sillyThe rules:
1) You can bring anything you want to the past, but you can't leave anything behind. So you can't bring back the polio vaccine and start treating people. It wouldn't work.
2) You can't take anything forward with you, either, except for information. So you could, say, travel back with a copy of a book and a pen, and have the book signed with that pen. Or you could bring a camera and take pictures. But all things must be somehow made from materials you carried with you.
3) You can't get sick in the past, but you could be eaten by a T-Rex. No one native to the time periods you're visiting will notice anything odd about you.
For my personal use, I would pack a bunch of digital cameras, Flip video recorders, and a gene sequencer, and hop back to Messina in 1347. I would then document the Black Death in ten year jumps, with lots of photographs and recordings of people trying to breathe as they fully expressed the virus. And then, when I got back to the present, I would drive the CDC insane...but I would finally know for sure.
For the good of all mankind, I would hop back to the pre-tape losses BBC archives with a tape-to-DVD portable recording rig (and a technician), and get copies of all the missing Doctor Who serials. Upon returning to the present day, I would probably also get knighted.
So what's your personal use? And what's your use for the good of all mankind?
April 22 2010, 01:45:31 UTC 7 years ago
Personal use: hop back to Jack the Ripper and find out who he is, and then hop forward to find out who the Zodiac Killer was (I go pfft at your lousy Arthur Leigh Allen theory, general media), with a few other incidental stops on the way that I haven't quite decided yet.
That Doctor Who trip sounds mighty awesome, and would be totally supported by me. More Two episodes for everyone! (And don't you mean pre-80s? Who started in 1963, not before WWII.)
April 22 2010, 03:11:38 UTC 7 years ago