If you had a time machine...

[Hitman_HalStep]

The problem with wanting to go back and visit the dinosaurs, amazing/bloody frightening as it no doubt would be, is that you'd need a time machine that was built by some very clever dinosaurs or one that was left behind by some unknown alien race that visited the earth during the Jurassic.

wouldn't that be a time transporter not a time machine to need something at the other end?

personally i don't think i would go back at all,i'd most likely go forward and see what the human race can achieve/screw up in the far flung future.and to get my own twiki
(biddy biddy biddy)

[Mire Mare]

The problem with wanting to go back and visit the dinosaurs, amazing/bloody frightening as it no doubt would be, is that you'd need a time machine that was built by some very clever dinosaurs or one that was left behind by some unknown alien race that visited the earth during the Jurassic.

wouldn't that be a time transporter not a time machine to need something at the other end?

Nope, nothing is needed at the other end in the way you suggest. To time travel you have to move a distance in space to move a distance in time. You can't sit still and transport yourself through time. Merman raises a good point about HG Wells' concept of time machines. It a view where the time traveller sits down in a time machine, presses buttons, watches the dials spin, waits for everything to go wavy and fuzzy before it all settles down and the time traveller steps out of the machine into 10,000 BC. Sounds great but it's a sham! A shame, for sure, but that's just not possible even though time travel is*

*possibly could be. I'd go forwards too, propelled by some sort of antimatter propelled super vehicle, so I'm not arsed about Wells!

[Hitman_HalStep]

The problem with wanting to go back and visit the dinosaurs, amazing/bloody frightening as it no doubt would be, is that you'd need a time machine that was built by some very clever dinosaurs or one that was left behind by some unknown alien race that visited the earth during the Jurassic.

wouldn't that be a time transporter not a time machine to need something at the other end?

Nope, nothing is needed at the other end in the way you suggest. To time travel you have to move a distance in space to move a distance in time. You can't sit still and transport yourself through time. Merman raises a good point about HG Wells' concept of time machines. It a view where the time traveller sits down in a time machine, presses buttons, watches the dials spin, waits for everything to go wavy and fuzzy before it all settles down and the time traveller steps out of the machine into 10,000 BC. Sounds great but it's a sham! A shame, for sure, but that's just not possible even though time travel is*

*possibly could be. I'd go forwards too, propelled by some sort of antimatter propelled super vehicle, so I'm not arsed about Wells!

fair enough,so you would have to break the time barrier through velocity much like a jet plane with the sound barrier?(overly simplified for my own benefit)

[Mire Mare]

Nope, nothing is needed at the other end in the way you suggest. To time travel you have to move a distance in space to move a distance in time. You can't sit still and transport yourself through time. Merman raises a good point about HG Wells' concept of time machines. It a view where the time traveller sits down in a time machine, presses buttons, watches the dials spin, waits for everything to go wavy and fuzzy before it all settles down and the time traveller steps out of the machine into 10,000 BC. Sounds great but it's a sham! A shame, for sure, but that's just not possible even though time travel is*

*possibly could be. I'd go forwards too, propelled by some sort of antimatter propelled super vehicle, so I'm not arsed about Wells!

fair enough,so you would have to break the time barrier through velocity much like a jet plane with the sound barrier?(overly simplified for my own benefit)

Exactly! That's a nice way of putting it. The faster you go the slower time moves for you.

[TwoHeadedBoy]

But that wouldn't stop you from visiting the dinosaurs. If anything, on arrival you'd find a few dinosaurs with time machine-shaped holes in them, it's not like they'd be waiting to get out of the way or anything.

[Mire Mare]

But that wouldn't stop you from visiting the dinosaurs. If anything, on arrival you'd find a few dinosaurs with time machine-shaped holes in them, it's not like they'd be waiting to get out of the way or anything.

It's a strange concept, but time only slows down the faster you go, it doesn't reverse. So, that would stop you going back to see Mr & Mrs T-Rex and his neighbours.

[TwoHeadedBoy]

Ah, gotcha. So we're thinking on realistic terms instead - right! Suppose it'd be interesting to see my own funeral, but then I wouldn't be around to die due to being in the future and all that.

But on a fantastical level, I'd still be sticking with the dinosaurs.

[Mire Mare]

Ah, gotcha. So we're thinking on realistic terms instead - right! Suppose it'd be interesting to see my own funeral, but then I wouldn't be around to die due to being in the future and all that.

But on a fantastical level, I'd still be sticking with the dinosaurs.

I think the mysteries of reality are more fantastic than anything we can make up

[TwoHeadedBoy]

Oh definitely, yes - think my ratio of fact books to fiction books is something like 70:30, but a bit of escapism every now and then never harmed anyone

[Mire Mare]

Oh definitely, yes - think my ratio of fact books to fiction books is something like 70:30, but a bit of escapism every now and then never harmed anyone

Yep, our beloved pass time also involves a fair amount of escapism so I agree with that.

Right, escapIsmists, time to re-rail this thread!?

[Gibberish Driftwood]

[greenberet79]

I'd travel back in time a few years and buy shares in Google, Facebook, Apple and World of Warcraft.

Then with my gigantic profits I'd buy Sega and bring out the MegaDrive 3.

[joefish]

Time only slows down for you as you approach the speed of light, but your mass also increases so that the energy required to make you go any faster then goes up. The point is you can never actually reach the speed of light, let alone break it, as it requires an infinite amount of energy to give you that last little push.

But one theory is to find a stable wormhole that links two places in space/time. Theoretically it's possible, just not on the scale big enough for someone to step through. But anyway, if you could, you put one end on a spaceship and whizz it around the galaxy at high speed, then bring it home again. Now you have a tunnel through space where one end is older than the other. So you can step through between two different times. But you can't go back any earlier than when the two ends of the wormhole were first set up.

Although the 'seeing dinosaurs' one is easy - you just go 100 million light years into space and look back at the Earth. You just need a really big telescope. Like billions of miles across.

[Joey]

Then with my gigantic profits I'd buy Sega and bring out the MegaDrive 3.

Someone beat you to it

[PubZombie]

+1 dinosaurs, and I'd take a camera - hopefully they would all strange colours, pink with blue spots and lime green an chocolate like a bad 1970s kitchen.
Thinking of the 1970s - would like to just go back and walk down the town centre in the 70s before the world got full of cars and mobile phones and obsessed with money and branding. The world before it was run by salesmen and lawyers.
Going forward - not too bothered, we are all going there anyway and what if you get there and it's terrible? Boris Johnson comedy Englishman is king of the world or all alcohol is banned, or the human race no longer exists?????
Come to think of it the later is the lessor of the 3 apoclypses