Time Travel Investigation
A study has been done to check the internet for signs of time travelers. Robert Nemiroff, physicist from Michigan Technical University, authored the study that checked a number of social media sites for posts mentioning events before they occurred. They found nothing but did say that is not conclusive. I guess it could just indicate that time travelers are discrete.
Comments
They don't have to be discrete. If they would have been discovered, they could have just come back to a period before that and removed what evidence they overlooked the first time.
Posted by Fritz on 01/09/14 at 10:28 AM
Discreet, not discrete.
Posted by 'round Midnight on 01/09/14 at 10:33 AM
Are y'all talkin' about dis Crete?
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 01/09/14 at 10:49 AM
@Fritz, You overlook the space-time continuum. If you go back in time and change something that made you want to, Then the event that made you want to go back and change it never happened. So, that being the case you would have no reason to go back in time in the first place to change it, See? Standard rookie time travel mistake. :lol: :coolsmile:
Posted by Tyrusguy on 01/09/14 at 12:06 PM
This gives me hope for mankind!
The best reason for them not finding anything is that "social media" is (will be) a short-lived craze which isn't (won't be) important enough to fully document. Time travelers won't be interested in it, or they'd be afraid to try because they're sure to make mistakes -- it's equivalent to not trying to use the secret handshake of an organization which existed from 1812 to 1846 whose only presence in history is contained in nine disparate newspaper articles.
The "you can't go back because you'd change your reason for going back" is passe' -- are you from the 1960s? 😊
Current thinking is that time doesn't happen all at once. If it's 2050 and you go back to 2000 and kill your grandfather, when you return to 2050, you'll still exist. You'll have to wait until 2100 and go back to 2050 to find that your trip from 2050 to 2000 had an effect -- you'll be missing from that then.
But since you didn't exist in 2050, you didn't go back to 2000. A trip from 2150 to 2050 will find you existing as if nothing happened.
So changing history doesn't change anything from your perspective in the present -- it just creates bubbles in the stream which self-heal.
The best reason for them not finding anything is that "social media" is (will be) a short-lived craze which isn't (won't be) important enough to fully document. Time travelers won't be interested in it, or they'd be afraid to try because they're sure to make mistakes -- it's equivalent to not trying to use the secret handshake of an organization which existed from 1812 to 1846 whose only presence in history is contained in nine disparate newspaper articles.
The "you can't go back because you'd change your reason for going back" is passe' -- are you from the 1960s? 😊
Current thinking is that time doesn't happen all at once. If it's 2050 and you go back to 2000 and kill your grandfather, when you return to 2050, you'll still exist. You'll have to wait until 2100 and go back to 2050 to find that your trip from 2050 to 2000 had an effect -- you'll be missing from that then.
But since you didn't exist in 2050, you didn't go back to 2000. A trip from 2150 to 2050 will find you existing as if nothing happened.
So changing history doesn't change anything from your perspective in the present -- it just creates bubbles in the stream which self-heal.
Posted by Phideaux on 01/09/14 at 01:20 PM
@Phideaux: Good try, you've almost got it but nooooooootttt quite.
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 01/09/14 at 01:33 PM
@Expat47 -- That was a brief, off the cuff explanation, leaving out significant factors and probably quite open to misinterpretation.
My first time travel story appeared in "Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine" in the 1980s. I'm currently stalled halfway through a novel (I tend to make my protags much like myself, which means it's increasingly hard to create problems they (I) didn't foresee.)
What do you think I got significantly wrong?
My first time travel story appeared in "Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine" in the 1980s. I'm currently stalled halfway through a novel (I tend to make my protags much like myself, which means it's increasingly hard to create problems they (I) didn't foresee.)
What do you think I got significantly wrong?
Posted by Phideaux on 01/09/14 at 02:19 PM
Looking for clues of stranded time travelers? I think H. Beam Piper had a character stranded in the mid 1930's leave clues for his rescuers searching for him from their vantage point in the future by placing adverts in magazines with line drawings of nuclear mushroom clouds as part of the background. Clever.
Posted by KDP on 01/09/14 at 02:51 PM
@Phideaux, Went looking for a time machine clip and found THIS! :lol: :coolsmile: Thought Y'All might like it!
Posted by Tyrusguy on 01/09/14 at 09:12 PM
What about this? You go back in time and find yourself in outer space because the Earth and the solar system will not be in the same place.
Posted by Phred22 on 01/09/14 at 09:30 PM
@Phideaux: The union bylaws of the Loyal Brotherhood of Time Travelers won't let me disclose how we do it, sorry. :zip:
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 01/10/14 at 12:01 AM
This is from Robert A. Heinlein's short story "--All You Zombies--"
"The By-Laws of Time,"
Never Do Yesterday What Should Be Done Tomorrow.
If At Last You Do succeed, Never Try Again.
A Stitch In Time Saves Nine Billion.
A Paradox May Be Paradoctored.
It Is Earlier When You Think.
Ancestors Are Just People.
Even Jove Nods
"The By-Laws of Time,"
Never Do Yesterday What Should Be Done Tomorrow.
If At Last You Do succeed, Never Try Again.
A Stitch In Time Saves Nine Billion.
A Paradox May Be Paradoctored.
It Is Earlier When You Think.
Ancestors Are Just People.
Even Jove Nods
Posted by BMN on 01/10/14 at 12:13 AM
@Exrat47 -- Wow! The LBoTT. I haven't heard of them in ages. I'm not up on my history, but didn't they disband after that nasty scandal in . . . whenever.
The biggest problem with the current crop of travelers is practical jokes.
1) Thou shalt not put jewelry on dead dinosaurs.
2) Thou shalt not stand on the dock and laugh at people boarding the Titanic.
3) Thou shalt not cause the North to win the Civil War to make Lincoln look like a good guy.
4) Thou shalt not tell Noah it's only going to be partly cloudy.
And there's always people with shady business plans.
5) Thou shalt not give helicopter rides so people will have a better view of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk.
6) Thou shalt not use a time machine to gather supplies for your Dino-Burger franchise.
The biggest problem with the current crop of travelers is practical jokes.
1) Thou shalt not put jewelry on dead dinosaurs.
2) Thou shalt not stand on the dock and laugh at people boarding the Titanic.
3) Thou shalt not cause the North to win the Civil War to make Lincoln look like a good guy.
4) Thou shalt not tell Noah it's only going to be partly cloudy.
And there's always people with shady business plans.
5) Thou shalt not give helicopter rides so people will have a better view of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk.
6) Thou shalt not use a time machine to gather supplies for your Dino-Burger franchise.
Posted by Phideaux on 01/10/14 at 02:03 AM
@KDP - -I remember that story! Or at least, the part about mushroom clouds in advertisements. Wasn't there something about the first letters in a column of words spelling out: "Atomic"?
I really love Piper's "Little Fuzzy" novels and stories.
@Tyrusguy -- Thanks for posting that!
@Phred22 -- Location remains constant within the gravity wells. The reason time travel lacked government funding is because it couldn't take people into space.
@Expat47 -- just noticed I misspelled your name in my previous post. Sorry! Truly not intentional.
I really love Piper's "Little Fuzzy" novels and stories.
@Tyrusguy -- Thanks for posting that!
@Phred22 -- Location remains constant within the gravity wells. The reason time travel lacked government funding is because it couldn't take people into space.
@Expat47 -- just noticed I misspelled your name in my previous post. Sorry! Truly not intentional.
Posted by Phideaux on 01/10/14 at 02:12 AM
@Phideax: We went back and fixed that little, ah.... problem. The ripple effect led to some weird stories popping up in current day magazines.
About the misspelling... water off arat's duck's back.
About the misspelling... water off a
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 01/10/14 at 02:28 AM
@Phideaux: What Time do you come from? I mean helicopters are so passe.
Posted by BMN on 01/10/14 at 11:07 AM
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Category: Time-travel