Time travel

Megahurtz400 said:
I would just google a load of scientific theories, write them out word for word with an inkwell to they look authentic and then go back in time and start talking about them to to scientific community.

I'd go down as the greatest inventor in history, and because of this I may be able to impart a better way of life than the selfish, self-serving version of "capitalism" we have now to try and combat poverty, disease and starvation around the world, which would allow the human race to advance at a faster rate so we can explore the universe earlier to that my pals can go for a night out on an asteroid somewhere 2,000,000 light years away and chat up some sweet alien babes in 2021.
Click to expand...

You'd probably be killed by the dogmatists for going against the prevailing (dogmatic) views of the time.

As an example imagine that the green/politically correct/woke brigade of today have got everything totally wrong and through their "progressive" vision end up almost destroying humanity, so some guy comes back from the 25th century to tell them today that everything they're promoting is going to lead a miserable future for humanity, how do you think he will received?

1> Dismissed as a hateful individual.
2> Censored from social media.
3> Cancelled for hate speech.
4> Smeared as far right.
5> Ignored.

The scientific facts don't matter they won't listen to them.
 
Been able to make penicillin would be wonderful, you could take advantage of the cheap prostitution then cure that nasty rash you picked up before jumping back in the tardis

Edit/also characters out of blackadder pop into my head when I visualise the past
 
Feek said:
Transparent aluminum.
Click to expand...

;) I remember this


Me = I'd travel back about 27 years, I'd convince Jeff Bezos it would be a bad idea to sell books on the 'newfangled internet worldwideweb jobby' buy the domain name 'amazon.com' & start book selling myself.
Also patent the 'smartphone' & licence out a .01% royalty fee to whoever wanted to make one (or in apples case 0.5%) :p
 
Angilion said:
Yes and no. You can get a working product easily. Penicillin was being used at least as far back as the ancient Greeks. It wasn't widely used and not even the people advocating its use had any idea how it worked, but it was used. If you want to change the world, though, you have a much harder problem to solve - scale. For antibiotics to be world-changing, they need to be available very widely and at a widely affordable cost. Especially so if you were doing it 500 years ago as no public healthcare system existed. On top of that, you'd need a very large number of production facilities all over the place because transportation was a lot more limited.

But I think it would be a bad idea anyway even if you could do it. In that scenario, penicillin would be the only antibiotic and there would be no chance of any more. The knowledge and everything else needed for developing other antibiotics wouldn't and couldn't exist, so you'd end up with a pretty rapid development of penicillin-resistant bacteria and amongst the very bad effects of that would be a massive blow to the whole idea of antibiotics. So you'd change the world, but I think probably for the worse.

Which is a problem with any "travel back in time and change things" scenario - the effects might well not match the intention.

For me personally, I can't think of anything. Most of us don't have the required depth of knowledge about any technology and all the things necessary to suport it to be able to transplant it to c1600. For example, some people here have detailed knowledge of how an internal combustion engine works. Enough knowledge to be able to "invent" the concept in c1600. Enough knowledge to be able to draw a detailed enough diagram to allow for at least an initial attempt at making one. But they wouldn't be able to transplant the necessary material sciences and manufacturing facilities to c1600. Without those, even a perfect blueprint of every aspect of a fully functional ICE is just a picture.

If I had some time before the journey back in time, I could have a go at it. My initial thought would be to find out how to make a hand-cranked printing press with the type set on cylinders. I think that could be made with c1600 technology.
Click to expand...
+1

I, Pencil and Thomas Thwaites' 'How I built a toaster from scratch' show just how difficult it is to produce even simple, everyday objects — and that's with today's knowledge and technology, never mind trying to do something like that back in 1600.
 
billysielu said:
The problem for a lot of ideas would be getting people to listen. I reckon there were people at the time doing very forward-thinking stuff but could never get the word out.
Click to expand...

That reminds me of the astronomer, Giordano Bruno. He got burnt at the stake due to his findings about Earth and the solar system, and nobody believed him. This happened around year 1600. Then after he died, it turned out that his findings were correct.
 
Simple things that matter,

Get in with things that matter in the day, design and improve Warfield tactics. Nothing would work more than getting in bed with a general or two and ensuring victories, throw in advancements of field care I.E stop ******** in the same tent you cook in and such like would trickle down accordingly.

I would then use my new found fame and fortune to destroy the French civlisation once and for all.

Or

Find Australia before anyone, take sensible people without religion instead of bread stealing scum. So over the next 300 years or so Australia or SPGLAND which it is now know as will be 20 years away from cracking fusion power.
 
SPG said:
Find Australia before anyone, take sensible people without religion instead of bread stealing scum. So over the next 300 years or so Australia or SPGLAND which it is now know as will be 20 years away from cracking fusion power.
Click to expand...

I was thinking this too but just own all the land that had bauxite and gold in it.
I don't need to know how to mine and refine it and cast aluminium, someone else can do that, it can't be too different from steel/iron after all.
 
Slightly related question.

If you could go back to being 11 year old you as in back in time. But your mental state would get transplanted to that time. So for me it would be 2004, but I know everything I know now.

You’d be a genius for your age. You could also place some bets on certain things to make a load of money.
Would you do it?
 
Mason- said:
Slightly related question.

If you could go back to being 11 year old you as in back in time. But your mental state would get transplanted to that time. So for me it would be 2004, but I know everything I know now.

You’d be a genius for your age. You could also place some bets on certain things to make a load of money.
Would you do it?
Click to expand...

11 years old and placing bets? Your local branch of Ladbrokes needs investigating.
 
Not an invention, but I'd go back to the times of the early pioneers of chemistry, and tell them that lead, mercury, radiation etc are actually quite bad.
I think Curie and Lavoisier would be quite open minded and receptive to a guy in jeans and a beer t-shirt, showing them Wikipedia screenshots on a Galaxy S9.

I'd also tell Lavoisier to get the rock out of Paris before they chopped his bonce off.
 
DoneADougalOnSofa said:
Not an invention, but I'd go back to the times of the early pioneers of chemistry, and tell them that lead, mercury, radiation etc are actually quite bad.
I think Curie and Lavoisier would be quite open minded and receptive to a guy in jeans and a beer t-shirt, showing them Wikipedia screenshots on a Galaxy S9.

I'd also tell Lavoisier to get the rock out of Paris before they chopped his bonce off.
Click to expand...
This is such a butterfly effect. On the face of it you'll destroy any progress in those fields :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom