Time Travelling

[galanx]

could you imagine taking an Abrahms or Leopard II tank back to WWII or WWI... or even earlier, English Civil War... Thermopolae...

Absolutely deadly- until it ran out of fuel. And ammo. and the guidance/engine /electronics broke down.

 

[Dave]

The first Sontaran Doctor Who story The Time Warrior also deals with modern technology taken to the past. (Also notable for the first appearance of Sarah Jane Smith, first mention of Galifrey and a young June Brown.)

I agree with galanx, I think fuel/power and ammunition are the biggest problems a would-be time traveller would encounter in using his gadgets and weapons. You could make low voltage batteries for light and motors (a potato can power enough LED lamps to light a room for a month but other vegetables would work) but the kind of electricity required by modern machines would be nigh impossible. (Back to the Future had the Plutonium powered car stuck in the 1950's.) Simple wear and tear of parts would be another problem, unless he has a 3D printer from the late 21st Century.

 

[michaelhall2007]

Unless it was a hushed-up, government-white-coats, Roswell-style conspiracy, then for a start, it would fundamentally change our way of thinking about our world. You wouldn't be the last, but only the beginning of time tourism. You would be lauded as an international celebrity, and appear on every reality TV show. It would be impossible to prevent pollution of technology and ideas from the future to the past, or of stealling rare items of value to take to the future. This would be year zero and we would begin counting the years TT - post time travel. I don't think it would be great for our society. It would like a seven year old getting the key to the sweet shop. So, for your story you need to employ that old standard of tiime travel stories and hobble your machine in some way - it is damaged and only works one way before blowing a flux capacitor, running out of power or frying it's circuits.

Thanks for your input. I've got to start thinking outside of the box. The trick would be, to go public before the men in white coats get you first.

 

[Mirannan]

Going back maybe 40 years, with the gadgetry most of us carry around these days (and even supposing you happen to have the charger on you) saying anything about the stuff would get you locked up in a mental institution. Take my smartphone (low-end):

"You say that tiny thing has a gigabyte of memory and 8 gigabytes of storage? Ridiculous!" (A high-end mainframe of the late 1970s, the IBM 370/165, had 120MB of disk storage and 128K of RAM.)

 

[michaelhall2007]

Going back maybe 40 years, with the gadgetry most of us carry around these days (and even supposing you happen to have the charger on you) saying anything about the stuff would get you locked up in a mental institution. Take my smartphone (low-end):

"You say that tiny thing has a gigabyte of memory and 8 gigabytes of storage? Ridiculous!" (A high-end mainframe of the late 1970s, the IBM 370/165, had 120MB of disk storage and 128K of RAM.)

You've given me a few things to think about. Thankfully, before I will ever put pen to paper, I'm researching and researching, to which I have a degree in

 

[michaelhall2007]

I've even sent a communication to Oxford Uni's Theoretical Physics dept asking questions because I think that's where they'd send me. Not Hawkings but some one far enough down the food chain to ask around.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

and even supposing you happen to have the charger on you

Oh I could have knocked up a replacement charger 40 years ago. (I think maybe at earliest 1967, I was pretty inept and clueless in 1965 when I started learning Electronics.)
Not the Phone base station. But my phone has also a built in FM Radio that would have worked in 1945 in USA or 1949 Germany or 1955 Uk (1962 in Ireland!). The USA 1930s to 1945 FM Radio used a lower VHF band, not on ordinary FM sets, though some 1960s to 1990s models with TV sound reception can do the old USA FM Radio band (Later Band I TV, 405 in UK, 525 in USA, 819 France / Belgium and 625 rest of Europe, the UK and France used AM though for TV sound)

The earliest that someone EXPERT could make a time travelling visitor a charger, would maybe 1801, Volta demonstrated batteries in late 1799. By 1801 or maybe 1803 Electropotentials of various metals known, I think, so a close enough supply to 5V could be made without test gear, just by first principles. The Maths for FM Radio in late 1920s I think. Armstrong demonstrated FM Radio in 1930s , but contrary to US patents, he never invented it. AM radio was known nearly 20 years before public broadcasts started in 1921.

Entropy suggests only forward time travel is possible. I take a jump forward once a day ...

 

[michaelhall2007]

Oh I could have knocked up a replacement charger 40 years ago. (I think maybe at earliest 1967, I was pretty inept and clueless in 1965 when I started learning Electronics.)
Not the Phone base station. But my phone has also a built in FM Radio that would have worked in 1945 in USA or 1949 Germany or 1955 Uk (1962 in Ireland!). The USA 1930s to 1945 FM Radio used a lower VHF band, not on ordinary FM sets, though some 1960s to 1990s models with TV sound reception can do the old USA FM Radio band (Later Band I TV, 405 in UK, 525 in USA, 819 France / Belgium and 625 rest of Europe, the UK and France used AM though for TV sound)

The earliest that someone EXPERT could make a time travelling visitor a charger, would maybe 1801, Volta demonstrated batteries in late 1799. By 1801 or maybe 1803 Electropotentials of various metals known, I think, so a close enough supply to 5V could be made without test gear, just by first principles. The Maths for FM Radio in late 1920s I think. Armstrong demonstrated FM Radio in 1930s , but contrary to US patents, he never invented it. AM radio was known nearly 20 years before public broadcasts started in 1921.

Entropy suggests only forward time travel is possible. I take a jump forward once a day ...

Good to know. Thanks

 

[Dave]

Yes, the time traveller not being believed and trying to contact scientists (Galactica 1980) and being locked up in the insane asylum (Twelve Monkeys) are other recurring themes in time travel stories.

 

[michaelhall2007]

Instead, indeed. But I shouldn't really be researching my book on this forum so I've opened one in the writers discussion forum called TIME TRAVEL (THE PITFALLS)

 

[Old_Man_Steve2016]

One pitfall people forget about (except maybe on New Doctor Who) is skin color. If I'm not fulfilling some sort of temporal prophecy, then practically anywhere I go before 1492, with specific exceptions, is bound to wreck the timeline. Similarly, a white guy tooting around pre-Columbus Americas is going to raise a stir, if not a plain ole' ruckus. Something to keep in mind when deciding when to go, how to operate when there (stealth or 'go loud'), and how to expect dealings with the locals to go down.

 

[Mirannan]

One pitfall people forget about (except maybe on New Doctor Who) is skin color. If I'm not fulfilling some sort of temporal prophecy, then practically anywhere I go before 1492, with specific exceptions, is bound to wreck the timeline. Similarly, a white guy tooting around pre-Columbus Americas is going to raise a stir, if not a plain ole' ruckus. Something to keep in mind when deciding when to go, how to operate when there (stealth or 'go loud'), and how to expect dealings with the locals to go down.

Wrong on both counts, I think. (From the way you put this, I assume you're black; it doesn't matter to me one way or the other.)

Although fairly rare, people with very dark skin (from present day Somalia and Ethiopia, at the very least, and southern India) were known even in Roman times or before. And white Caucasians - in fact Nordic people - visited at least some parts of North America hundreds of years before Columbus.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

were known even in Roman times or before

In Old Testament, really old Welsh Legend and really old Irish Legend. Queen Of Sheba from Somalia/Ethiopia region on coast and Kingdom of Kush may have partly encompassed Yemen.

I think actually darker skinned people were well known in Roman times, in Rome anyway. Cleopatra was really more Greek than Egyptian, but for political reasons "at home" played up the African stuff. Alexander the Great conquered North Africa, on his death one of the four Generals ruled it. Cleopatra was a descendant.

Vikings in Greenland 100% visited Canada. It's not so sure if Welsh and Irish really did, but certainly some stories suggest it. Note that Donegal or Scottish Western Isles are closer to Canada than Greece. The Phoenicians before 300 BC (roughly present day Lebanon), Greeks and Romans all traded with Western Atlantic Bronze Age Celts (Tin from Cornwall and Copper from Cork, Ireland) to make Bronze and Brass.
Phoenician items in Bronze age graves in Ireland.
Flat maps are deceptive. Check out "great circle routes".

Going via Scotland/N.I., Iceland, Greenland and to Newfoundland is pretty easy compared to Spain to Caribbean or Egypt to Ireland. Ancient Arabs sailed as far as India and may have visited China and even New Zealand.

Similarly, a white guy tooting around pre-Columbus Americas is going to raise a stir, if not a plain ole' ruckus.

No. It wouldn't. Also Indigenous North Americans are not hugely different to some Asians north of China.

Outdoor "white" people can be as "dark" as many Asians and Indigenous Americans.

Even Africa historically 2000 years ago had near white blue eyed (Berbers) to what in Irish is literally "The Blue Men" (Very dark Ethiopians). Even today, there is MORE genetic variation in Indigenous Africa than rest of world, variation from short to tall, skin tone, hair types and more. Even non-genetic stuff such as languages and culture.

Africa not only had amazing Civilisations in the North (not just Egypt) but Zimbabwe and Benin

 

[Dave]

Africa not only had amazing Civilisations in the North (not just Egypt) but Zimbabwe and Benin

Excised from "western" history books because there was no "paper" record of them existing and because it was convenient during the European struggle to colonise Africa to believe that Africa had no history until it was civilised by Europeans. There is plenty of archeological evidence available, and probably a great deal more yet to find. There is much written in modern historiography about this subject since even after African states gained independence, their own native historians tended to be Western educated men, who were taught the same views that had been propagated by the colonial powers fifty years earlier. So, it is only now that anyone is peeling that away to look further back.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Excised from "western" history books

Can they be "excised" when no-one bothered adding them in the first place?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Vikings further into Canada than thought ...

New evidence of Viking life in America? - BBC News

 

[J Riff]

I still ike the idea of time-dilating off and away at light speed, then returning. Just keep doing it and pretty soon it's the yeAR 4000 and you are still young, and can finally get an affordable flying car.

 

[galanx]

I remember a short story set along those lines, where the spacers had become almost a separate ethnic group; because while no time had passed for them whole civilisations had risen and collapsed on Earth, so they were the only people that shared common memories and cultural habits.

 

[Old_Man_Steve2016]

No. It wouldn't.

Yes it would because there are times when it clearly DID (cause a stir, not wreck the timeline).
1) The Spanish Conquest of the Aztecs. Now there is a 'caveat' with this theory in that the Aztec are said to have received 'omens' of a people, "fighting men riding "on the backs of animals resembling deer", in a mirror on the crown of a bird caught by fishermen." nine years prior to the arrival of Cortes.
Wait a minute...fighting men on the backs of animals....strange crowns...

John Wayne was a time traveler????? Someone dig up his grave and make sure his body is still in it!!!
2) There were African mercenaries operating in Korea during the Imjin war. While China had trade deals with African kingdoms, there was not a lot of cross population between them (The Canton region had African slaves called kunlun but the source I read said they were not found outside of Canton). So, the presence of the African slaves and mercenaries caused a big stir in 16th century China and Korea, even enough for their presence to be noted in historical texts (and artwork).

3) The story of Hamel the Dutch sailor marooned in Joseon-era Korea should be a cautionary tale to any time-traveler. His (and his crew's) presence caused a big stir, and attempts to escape led to all kinds of problems between themselves, the Korean authorities, and the Manchus when they got caught up in the dispute. There would be no way a non-Asian time traveler would be able to operate in the bulk of East Asia without 'blowing their cover'.

Vikings in Greenland 100% visited Canada. It's not so sure if Welsh and Irish really did, but certainly some stories suggest it.

That's great for a time-traveler who resembles (Or can pass for) a Viking/Irish/Welsh settler traveling to a time period when they are said to operate in that part of Canada. Any place elsewhere, any earlier (or later) time, and the time-traveler at minimum gets caught. Worst-case scenario the timeline gets wrecked when the studied group gets ahold of the (likely dead at this point) time traveler's equipment and weapons.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

The Spanish Conquest of the Aztecs.

Completely different scenario to a lone traveller.
Also indigenous people assisted the Spanish. The Aztecs had fought a civil war, fought other wars and their Nation was under pressure.
The intention of the Spanish was to cause trouble and carry off gold. Though in the end it was silver that they seriously got. They did carry off a lot of gold.
Story of cities #6: how silver turned Potosí into 'the first city of capitalism'
from The story of cities | Cities | The Guardian

The North American Indians Indigenous peoples adopted horses from the Europeans. Trouble came later.

There would be no way a non-Asian time traveler would be able to operate in the bulk of East Asia without 'blowing their cover'.

Sure they would, they'd be prepared.

Marco Polo and many others did OK.
(It's a myth he brought back pasta from China, though he might have brought the idea of noodles, Italians already had pasta sheets.)