumstance of you travel back chronologically the first time. Even if you had a time machine that actually worked it wouldn't. You could go forward in time though, but you wouldn't be able to go back because of the paradox.

You can go back in time, but unless you believe in multiple universes, nothing you could do in the past can change the present or future.
Proof (Assuming a single Universe):
If going backwards on the time axis (a.k.a. going back in time) could change anything, then when you were younger a future you would have already gone back and changed it already. Thus, you are already the result of whatever you choose to do with that time machine.

Go back in time and have the ancestor of humans breed with a Furby. Just to see what happens.

i think i'd find out when my parents concieved me (had sex to have me)... run in slap my dad on the ass and scream "I'M YOUR SON FROM THE FUTURE"... point to what was going on and scream "THAT'S ME......HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" and then hope my dad finishes up and still has me.
That will change my dad being nice and he'll go to jail for beating my mom up and he won't form the alliances he has now and take over the world and destroy all of humanity even himself (he's a little....insane) :eek: :( :confused: ;) :fluffle: :D
those were fun
Hahahahaha.....stealing from Dane Cook, I see? :D
He's coming to my school to do a show at the end of January....I can't wait!!

Bush was born in Connecticut. >_> It's a common misconception.
Now, assuming that time travel works the way I see it to, regarding alternate universes and the like...I think I would probably jump back to around 900 AD and see exactly why the Mayan civilization collapsed and see if I could prevent it. Barring that, I'd take all of the Mayan scripture before the Spanish burned them so they could be translated in the here and now.

I still doubt the North would have elected Bush, though...or that if they did, he wouldn't be so inclined to cater to the conservative South.

I might also go back to 1898 and fix whatever was wrong with the USS Maine before it blew to bits.

Can we program the super-advanced robot to administer atomic wedgies?
Only if we could find a posotronic plasma-pulse drive generator and a [Insert sciencey sounding word here] energy converter. That would require going forward in time again.

I would stop Kennedy's and/or Lennon's assassination. Mabey save some other lives while I'm at it.

I'd go back and tell Steven Seagal never to go to Hollywood and never even start to contemplate becoming a movie 'actor'.

I would go back in time and let hitler into that Art School he was rejected from. Therefore I would singlehandedly stop WWII from happening.

Only if we could find a posotronic plasma-pulse drive generator and a [Insert sciencey sounding word here] energy converter. That would require going forward in time again.

The phrase you are looking for is "laser activated tachyon field" No, wait, its a flux capacitor and a DeLorean that we need. Hope that clears things up. :D

It does indeed Norleans

I would go to Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. I would pay a vagrant fifty dollars to toss an egg into the presidential limousine about 1 block before the motorcade entered Dealy Plaza. I would ask the vagrant to make sure he struck President Kennedy in the chest and face with the egg.

If this had occurred, the motorcade would have immediately been halted, and the Secret Service would have diverted the motorcade away from the spectators and media in Dealey Plaza.

Ergo, no shots fired from the sixth floor or grassy knoll (depending upon your viewpoint.)

Ergo, no loss of the perception of innocence and opportunity in the U.S.. Citizens would have felt safe in our country, and we would never have had the spectre of Richard Nixon in the White House. LBJ would have become President following Kennedy's administration (sans the Vietnam War, which would have ended prior to this,) and continued Kennedy's promise of enforcing civil rights (something which LBJ admirably did on his own, and which ultimately continues to unfortunately cause repercussions for the Democrats throughout the southern portion of the U.S..)

Again, I think that actively saving lives in the past could be as bad as actively killing people. Saving Archduke Ferdinand may have prevented WW1 - for the moment. More likely it would have just postponed it. At that time, the international tention between the various powers and their client states was a powderkeg ready to blow. A postponement may have led to one side or the other developing more powerful weapons or gaining some other advantages. Time I believe is like a powerful river with powerful currents, eddies, and calms. Eliminating a particular individual or altering an event may not be enough to change the larger course of history. The current will find another way.

Exactly. Like saving the Titanic. The problems that caused it to sink in the first place would never have been fixed at that time, ships would continue to be built bigger and more luxuriously, and a greater number of people would die when a ship does inevitably sink. And imagine how crappy the movie based on THAT one would be.

I would go back in time and let hitler into that Art School he was rejected from. Therefore I would singlehandedly stop WWII from happening.

Yet perhaps there was a young man who would have grown up to become a greater tyrant and murderer than any dictator the world had seen before, had not he been sent to war and shot.

Go back two hours ago and tell my friends and I we shouldn't throw that smoke bomb in my neighbors car.

Or a least tell the fire department not to come.

Of course time travel is an intriguing sci-fi subject, but even if there was hypothetically a way to "rewind or fast-forward" within history, how would anyone be able to "transport" him/herself through it without their age and knowledge being changed as a result? 'Tis human nature to continually reach higher & higher in everything, but to wish to control time is like wishing to be God - above & beyond the space and time, infinite. Hopefully everyone here agrees that humankind is limited :rolleyes:

Most definitely. Time travel is simply too much trouble to be messed with. That, and it could get very ugly if someone goes back in time to where a tree used to be...

Most definitely. Time travel is simply too much trouble to be messed with. That, and it could get very ugly if someone goes back in time to where a tree used to be...

wouldnt that be interesting tho? in a hundrdd years someone finds a tree with a mangled skeleton inside it, from someone still alive today? hmmm.

any way, if time-travel was invented, some dumb-ass would end up being his own grandfather....

also, what if you were to go back in time to 5billion BC with a set of nukes and a spaceship, and disperse that strangly-coalesing hydrogen cloud? the entire sun, never mind the human race, would not exist

wouldnt that be interesting tho? in a hundrdd years someone finds a tree with a mangled skeleton inside it, from someone still alive today? hmmm.

any way, if time-travel was invented, some dumb-ass would end up being his own grandfather....
Haha, you could go up to him and go, "Excuse me, but does this femur look familiar?" Watch him go pale, and then--hey, where'd the femur go? ...uh, where am I, and what am I doing looking at an empty tree?

but anyway, i would go back in time, hit Shakespeare for making hundreds of years of childrens lives hell, and give him a ball point pen :) (Blackadder reference for you)

Of course time travel is an intriguing sci-fi subject, but even if there was hypothetically a way to "rewind or fast-forward" within history, how would anyone be able to "transport" him/herself through it without their age and knowledge being changed as a result? 'Tis human nature to continually reach higher & higher in everything, but to wish to control time is like wishing to be God - above & beyond the space and time, infinite. Hopefully everyone here agrees that humankind is limited :rolleyes:

Well, it's a well-known fact that time travel forward is considerably easier than time-travel backward. Of course, any trip forward would be one-way.

Perhaps that's for the best.

and, id get loads of Inca's in south america to worship me as a god using superior futuristic technology, and build a statue out of gold to honour me. then, when i return to the present, it will be like the second coming of a god or sumthing....MWHAHAHA!!!

but of course we have the paradoxes:

Grandfather Paradox :
Time travel is impossible as exemplified by the famous grandfather paradox. Imagine you build a time machine. It is possible for you to travel back in time, meet your grandfather before he produces any children (i.e. your father/mother) and kill him. Thus, you would not have been born and the time machine would not have been built, a paradox.



Perhaps the craziest of the time travel paradoxes was cooked up by Robert Heinlein in his classic short story "All You Zombies."

A baby girl is mysteriously dropped off at an orphanage in Cleveland in 1945. "Jane" grows up lonely and dejected, not knowing who her parents are, until one day in 1963 she is strangely attracted to a drifter. She falls in love with him. But just when things are finally looking up for Jane, a series of disasters strike. First, she becomes pregnant by the drifter, who then disappears. Second, during the complicated delivery, doctors find that Jane has both sets of sex organs, and to save her life, they are forced to surgically convert "her" to a "him." Finally, a mysterious stranger kidnaps her baby from the delivery room.
Reeling from these disasters, rejected by society, scorned by fate, "he" becomes a drunkard and drifter. Not only has Jane lost her parents and her lover, but he has lost his only child as well. Years later, in 1970, he stumbles into a lonely bar, called Pop's Place, and spills out his pathetic story to an elderly bartender. The sympathetic bartender offers the drifter the chance to avenge the stranger who left her pregnant and abandoned, on the condition that he join the "time travelers corps." Both of them enter a time machine, and the bartender drops off the drifter in 1963. The drifter is strangely attracted to a young orphan woman, who subsequently becomes pregnant.
The bartender then goes forward 9 months, kidnaps the baby girl from the hospital, and drops off the baby in an orphanage back in 1945. Then the bartender drops off the thoroughly confused drifter in 1985, to enlist in the time travelers corps. The drifter eventually gets his life together, becomes a respected and elderly member of the time travelers corps, and then disguises himself as a bartender and has his most difficult mission: a date with destiny, meeting a certain drifter at Pop's Place in 1970.
The question is: Who is Jane's mother, father, grandfather, grand mother, son, daughter, granddaughter, and grandson? The girl, the drifter, and the bartender, of course, are all the same person. These paradoxes can made your head spin, especially if you try to untangle Jane's twisted parentage. If we drawJane's family tree, we find that all the branches are curled inward back on themselves, as in a circle. We come to the astonishing conclusion that she is her own mother and father! She is an entire family tree unto herself.

and, id get loads of Inca's in south america to worship me as a god using superior futuristic technology, and build a statue out of gold to honour me. then, when i return to the present, it will be like the second coming of a god or sumthing....MWHAHAHA!!!
Depends. Have you ever been fingerprinted at birth? Databases are our friends.

I'd learn Ancient Greek, then go back to Archimedes or someone and show them a computer. Teach him how to use it, and provided him with a solar generator to keep the computer going. I would also tell him how to make electricity blah blah blah.

but of course we have the paradoxes:

Grandfather Paradox :
Time travel is impossible as exemplified by the famous grandfather paradox. Imagine you build a time machine. It is possible for you to travel back in time, meet your grandfather before he produces any children (i.e. your father/mother) and kill him. Thus, you would not have been born and the time machine would not have been built, a paradox.



Perhaps the craziest of the time travel paradoxes was cooked up by Robert Heinlein in his classic short story "All You Zombies."

A baby girl is mysteriously dropped off at an orphanage in Cleveland in 1945. "Jane" grows up lonely and dejected, not knowing who her parents are, until one day in 1963 she is strangely attracted to a drifter. She falls in love with him. But just when things are finally looking up for Jane, a series of disasters strike. First, she becomes pregnant by the drifter, who then disappears. Second, during the complicated delivery, doctors find that Jane has both sets of sex organs, and to save her life, they are forced to surgically convert "her" to a "him." Finally, a mysterious stranger kidnaps her baby from the delivery room.
Reeling from these disasters, rejected by society, scorned by fate, "he" becomes a drunkard and drifter. Not only has Jane lost her parents and her lover, but he has lost his only child as well. Years later, in 1970, he stumbles into a lonely bar, called Pop's Place, and spills out his pathetic story to an elderly bartender. The sympathetic bartender offers the drifter the chance to avenge the stranger who left her pregnant and abandoned, on the condition that he join the "time travelers corps." Both of them enter a time machine, and the bartender drops off the drifter in 1963. The drifter is strangely attracted to a young orphan woman, who subsequently becomes pregnant.
The bartender then goes forward 9 months, kidnaps the baby girl from the hospital, and drops off the baby in an orphanage back in 1945. Then the bartender drops off the thoroughly confused drifter in 1985, to enlist in the time travelers corps. The drifter eventually gets his life together, becomes a respected and elderly member of the time travelers corps, and then disguises himself as a bartender and has his most difficult mission: a date with destiny, meeting a certain drifter at Pop's Place in 1970.
The question is: Who is Jane's mother, father, grandfather, grand mother, son, daughter, granddaughter, and grandson? The girl, the drifter, and the bartender, of course, are all the same person. These paradoxes can made your head spin, especially if you try to untangle Jane's twisted parentage. If we drawJane's family tree, we find that all the branches are curled inward back on themselves, as in a circle. We come to the astonishing conclusion that she is her own mother and father! She is an entire family tree unto herself.

Jane is a self-made man. Hehehe.

Depends. Have you ever been fingerprinted at birth? Databases are our friends.

no i havent, but the idea was to make the statue to look exactly like me, then wrap it in some bubble wrap or sumthing, just to protect it over the next few thousand years...

theres this scientist guy sitting in a bar in manchester, UK. and old man walks up to the table, and gives him a notebook, then walks away. the man is confused, but he picks up the book and starts reading. he finds that it contains a complete design for a time machine!
in the back of this book is a notice that says the date he got the book, as well as the bar where it was.

he makes millions from his invention, and lives like a king till he becomes elderly. by now, the book is old, and worn out. he copies the entire book word-for-word into a new book. when he gets to the back, he sees the notice. by now, he cant remember that day, the significance is lost on him. so, curious, he takes the newly copied book and a time machine, and goes back the that time/place.
he walks into the bar in manchester, UK, and sees, sitting at a table, is a young man studying some sheets of paper with calculations on them. he suddenly remembers the day. he walks over to the man (a younger version of himself) and hands himself the book, then silently walks out again and return to his timeline.


now, thats all fine, but the question is, who wrote the book in the first place? who worked out the nesscessary calculations? they have no origin!!!

theres this scientist guy sitting in a bar in manchester, UK. and old man walks up to the table, and gives him a notebook, then walks away. the man is confused, but he picks up the book and starts reading. he finds that it contains a complete design for a time machine!
in the back of this book is a notice that says the date he got the book, as well as the bar where it was.

he makes millions from his invention, and lives like a king till he becomes elderly. by now, the book is old, and worn out. he copies the entire book word-for-word into a new book. when he gets to the back, he sees the notice. by now, he cant remember that day, the significance is lost on him. so, curious, he takes the newly copied book and a time machine, and goes back the that time/place.
he walks into the bar in manchester, UK, and sees, sitting at a table, is a young man studying some sheets of paper with calculations on them. he suddenly remembers the day. he walks over to the man (a younger version of himself) and hands himself the book, then silently walks out again and return to his timeline.


now, thats all fine, but the question is, who wrote the book in the first place? who worked out the nesscessary calculations? they have no origin!!!
If that happens, then it is likely that the outcome has two different origins, an original and a repeater. Say, for example, the scientist does eventually develop time travel of his own will, perhaps through years or perhaps multiple generations of passing down his knowledge. Once time travel does get invented, he or one of his descendents goes back in time to hand his earlier self the notebook, who decides to write the date in the back for posterity. With the notebook in hand, he develops time travel much more quickly, and goes back as per your description, initiating the cycle.

theres this scientist guy sitting in a bar in manchester, UK. and old man walks up to the table, and gives him a notebook, then walks away. the man is confused, but he picks up the book and starts reading. he finds that it contains a complete design for a time machine!
in the back of this book is a notice that says the date he got the book, as well as the bar where it was.

he makes millions from his invention, and lives like a king till he becomes elderly. by now, the book is old, and worn out. he copies the entire book word-for-word into a new book. when he gets to the back, he sees the notice. by now, he cant remember that day, the significance is lost on him. so, curious, he takes the newly copied book and a time machine, and goes back the that time/place.
he walks into the bar in manchester, UK, and sees, sitting at a table, is a young man studying some sheets of paper with calculations on them. he suddenly remembers the day. he walks over to the man (a younger version of himself) and hands himself the book, then silently walks out again and return to his timeline.


now, thats all fine, but the question is, who wrote the book in the first place? who worked out the nesscessary calculations? they have no origin!!!

Sounds good, but then, wouldn't the old man still have the book if he gave it to his younger self?

Unless you speak of multiple timelines, in which case that would work out. Maybe...

Sorry you can't escape the paradox. If you go back in time to change history there's no way you could possibly meet the event horizon of the exact circumstance of you travel back chronologically the first time. Even if you had a time machine that actually worked it wouldn't. You could go forward in time though, but you wouldn't be able to go back because of the paradox.
Excuse me, are you applying linear causality to a time jump? That's a big no-no.

If anything, time travellers are likely to be insulated from the events that they cause, or they're destined to change history anyway so it all just fits together like a jigsaw

theres this scientist guy sitting in a bar in manchester, UK. and old man walks up to the table, and gives him a notebook, then walks away. the man is confused, but he picks up the book and starts reading. he finds that it contains a complete design for a time machine!
in the back of this book is a notice that says the date he got the book, as well as the bar where it was.

he makes millions from his invention, and lives like a king till he becomes elderly. by now, the book is old, and worn out. he copies the entire book word-for-word into a new book. when he gets to the back, he sees the notice. by now, he cant remember that day, the significance is lost on him. so, curious, he takes the newly copied book and a time machine, and goes back the that time/place.
he walks into the bar in manchester, UK, and sees, sitting at a table, is a young man studying some sheets of paper with calculations on them. he suddenly remembers the day. he walks over to the man (a younger version of himself) and hands himself the book, then silently walks out again and return to his timeline.


now, thats all fine, but the question is, who wrote the book in the first place? who worked out the nesscessary calculations? they have no origin!!!Well, the thing is, again, you're applying linear causality.

In time as we understand it, everything must have a cause. But that is a rule that can only be applied to linear, forward-moving time, because those are the conditions under which that rule (events have causes) was discovered. You can't apply that if you start mussing about with the timeline, so its not logically inconsistant to say that the book didn't actually have a cause.

Most definitely. Time travel is simply too much trouble to be messed with. That, and it could get very ugly if someone goes back in time to where a tree used to be...
If you went back in time without moving in space, your odds are incredibly small that you'd even end up being on this planet, let alone that you wouldn't be in the middle of a mountain or whatever.

If you went back in time without moving in space, your odds are incredibly small that you'd even end up being on this planet, let alone that you wouldn't be in the middle of a mountain or whatever.
Oh, yeah, that's true. The earth would have moved in the meantime unless you went to the same day of the year you left, and even then, you'd run a substantial risk of being a little bit off here or there.

Oh, yeah, that's true. The earth would have moved in the meantime unless you went to the same day of the year you left, and even then, you'd run a substantial risk of being a little bit off here or there.

Not to mention the fact that the solar system is in motion and the galaxy is both rotating and moving also. So if you remain fixed in space, the chances of you arriving on the surface of ANY survivable environment are basically nil.

Not to mention the fact that the solar system is in motion and the galaxy is both rotating and moving also. So if you remain fixed in space, the chances of you arriving on the surface of ANY survivable environment are basically nil.
Bingo.

Even if you moved, consider this as well: if the earth has moved X metres, and it takes you T seconds to travel back in time, then what happens if X over T > 3x10^8 m/s?

Of course, this may just be another linear time problem, but it has to be considered.

bump

Bingo.

Even if you moved, consider this as well: if the earth has moved X metres, and it takes you T seconds to travel back in time, then what happens if X over T > 3x10^8 m/s?

Of course, this may just be another linear time problem, but it has to be considered.

if youve got the technology to travel through time at will, i hardly think that something as trivial as the speed of light is going to be a problem... ;)

I would go back to Quebec, 30,000 B.C., and encourage a butterfly to flap its wings.

*Tear rolls down cheek*

I would travel back in time and ejaculate into the promordial ooz

Time backwards time travel is possible because it has been done, albeit in on a rather trivial scale, if any backward time trvel can be called trivial.

http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/7/7/9

When light is accelerated past light speed using a alexandrite crystal the resulting fast light leaves the crystal before entering it.

Time is neither infinite nor unchanging. In fact, time is altered by velocity and gravity. An airplane flying high above the earth does not travel time at the same rate as the people down below.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/airtim.html

In theory, if the universe experiences a big crunch time will run perfectly backwards, meaning that everyone will have a chance to time travel but no one will notice.

As for what I'd do, I'd travel to a point where time doesn't exist, just to see what'll happen. With any luck, the 'I am my grandfather' paradox will kick in and the energy from my atomized body would cause the Big Bang, literally making me God.

I would travel back in time and ejaculate into the promordial ooz

Good God, Rimmerworld.

Good God, Rimmerworld.

rimmerworld ? i just stole the whole ejaculation joke from family guy...whos rimmerworld ?

rimmerworld ? i just stole the whole ejaculation joke from family guy...whos rimmerworld ?

It's a reference to 'Red Dwarf' - "Rimmerworld" was created using only the genetic material from one of the crewmembers, Arnold Judas Rimmer (though how is a good question, Rimmer was a hologram).

Rimmer was...unforgettable. And that's putting it most kindly. Rimmerworld was...abominable. A place best left forgotten.

You should watch the series, it's terrific. Extremely funny the first time or two.

DT.