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, 03:33:05 UTC 7 years ago
The natives aren't going to think I'm doing anything odd, huh? Sort of an SEP field?
I'd create a list of specific events in history which are of interest: the Battles of Marathon and Thermopylae. The expulsion of the Hebrews. The Dancing Plague, the disappearance of the Roanoke colony, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand... I could make an exceptionally long list here. Might have t trim it down.
Oh, yeah. I'd spend a LOT of time looking at Paleo-American migrations. Gonna start something like 50,000 BP.
I'd hop back to the earliest. Record that. Hop forward to the next, record that, etc. Video, of course. WHere possible do more in-depth analysis - interviews, examination of documents, and so forth. Gene sequencing is a maybe, but only if copies made using my own material can be used (I don't trust myself to do proper gene sequencing on the fly, but I can run a PCR just fine).
I'd also want to check geology. I'd grab or even commission a few interesting pieces - art, special bottles of wine, maybe a nice Ancient Egyptian boat, or some early metalworking. I'd secrete them in caves, tombs, or other places which I know to be undisturbed in the present time, where I could pull them out myself, knowing exactly where they are.
Then, for fun? Petroglyphic graffiti. They're gonna find circuit diagrams in the Eastern Desert, Bohr-model atoms in French caves, African rock arrangements that match the layout of some nearby solar system. If I can swing it, I'll build a megalithic monument which says "We apologize for the inconvenience" in EBDBIC.
And, yes, Kilroy was here, dammit.
April 23 2010, 06:08:51 UTC 7 years ago
April 23 2010, 06:58:24 UTC 7 years ago
1) As mentioned above, I accept that the practical limits of my own ability to run genetics research in the field is taking samples and throwing them in a PCR, which we haven't established to be workable anyway. Plus, genetics as we know it Just Won't Work on the really cool stuff.
2) Getting useful data is a truly gargantuan project. We're talking millions, if not billions, of data points. I'd die of old age before reaching this epoch.
3) THere's also this minor "lack of a breathable atmosphere" issue. The atmosphere as we know it is pretty new, and I'm not entirely confident we have environmental suits which can handle some possible prior scenarios.
So, human history.
And once humans get involved, there's an awful lot one can do to screw with their heads, y'know?