So one of my favorite blogs is called Twenty Sided and it had an interesting post about time travel yesterday. If you want to answer his particular challenge please comment there but I thought I’d take a slightly different slant.
You’re going back 200 years to the year 1809. It’s inevitable that you’re going to change the time line so don’t worry about that. It’s a one way trip – no exceptions. You can bring anything you want back provided it doesn’t violate the following rules:
- The total cost cannot exceed $25,000 or your personal fortune (whichever is greater – assume that you’re receiving 25K seed money for the experiment at worst).
- The time machine will take anything within a volume of 8 meters (2 x 2 x 2 – I was going to try and figure out the spherical radius which would be more accurate but I didn’t feel like doing the math).
- Your landing place will be safe, but you don’t know what time of year you’ll arrive. (We’ll assume you’ll arrive somewhere in either the United States or Eurasia – i.e. somewhere near civilization.)
That’s it I think. Keep in mind that medicine and technology is not nearly as advanced even then as it is now – so keep in mind personal health concerns etc. You’re all writers – be creative. It it’s long, simply post it on your blog and link back to here so it will make a trackback in the comments. Also, take the poll and let me know if you like this sort of post.
Have fun.
May 15, 2009 at 6:35 pm
One crucial question, Eric.
Can we bring only one item, or an aggregate of “stuff” within the guidelines for cost and volume?
This is an interesting thought-problem, thanks!
May 17, 2009 at 7:50 pm
http://themeltingpotofthisandthat.blogspot.com/2009/05/time-travel.html
May 18, 2009 at 8:18 am
@Missy – Interesting read.
@Jim – Apologies, you got me after I left on Friday. You can bring more than one item – so the latter.
May 18, 2009 at 8:12 pm
This hypothetical evolved into a two-hour discussion between me and my two teenage sons. Wow, we actually talked!
I don’t have time to write to this one until later in the week, but thanks very much for the quality kid-time, Eric!
May 19, 2009 at 11:01 am
@Jim – I’m glad I could help.