Study: If you had the opportunity to Time Travel...

I would like to conduct an opinion based study, imposing the question, If you had the opportunity to Time Travel where would you go and why?

I just think it would be interesting and a good conversation piece.

To start, I will answer my own question, I would like to go back in time far enough to see if Atlantis existed and I would like to go far enough into the future to see if disc shaped craft become common vehicles, but thats just two, LOL

I would want to trace my family history too, I can go on and on, but I want your opinions and ideas!!

please rock this thread

[edit on 16-9-2007 by skunkworker]

I wish I could go back in time and undo some of the stupid things I said to my ex wife.

But then my next stop would be during the time when men were shorter and lived by the water.

I am a believer that Atlantis existed and I have always wanted to get into a time machine and go back to the beginning of when Atlantis existed. Before they turned into a warring people. Just to walk through their land and see how they lived would be the greatest thing ever.

Other than that I would like to go back when dinosaurs lived and see if modern man really did walk the earth then.

Great thread!

Some food for thought:

Massachussets colony, ~1700-1750.

The first generation of native-born settlers had the highest life expectancy of any generation in North American (and possibly modern world) history. They had the advantages of a varied diet from two continents, relatively peaceful relations with native neighbors, and the emerging modern medicine from the enlightenment. Because of population dynamics, they had very little exposure to new diseases; and their active lifestyle ensured that even occupations that would have been sedentary in England were active in the colonies. For that first generation, the life expectancy of females who survived to the age of 5 was more than 84 years, and close to 79 for males.



Stonehenge, among the "bell beaker people" before 1600 B.C.

Studies suggest that the communities that built stonehenge had the most liesure time for any people yet studied. One archaeologist has calculated that one male only needed to work about 30 hours a week to feed a family of six. Game was plentiful, crops were being cultivated, and there was a "short-term" warming climate that turned the British Isles into a garden. So much so that the people had time to build megaliths, and create who knows what for their religion and culture. Compare that with your own work week, plus commute times, plus time at the grocery, plus time walking through parking lots, etc., and you can see that neolithic people had time to ask the "big questions" about our place in the universe. And yet their tech was so simple that there were propably no "experts" you had to rely on for your safety and security.


Northern Italy and "The Germanies" ~ 1150 AD.

This period saw the first wave of arabic texts and classical texts translated into Latin. I'd be able to satisfy my own interest in the history of philosophy. Also, I'd make a mint off of the books I brought back . . . .


The Library at Alexandria before about 60 BC

I'd be looking for copies of lost texts by Plato, and Homer's "other" works.

reply to post by dr_strangecraft
well dr strangecraft, I think I would certainly like to join you on these quests!! awesome post!

reply to post by Stari
cool, billy meier said he went back to the dinosaur age and saw plants that were evolved with heads on them, pretty cool

Hey SkunkWorker !!!!!!!

I would like to go on a mission in time to find the most beautiful woman that ever lived. This will take some time to sort out but I am up to it.

Originally posted by Cyber_Wasp
Hey SkunkWorker !!!!!!!

I would like to go on a mission in time to find the most beautiful woman that ever lived. This will take some time to sort out but I am up to it.

I am so with you on that, maybe heading to the future more so, the only thing is for going to the past, if we go back in time to certain periods, the women do not have lady speed stick deodorant, know what I mean, we may have to bath some of them from the past in case they take an interest in us, LOL

Seriously though........

I've always thought the Roman Orgy days might prove interesting; but with my luck my time travel experience would probably wind up with me as a slave or fed to the lions in the coliseum.

In the future; future time travelers will find our current time slot as extremely interesting.

After all we got Brittany, Tool and OJ.

1279 to 1213 bc Ancient Egypt under the rule of Ramses II and Nefertari.

Although he was considered a pompous ruler with delusions of Godhood and his followers detested him. I would love to see the empire of Egypt in this time, with the monuments in their previous glory and the temples he built that were I am sure visually stimulating.

I would have loved to have seen Nefertari, the one woman who became a Egyptian Goddess and gained the love of a man who had so many brides and children I am sure he forgot their names !

He was a man who lived to be 80+ in a time when 40 was the average lifespan of a male.

If you are religious he is also the supposed ruler during the Moses story when the slaves fled and the plagues came and the sea was parted.

A fascinating time in the history of man and I would have loved to see it in all its glory.

mmmm lets see

well first i would like to go back to when i was born

- change some things so i wouldn't have any health problems ( i would give myself the memory and maybe other people of the health problems they had so as to to lose that experience and forget what they have learned from it)
- probably relive certain events in my life or stop certain events...lol i wont go into detail

I would really like to go and see Atlantis too, i find that the beginnings of our race started from there and i would like to see it there. then maybe head on over to different time periods, and try to find my family tree roots. I would try to help people along the way, maybe cure some people of diseases or dangerous citations without them knowing so as to to change the time line much. I would go back to 1970 and get a barracuda for myself and bring it back to the future and pimp it out.

Also i wouldn't mind going back in time and making sweet love to some movie stars at their prime...lol

Why did skunkworker get banned, he only had 2 threads he was posting on?

I would go back to change mistakes ive made, go back to really see my family line.... to see what the truth is in this crazy world!!

There are few places i would like to go to: the library of Alexandria before it was torched, then i would go time surfing for lost civilizations like Atlantis..

I'd probably either want to go to biblical times, or the days of the pioneers.

I'd like to go to biblical times because I am interested to just see how people lived back then. I'd want to go to pioneering days because life was so much simpler then, harder, yes, but simpler nonetheless.

How about the North fork of the American River in California, in 1848, the Summer before Sutter's mill gets built, and the fellows start wondering about those yellow sparkles in the creek bed.


How about on the Orange River, a bit upstream from where the Vaal joins it, in southern Africa in 1868 on the Vooruitzigt Farm, owned by the De Beer brothers. . . .

Or the year before, in London, to get my Volume one of Das Kapital autographed by Herr Marx . . .

Or the Valle Centrale in 1561, where Mexico City now stands before Bishop Diego ordered the burning of all Mayan codices. I'd like to snatch a few of those from the flames . . . .

Or, if you don't like roughing it, how about Dallas Texas in 1871, just as the city was being incorporated in the wake of the Civil War. All the land North of Calhoun St., just 4 blocks north of main, is vacant farmland that could be bought for a few $20 gold coins. I'd buy some of that farmland up, and heir it to the Strangecrafts. Then start buying railroad stock . . . .

.

I don't know what I'd do if I could time travel.

Probably nothing.

For a time travel vacation, I would go back to the South before the Civil War and float a raft down the Mississippi river in late autumn. Do a little fishing, deer hunting, and learn survival skills from Native Americans living along the shore. Maybe bring some tools back from the future with me and build a really nice stitch and glue fishing kayak.

I would write a Nostradamus type book in the 1700s about America's future and put it on the market and create a company where the profits will go once the events I "predict" start coming true. I'll bounce in and out time wise to check on my business venture and go to book signings and such through out time.

Because the past is not really my "time", I think that somehow I wouldn't fit in now matter how I am dressed or speak. If I did find an Indian village where I am learning their survival skills, the shaman (if he's a good one) will somehow know I'm not who I say I am. Something about a time traveler makes them unique and this uniqueness will be sensed by those with highly developed intuitive skills. They will sense my out of timeness and might become afraid of me. Because of this, I would stay away from times like the Salem Witch Trials and other well known groups of superstitious people given to homicide to rid themselves of people who don't fit in. Never underestimate the power of large groups of ignorant people who are afraid of you.

I think my 9mm pistol might be a dead giveaway that I am not from their time either. Where I go, it goes always.

[edit on 17-9-2007 by Fullcamo]

Originally posted by Fullcamo

. . . the shaman (if he's a good one) will somehow know I'm not who I say I am. Something about a time traveler makes them unique and this uniqueness will be sensed by those with highly developed intuitive skills. . . .

Question: How would you recognize a time-intruder in your own world? Wouldn't you just figure his strangeness is because he's a loon or some kind of prevert?

How would you know, that someone in your life right now is a time-traveler??

If I got beamed back, say, 50 years into the past, there's a lot of stuff they wouldn't even recognize. Sure, a cell phone would look like a star trek type device (even if it didn't fully work), but my zip drive on my keychain would not even draw their notice. Same with the camera function on a cellphone. You could take a lot of covert pics without anyone realizing it.

If you went back into the American West, they might think your flannel shirt was awfully shiny, but they wouldn't know that polyester content was the reason; they'd jus tthink it was "high dollar, back east" clothing.

Do you think you could go back just a few years? say, to September 10, 2001 without anyone detecting you?

What about 1995?

1985?


The main things you'd need to prepare for are currency, driver's licenses, and pocket tchotchkes that look futuristic. Same with tattoos, which were pretty much unheard of before about 1990 in america, esp. non-military ones.

But, you could go to a coin/stamp dealer, and pick up some money. Then hit a thrift store and pick up some suitable clothing. The haircut might be to toughest to arrange, without attracting attention in YOUR time. Not a lot of requests for a pageboy for 30 year old males, these days.

I would recommend, if your transporter could handle it, something like a 67 mustang for any time period between about 1967 and, say, now. That car is such a collector's item it would merely raise eyebrows in any of the 40 years following it. For earlier periods, other cars would do it; a nash or model t.

And in pre-auto days, horses would be even easier to "blend in."

I think that if you tried to blend into the homeless or working classes, no one would give you a second thoguht. One of the constants throughout history is the desire of the middle classes to ignore their inferiors. This could be used to great advantage.

America would be a great place to travel back in, since it is such a melting pot that dialects are widely accepted, and you could claim to be an immigrant from Norway or South Africa or the child of missionaries from Singapore or something, and nobody would notice.

The trick would be not to say things like "far out" before John Denver coined the phrase, and to say "bitchin" or "boss" instead of cool. Also, until about 1995, "you guys" only referred to males, and a lot of females would be insulted by such usage.

Women travelers would be best off not wearing tight tops or jeans except during the hippie era. What most young women wear to the mall today would have drawn stares (not for sexuality, but simply for novelty) in the era of balloon pants.

I think you could visit another time for a few hours just about anywhere without much danger. The problem would be if people got to know you. Falling in love, getting a job, or trying to collect the right picture or momento could start the questions coming that would not cease.

It depends on your mission. If you're just going to hang out in the Haight-Ashbury district when the Jefferson Airplane is becoming popular, you wouldn't have a problem. Or if you went to hang out in an absinthe bar in Fin-de-Siecle Paris, you'd be fine. Trying to take a shot at Hitler during the Munich Putsch would be another thing entirely.

.

[edit on 18-9-2007 by dr_strangecraft]

Library of Alexandria is definitely high on the priority list. How ever I think I would like to go back through out all of history since even before the Earth and all over the planet. Don't care much to see the future I think, I'm content in just making the future.

life amongst the native americans would be satisfying to me..

i would like to be my current age (20) in the early 90's.. seems like a fun time to live and i just missed it

ancient rome would be nice, of course

i also wouldn't mind seeing the construction of the pyramids.. might prove to be a little more interesting then everyone thinks

Originally posted by The Phantom
i also wouldn't mind seeing the construction of the pyramids.. might prove to be a little more interesting then everyone thinks

Indeed and might be at a different point on the calender than most would think. That in itself would prove to be a little more interesting.