Fun things to do with a time machine.

[Jayson1]

Well at least if you do jump ahead and find a wasteland of wreckage you know the human race done fucked up. At least you can come back with that knowledge of well it was for naught. Unless you then backtrack to find the events that made that happen and try to change that in the present.

The problem is that even though you might have the knowledge you could also come back after being exposed to nuclear fallout or radiation. Of course their are other issues with time travel that even includes trips to the past. Arriving in front of a moving car or landing someone in the middle of tornado. This is why in "Back to Future" they went to the mall. Doc Brown went somewhere where he felt it would be safe when going to the past because it was where nothing but open farmland was around back in the 1950's.

Jason

 

[Forbin]

Okay, for those with an interest in plate tectonics - a time machine on a satellite that maps the entire Earth, pops back a million years, maps it again, pops back, etc. Get a nice time lapse movie of Pangea breaking up and sliding around.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Get hi-def video of the big natural events like Thera's eruption, the flooding of the Mediterranean, the breach of the ice dam in the American NW, etc.

Get hi-def video of dinosaurs and mega-mammals.

Get hi-def video of notable historical events.

Get video/audio interviews with historical figures who we have no such things of, like Cleopatra, Caesar, Richard I, daVinci...

People would call the videos fake... You'd have to bring back irrefutable evidence to back them up.

I want to see a comedy about a time traveler who travels to 2015, all hyped up about the future, and has a breakdown when he realizes there are no flying cars

That would actually be a fun show to watch.

 

[Gavin70]

I want to see a comedy about a time traveler who travels to 2015, all hyped up about the future, and has a breakdown when he realizes there are no flying cars

No need for a time traveller. I think we all shed a few tears when we got to 2015 and realised we weren't getting hover cars or hoverboards. Or was that just me?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

No need for a time traveller. I think we all shed a few tears when we got to 2015 and realised we weren't getting hover cars or hoverboards. Or was that just me?

No it wasn't just you. I wanted a hoverboard.

 

[FormerLurker]

Would it? Lincoln's remains were exhumed a decade ago or so, and examined. One of the first things they discovered was that he had Marfan Syndrome, and several aortic aneurysms. The extrapolation they did of the appearance of his organs in life brought them to the conclusion that one or more of those aneurysms would have burst in the next six months, killing him. Booth's bullet hastened LIncoln's death by less than a year.

In re this post of mine:

The news sources I had at the time literally lied to me. They said all of the above was true, but I researched it following the rude response I got, and it seems a formal request was made, but never granted. There was enough material left over from attempts to save Lincoln and his subsequent autopsy that they assumed they could get DNA samples from the bloody clothing and bone fragments, but they were too degraded to reveal anything. Later medical opinions prompt a debate whether he had actual Marfan or another syndrome with similar characteristics that often leads to cancer development.

 

[Owain Taggart]

No need for a time traveller. I think we all shed a few tears when we got to 2015 and realised we weren't getting hover cars or hoverboards. Or was that just me?

That's the thing though. It'd be a satire and that's why it would be funny as It pokes fun at the entire idea, because we all know it's not going to happen anytime soon. But to someone in the past who invents a time machine, gets all excited, travels to the future and has a meldown due to them not existing is part of the joke. "Whaddya mean there are no flying cars? Time-travelling is bullshit!"

Sort of like how Free Enterprise lampooned Trek fans and conventions.

 

[Jayson1]

That's the thing though. It'd be a satire and that's why it would be funny as It pokes fun at the entire idea, because we all know it's not going to happen anytime soon. But to someone in the past who invents a time machine, gets all excited, travels to the future and has a meldown due to them not existing is part of the joke. "Whaddya mean there are no flying cars? Time-travelling is bullshit!"

Sort of like how Free Enterprise lampooned Trek fans and conventions.

Do you mean "Trekkies?" "Free Enterprise" was actually a love letter to Trek fans by making us look as cool as the guys from "Swingers."

Jason

 

[Owain Taggart]

No, I meant Free Enterprise. It was a satire.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

The problem is that even though you might have the knowledge you could also come back after being exposed to nuclear fallout or radiation. Of course their are other issues with time travel that even includes trips to the past. Arriving in front of a moving car or landing someone in the middle of tornado. This is why in "Back to Future" they went to the mall. Doc Brown went somewhere where he felt it would be safe when going to the past because it was where nothing but open farmland was around back in the 1950's.

Jason

Actually, Doc had no intention of going to 1955 originally. Before the Libyans showed up, he intended to go to 2010, twenty five years in the future. Doc had no way of knowing what might be built in the mall parking lot in the future. He could have crashed the DeLorean into a Tire Discounters or PF Chang's that was yet to be built

 

[Mysterion]

April 1865 - go to Ford's Theater and kick John Wilkes Booth in the nads before he has the chance to shoot Lincoln and see how the rest of the 19th century turns out.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

April 1865 - go to Ford's Theater and kick John Wilkes Booth in the nads before he has the chance to shoot Lincoln and see how the rest of the 19th century turns out.

And if you don't like the results, spend even more time trying to put things back aright by making future Lincoln do the deed (see: Red Dwarf - Tikka To Ride)

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Being the baseball fanatic that I am, I would go back and visit classic ballparks that I never got the chance to see - Detroit's Tiger Stadium, Comiskey Park in Chicago, the old Yankee Stadium (before it was heavily renovated in the early 70's - I only got to see it well after that), Ebbets Field, etc.

I want to see a comedy about a time traveler who travels to 2015, all hyped up about the future, and has a breakdown when he realizes there are no flying cars

I'd be more likely to have a breakdown if there WERE flying cars. Imagine one of those things crashing into your house...

 

[FormerLurker]

I'd be more likely to have a breakdown if there WERE flying cars. Imagine one of those things crashing into your house...

T.S. GARP: But that's the beauty of it, hon. It already happened. Now it'll never happen again!

 

[arch101]

Get photos of all the people who have been idealized in paintings and other media over the last 3,000 years and then show the world how, er, unattractive many of them really were.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

One thing I would NOT do would be to go back and change historical events. You never know - you might end up with a world that's worse than the one you left.

For example, let's say you go back and prevent 9/11. That sounds like a laudable goal, but what if bin Laden gets wind of what happened? He might try a nuke next. See where this is leading?

And if you go back and, for example, kill Hitler as a teenager, what happens then? Does the Soviet Union take over the world? Or does Hitler just get replaced by somebody else, and once you get back, your superiors say "Why didn't you kill von Lederhosen like we asked you to?"

You really can't afford to take that risk.

 

[Kor]

I heard bananas don't taste like bananas used to because they are a different variety than what existed back when artificial banana flavors were invented (saw it on youtube, it must be true). That means I know what modern bananas taste like and what a chemist said was "close enough" to what a prior banana was supposed to taste like. I'd go find one of these bananas and eat one.

I would guess that most of the fruits and vegetables we consume today are different from what used to be available, due to long histories of selective cultivation.

Same with root beer. It doesn't have the stuff in it that used to make it root beer. Something about cancer and lab rats. How do we even know it tastes like root beer now? Drinking a real root beer.
...

I believe that would be sassafras, which was traditionally used in root beer and also consumed as a tea. It was banned in the US due to possible health risks. In recent years, it has been reintroduced in a form which has the toxic elements removed. But it doesn't seem to have caught on in mainstream root beer production. Maybe some of the craft small-batch varieties use it.

Kor

 

[Jayson1]

Being the baseball fanatic that I am, I would go back and visit classic ballparks that I never got the chance to see - Detroit's Tiger Stadium, Comiskey Park in Chicago, the old Yankee Stadium (before it was heavily renovated in the early 70's - I only got to see it well after that), Ebbets Field, etc.



I'd be more likely to have a breakdown if there WERE flying cars. Imagine one of those things crashing into your house...

I would also like to go see old ballparks and old games as well. It would be fun to actually see Babe Ruth and Wille Mays and so forh play. I would also like to take modern teams or snatch teams from other times and see how they do. Would the 1996 Bulls be able to beat some of the modern Warriors Teams. I want to take the 2000 Lakers and have them go against some of the 80's Lakers. Watch Kobe and Magic go at it. Kareem vs Shaq in the post.

Jason

 

[Jayson1]

One thing I would NOT do would be to go back and change historical events. You never know - you might end up with a world that's worse than the one you left.

For example, let's say you go back and prevent 9/11. That sounds like a laudable goal, but what if bin Laden gets wind of what happened? He might try a nuke next. See where this is leading?

And if you go back and, for example, kill Hitler as a teenager, what happens then? Does the Soviet Union take over the world? Or does Hitler just get replaced by somebody else, and once you get back, your superiors say "Why didn't you kill von Lederhosen like we asked you to?"

You really can't afford to take that risk.

Unless your creating a divergent timeline and you still have access back to our timeline were the changes wouldn't have been experienced. At that point though you would in essence have the power of God creating worlds of your choosing by altering things from what they would have been.


Jason

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Okay, for those with an interest in plate tectonics - a time machine on a satellite that maps the entire Earth, pops back a million years, maps it again, pops back, etc. Get a nice time lapse movie of Pangea breaking up and sliding around.

Not to mention the 6 major and 14 minor supercontinents before Pangea and 1 minor after. I would definitely love to see that time lapse, though even sped up it might take decades to watch