If time travel were possible and you could travel back in time, where would you go and what would you do?

should'nt the question have to be "what could you do?"

Perhaps. But pretty much every discussion on time travel ends with the debate about paradoxes like killing your own father before you were born, etc.

I'd really like to avoid those dead end arguments here. What I want to encourage is a discussion of what people would really do and 'when' they would go and why. Perhaps as part of that there would be significant implications. For example - killing hitler before WWII, and what happens to the world if there was no war. You might conclude that the evil of Hitler is found eventually to be of benefit to the world since wars often push technology to the limits.

Religious people might want to visit the beginnings of their religions. How about being able to view the formation of the planets or a big bang?

But really consider how could history be re-engineered to produce different effects in the future.

Cris

the way i feel today? i would go buy a lottery guide, and a sports almanac, and go back aoubt 50 years. " BACK TO THE FUTURE". ring a bell?

Personal greed and profit huh? Perfectly understandable.

So would you stay in the past and enjoy the new wealth then, or leave it somewhere so you could use it when you returned to the future? I never understood why the old Biff gave the almanac to his younger self, since he was not going to have any personal benefit.

Cris

Assuming that I could go absolutely anywhere at anytime, and I was practically invisible to everyone else. There would be a tone of places to go. First I would visit Pearl Harbor, when it was being attacked by the Japanese. Of course I wouldn't be anywhere to dangerous. I would also have to show up at Normandy on D-Day, and on the Missouri to see Hirohito surrender to Nimitz. And then the criminal trial at Nuremburg.

Aside from WWII, I would go to FDR's, and JFK's inaugurations. Be pretty interesting to see them, I would have to see Winston Churchill at some point in his time as PM of the Britain. I would go see Hitler, at the Nuremburg rallies. I've always wondered what he sounded like. I'd see Lincoln and Kennedy's assassinations, maybe the Hinkley attempt on Regain too. I think going to the UN during the Cuban Missile crisis, and to finish off world events I'd go to Berlin, when the wall fell.

Personally I'd visit my grandparent's wedding. I'd also like to see my grandfather when he was in the Italian carribaneri, right before the world, (he left in September 1939 to come to the US). I also think it would be interesting to see my birth, wonder what that looked like?

Screw an Alaskan cruise, this would be my ultimate vacation. I'd have to bring a lot of film, and a damn good map.

Curly,

This probably applies more to older members but would you consider visiting your younger self and providing advice so as to avoid future disasters or embarrasments?

This is perhaps less about time travel as I've stated, but I'd love to go back and re-live my life, but with the knowledge I currently have. Starting with being born with full adult memories. Now that could make for an interesting life.

Of course I wouldn't make the same mistakes as I did the first time through, but I'd probably screw up somewhere else. I guess the lesson here is that if you have the tendency to screw up then no matter how many times you re-live your life you will still screw up.

I am now old enough to know my limitations and and know when to avoid the potentially dangerous situations. And I have achieved that through making so many mistakes in the past.

Oh well, I'd still like to go back with perfect memory and see what happens. Should become fairly wealthy pretty quickly since I would know what was going to happen next.

Cris

Cris,

Great minds think alike. Oneday, me and my better half were talking about that - we thought what would happen if suddenly your present memory gets imprinted in to yourself when you were in high school?

This really happend to me in reverse. I had a lucid dream that I was camping one night on the Oregon trail in Kemmer, Wyoming. The details that was unknown to me before - upon discussion with locals found to be true.

Can information travel through time? It may be that we coexist in time with a phase shift. I have a friend who can see auras in people. I don't. So many unanswered questions and time is so short....time....time....

Trust me being alive for a decade and a half there are things that I'd like to fix or make better. I'd tell my parents to buy some keen stocks and sell them in '99. But back to the subject at hand, if you could change the past (which is open to scientific debate, i.e. the grandfather paradox), I believe that those hardships I have encountered in the past have made me a better person.

Mistakes and fallablities are what make us truly human, without them I think the world would be a very boring 1-D world. Things have been on the upswing for me in the past year, you sometimes have to experience bad things to really appreaceate your present situation, which may be better than you think.

Just something to think about guys, stay positive. :D :D

I'd like to go back and meet all the friends I know when they were little, like six years old, then I'd look at myself and watch myself over the years. Then I'd go to the end of time and see how things work'd out, and maybe backtrack to see how they came to be. I'd leave my own future fate alone but would correct several mistakes I've made before.

Paradoxes aside,

I would go back 3 months, with all of the information to date on the Sept. 11 attacks, and then send it the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA. I would wait until Sept. 9th and then send it to every major news media in the world.

Maybe that way, at least 5000 people would be alive here and the civilians dying right now in afgahnistan wouldn't be.

Id start with visiting russia for the revoloution in 1917, then id go and visit enstien and have a conversaion over tea and buiscuits.
I go back to the 1940's and wonder around roswell see if a ufo did crash then id rent a boat sit a few thousand miles of christmas island then watch them nuke it, thats something i think you would have to see to appricate, on film it doesnt look real.
I deffinatly go to dallas for jfk's assination then onto cuba for the revolution.
After the 60's it all gets rather boring so id have to go back to the future then, one thing id never do is try and talk to myself of any other member of my family, i wouldent try to kill hitler or stalin because if you kill these people someone else will just take there place.
I would be quite content just watching the events that have significance and being able to report the truth, what really happened.

I would go back 3 months, with all of the information to date on the Sept. 11 attacks, and then send it the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA. I would wait until Sept. 9th and then send it to every major news media in the world.

You think for one second that any of them would belive you?
If you did that one of two things would happen,
1.They'd send you to a mental institution, where you'd proberbly spend the rest of your life.
2.They'd take no action then after september the 11th they'd arrest you and proberbly send you to prison for the rest of your life.
Event's that have happened will happen, you can change names and dates but the end result is still the same.

Originally posted by SeekerOfTruth
Paradoxes aside,

I would go back 3 months, with all of the information to date on the Sept. 11 attacks, and then send it the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA. I would wait until Sept. 9th and then send it to every major news media in the world.

Maybe that way, at least 5000 people would be alive here and the civilians dying right now in afgahnistan wouldn't be.

Huh? How, you being branded as a crackpot before Sept 11 will make 5000 people alive? No one will believe you and will put you in a padded cell.

Everything happens for a reason. Time is neither good or evil. However, there is this free will thing. We learn and we take action. Some will do nothing. You would think that the Insurance companies will wise up and protect their interest by investing money to prevent man made disasters. But historically that usually does not happen.

I would travel back to the beginning of the Universe. I would walk up to the particle of infinite mass and energy just before it explodes in the big band. I would grab the particle and put it in my pocket, then I would go back to my own time (now) and tell everybody I got the Universe in my pocket.

Seriously, I really don't know if I want to achieve anything in the past, perhaps I would visit Leonardo da Vinci a couple of times and I probably would like to se if there really was a Jesus, Buddha and so on.

What would be really interesting though, is to se the future of man kind. To behold what we are in a distant future. For better or for worse that is what I want to know.

I would travel back to the beginning of the Universe. I would walk up to the particle of infinite mass and energy just before it explodes in the big band.

Didn't Einstein say that the mass/energy ratio was constant? That means that a bigger mass => less energy for a given corpse? E=mc^2 ? Therefore, that first particle had to be of infinite energy and no mass :confused:

Then, assuming that anyone would travel back to the beggining, wouldn't he\she spoil the birth of the universe?

Could anyone give me an answer pls?

Didn't Einstein say that the mass/energy ratio was constant? That means that a bigger mass => less energy for a given corpse? E=mc^2 ? Therefore, that first particle had to be of infinite energy and no mass

Ok! I should have written infinite mass or energy probably. It was just an attempted joke.


Then, assuming that anyone would travel back to the beginning, wouldn't he\she spoil the birth of the universe?

That is an interesting question. If the big bang energy contained all energy (mass) in the whole universe, what would happen if you got there and therefore introduced your own mass/energy to the universe again (its already there). But this would be true for all time past. If you travel back you add to the total energy of the universe at that point, due to the fact that you already exist in some other form of matter or energy. But this is another discussion, perhaps another thread?

By the way everyone you're welcome for me rescuing this thread, it was on the very end of the list. I should do that more often...

-Wouldn't taking a piece of the pre-universe mean that you actually took a gigantic chunk of it and possibly our portion of it? Just a thought.

-I would spend years observing dinasaurs, and if I could travel to an alternate universe I would see if utahraptors became the sentient species of the planet (it was around the last million years or so as was quite intelligent, much more intelligent and basically better than the common velociraptor). It'd be REALLY cool if humans and raptors co-existed in a hostile environment, now that would be something fun to watch behind the screen of a time traveller thingy device.

-I'd see if Al Gore really did invent the internet (or was impartial to its creation or something).

-I'd exist behind-the-scenes of a few peoples mind for a day or two, just to really see how they function and operate. That's not really time travel but there are some really wacky and incredible people that I know that I'd like to REALLY know. I'd also want to know what they REALLY thought of me, but I probably already do.

-I'd travel across the universe for a very, very long time just observing cosmic phenomena and other sentient forms. I'd get a feel for their culture.

-I would watch Osama bin Laden for a day or two, maybe see inside his mind for the same amount of time, and find out if he really truly was behind the wtc attacks.


Observing many things is what I yearn to do.

I'd go back and mess up everyones lives by peeing in the Protozoac soup.
Yes, you know what that would mean... All life forms on this planet evolved from a can of bud working it way through my biological system.

Of course some might say that's taking the Pee.

Perhaps dropping a transistor in in 1947 with a little help from a genetic hybrid (coughcough) The reason is well to have the computers we have now :p

In reality the fact is that if timetravel was possible any interaction you make within a timeline that you weren't suppose to be in causes parallels.
It's like the grandfather paradox.

namely going back to when your Grandfather met your Grandmother and making him meet someone else, This would mean that you didn't exist, because on of your parents didn't exist. Infact you could say that perhaps a preportion of your genes would exist but not the whole of you.

(Of course you would be from a seperate timeline and you would be uneffected, but you could find yourself lost in parallels as much as time.)

In my dream last night. I met a past version of myself, another incarnation. It was a finnish little 7-year old girl. She had very strong psychic abilities and wasnīt liked by many. She drowned in a fountain in Helsinki, and is now my spiritual helper. :) Her name was/is Alvina.

We can all go back , or remember( and make appropriate wanted changes in our minds) itīs the same thing.

There is no paradox either, because the changes you make doesnīt aplly to this dimension. By changing it you would create a new one.

But , Iīm always up to having some fun, so I will engage myself in the game. ;) So, "if" I could go back in time I would also want to meet Jesus, or my previous incarnations in the flesh. Touch a dinosaur, ride on a unicorn and have a long conversation with the old philosophers as Socrates and Demenokles.

But then, I already did this, right now, because what is time but a linear construction , viewed as an illusion to keep us focused on the physical world we inhabit? :p

Firstly thanks Shrike.

Personally I would like to go to the renaissance era and study swordplay. Possibly taking summer vacations in medieval*England, to get some instruction in chivalry, and knighthood. And naturally bring back a few nice pieces of weaponry. That is if I decided to come back.

meessa would go to save oto gunga from the evil trade federation. Then meesa would rewrite the script of my movie so meesa would have a gooder part!

The do say the reason merlin (the wizzard) was able to predicit the future with such accuracy is becuse he went backwards through time while the rest of us go forward.
Perhaps id go back to see the knights of the round table, wouldnt stay long tho, all those people who dont wash!!!, think the reason i wouldent stay long is self explanatory.

Benji
That kind of reminds me of an ESP study that some people haven't undertaken yet. Which people you might ask... well they wwill know when the future comes ;)

Assuming I would be safe and able to skip through time to observe only, and not affect anything, these are the places and times I'd like to go to.

Watching how the pyramids were made. Finding out how those lines in the ground (I think at Nazca?) that from the air are drawings of spiders and birds etc., I'd like to find the answers to all the questions in Chariots of the Gods, like how those gigantic statues on Easter Island came to be.

I'd like to witness the formation of a crop circle, (these days they're getting more and more elaborate). I'd want to skip through time and watch the evolution of man. I'd like to watch things that were happening in the time of Jesus, what he was all about and how the bible came to be written. I'd like to have a look at the dinasaurs and watch how the continents formed, dividing up the land and producing different animals on different continents. I would like to have gone to the moon with the astronauts; a view of the stars from space would be amazing, so would looking down and seeing our own planet.

If I could interact without causing any damage I'd love to talk to Nostradamus to try to compare what he was 'seeing' to history up to the present time. I'd have loved to talk to Carl Sagan.

Lastly, for now, because it's 3.40am and I'm getting very sleepy, I would have wanted to be with the liberating soldiers at the concentration camps helping the surviving prisoners to safety after the war ended. After all they had been through can you imagine what you would read in their eyes? That must have been something.
Thanks for starting a really great topic.
:) Teri

I guess my list is short and sweet.

I would love to know about the remains of that underwater road near Bimini, Who made it? How did it come to be? What peoples did it and how did they do it?

I would know Rome. Civilization, politics, people, trade methods, military methods, the lives of the gladitors and their training.

I would know the history and beliefs of the Aztec, Maya, and the Pueblo cliff dwellers.

There are also several of Teri2's items of interest that draw my attention.

You didn't say movement in space so the first thing I'd do is make sure my spacesuit was not leaking. :)

Ok, OK so theres movement in space as well. Spend a couple of years studying the Buddha, Lao Tse, Christ and Mohamed. See if Bacon did make that talking head. Drop a few hints to John Harrison, talk to Farraday. Give Nostradamus the real dope then try and drag Sir Isaac away from his religious tracts back to the maths texts (give him a calculator, as one SF writer sugested)

Oh so much time so little life!

I could go see Hitler, Einstein, blah, blah, blah....
What would really spark my interest is to go to the spot in time before the creation of universe. To try and find out how did that particle of infinite energy and no mass come into existence. Because I suppose it had to be created by "something" and that something had again to be engineered by something else, and so on. The very concept of existence seems to be a neverending spiral, loop or whatever. I would travel drastically before the birth of universe, before beginning of time so to speak, and see what "is" "there".

I agree that would be something if we could find that out. I still wonder what the universe is expanding into. And what about the concept of infinite density of a black hole? What if science is completely wrong about everything?

All these questions, and no one to answer them.

Happy Tuesday,
Teri

These are all interesting thoughts, but I suppose we should stick to the main subject. But it would be great to see what "world" was like before existence even existed for example. Besides, I'm almost certain there are people who belive they know the answers to these questions. Are they right? Not likely. But one can never know for sure.

I supposed you'd have to be very specific about which times you went to and how much time you spent in each time as it were, i think id have to see the fall of the roman empire, that must have been something to witness, i love to go and find out what happened abord the mary celest, i wouldent tell anyone honest ;)
I go watch hitlers speach as the nurenburg rallys then id pop back a few years later to see weather the russians did get him.
I might have said roswell in the 1940's but for me that has already been explained, i suppose id like to take a UFO and close encounter histroy report and see how many aliens have visited or how many freaks there are on this planet:).
Id be in dallas for JFK's assination and see first hand what happened, then going to london to meet the cray twins in there hayday.
I go to waco just to see who fired first, id go and see if ossma bin ladden did order the wtc attacks, i find the truth from every major conflict of the past milenium, then with the cold faced irony of it all id proberbly laugh then die contented.

Well, all I'd want to do if I could travel back in time is meet people that I admire now (and not know personally) before they became famous and/or died. This would include my grandparents, scientists like Albert Einstein and Issac Newton, great artists like Michael Angelo, Rembrandt, Renoir, and Monet, great music composers like Bach, Mozart, Chopin and also rock musicians like Neil Peart (with his purple cape prefferably :o :D :p ;) ), Mexican latin rock band Mana's drummer Alex, Sting, and drummers Jeff Porcaro and Buddy Rich. Let me see, let me see....who else....hmmm....I'd also visit the first Olympic games and meet the first gold medalists :rolleyes: and I can't think of anyone else right now but I'm sure I'd remember once I got on the time travel "machine":cool:

WRITERS, famous writers like Hemingway, Mark Twain, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, man....too many to name.

This might not be relevant to the topic. But, about all those people you would all like to meet. How would you approach them? They were all busy and famous. Not like you could just march into their close proximity and engage them in a meeting ritual.:rolleyes:

If I were granted the power to travel backward in time by some power granting entity, I would travel back to the year 1099AD. I would roam the streets of Damascus while sweeping through the cries of prostitutes and roadside vendors as if their solicitations were cobwebs pregnant with tempations unnamed. I would watch the dustdevils wrap sand around my imagination in lazy circles as the sun set between my opium-heavy feet as I lie on a cushioned sofa made of lebonese timber. I would invent the flashlight, thumbtacks, and moonpies.....

The past has no interest for me. If you can go back in time,
you can go in the future. That's where i want to go.

I would make a stop where we find how to travel to other star
system.

The ultimate goal of science being to mathematicly modelise the entire Univers, i would make a stop at this very precious
monment in time and stay there !!! Imagine, a time where
we understand everything about everything !!! This is where
I belong.


Stef

I would go back steal an colt m1911a1 and an m14 and a bunch of ammo for both. then I would go into the future buy a space ship and go exploreing:)

Knowing everything about everything would have it's moments at first. But I fear such a day. Just imagine. Nothing left to explore, nothing to learn. It's the ultimate boredom which, my friends is a fate worse than death,hell even

I hadn't even thought of the future...... where do we end up? Can we go to other galaxies, other planets? and I don't think we'd ever find out all the mysteries of life in this universe simply because it continually evolves, so if you started at one end, worked your way through, the beginning would be all different again.
Good one Stef.

Cheers,
Teri

All I will do is quote Stef: "understand everything about everything". If it's [b]possible[b] to understand everything about everything is another topic and I don't know the answer to it.

I'd like to meet these people BEFORE they were famous.....like back when they were in high school or beginning college.....back when they were in a garage band....back when they wore purple capes....

I'd approach them like I approach "normal" folks...the way I approach anybody now....smile and say hello and start a conversation about whatever is going on at the moment.

I guess I'd go back about forty five years or so and
kick myself in the ass for being such a dumb shit.

Take care.

I was so stupid back then that I didn't listen to anybody...and most likely would ignore my older self...plus kicking myself would only make me paranoid for the rest of my life....thinking....great, now I've screwed up and again and probably will come back any minute now to kick myself....and then I'd try to hide and this whole paranoia thing will just take a life of its own....etc. etc....:p

I would go 1400 years back into the past.

Maybe I could visit Merlin.


Why so far:
Because inquisition had not yet started and I would not be endangered to be burned alive at that time.

Never would I go to the 14th, 15th or 16th century.

i would probally go back and win the lottery then put it in the bank then come back to the present. or i would go back to the 20's with a modern P.C or some sort of technology and see what the effect would be.

ahem* paradoxies aside i think was mentioned......:D

>Captain_Crunch
Master Of Disguise
i would probally go back and win the lottery then put it in the bank then come back to the present. or i would go back to the 20's with a modern P.C or some sort of technology and see what the effect would be.


Be aware that it would be very difficult to buy exactly that lottery ticket which willl win in the future. Where would you search for it ?

Lotto would work better ...

On the other hand, any time travel, like lotto number inquiry in the future, which you would do only for your own profit, is prohibited and you would be tracked and caught by the timetravel control police ...

Has anyone thought how boring life would be if you new the future and outcome of events? It's probalby why god became bored and abandoned this world.

there is no god ;)

Now it is such a bizarrely impossible coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to
see it as a final and clinching proof of the nonexistence of God. The arguement goes something like this:

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," say Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't though of that" and promply vanishes in a puff of logic.
---(THGTG)

Captain Crunch:
"there is no god "

But WAS there?

God is there, keeps running the pulsatory "big bang" mechanism,
maybe at another level above all universes,

and maybe he never interferes, because he thinks it's more appropriate and interesting to let intelligent civilizations in the universes do their job alone,
with all good and all bad effects this can have ...