Alpha Persei
Active Member
i know , people can be pretty brutal
-
We are looking for you! Always wanted to join our Supporting Team? We are looking for enthusiastic moderators!
Take a look at our recruitement page for more information and how you can apply:
Time Travel
- Thread starter MarktheMagnificent
- Start date
i know , people can be pretty brutal
Lady Gato
Well-Known Member
The Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Hittites, Huns, etc etc were all brutal when you view them from today's standard. If I went back in time, I'd like to view it from one of those "safe observation rooms" that Star Trek had to observe other cultures. Knowing my luck, otherwise I'd be one of the people that was thrown to the tigers in the Roman Coliseum.
DevaCat
Well-Known Member
Agreed about safe observation.
You'd have to be careful about geographic location and time (when) of your arrival in the past. Visit Athens to marvel at its glory? Best not arrive the day the Persians torched the city! I wouldn't want to materialize atop an Aztec temple as a heart-extraction ritual was in progress, lest I be invited to participate.Aside from problems of language translation, personal safety (desert bandits attacking your trade caravan during Rome's heyday) and hygiene (body and head lice oh boy), I would want to take along a fully functional medical kit with plenty of antibiotics and take all the vaccines I could think of before heading out! Heck, I'd try to talk a doctor into coming along.
But I've always enjoyed time travel SF for sure. Myself? I'd like to go back and spend a few days drinking beers with Vincent and watching him paint.
Lady Gato
Well-Known Member
LOL maybe a one on one chat with Leonardo da Vinci -- take a few videos back to show him, that'd would screw with the timeline.
Nicholas002
Well-Known Member
That’s the way we know for sure that it is impossible to travel back in time. It would mess up the chain of causality
say, for example, you could go back in time, and you accidentally killed your grandfather before he... you know... you would be denying your own existence.
traveling forward in time is a different story though. In fact it has been done.
Lady Gato
Well-Known Member
Nope - not going to touch that issue -- probably involves coins and scouting and dancing girls. I'm going to go watch "Jurassic Park II" - real live dinosaurs, Yeah!
Farfle the smelly
Well-Known Member
Wow. This thread.
plinker2
Well-Known Member
Those years were After they ate the fruit. There is no record of how long they lived BEFORE they ate the fruit.
Nicholas002
Well-Known Member
Could have been a while. I would guess that pre-fruit eden would have had some pretty optimal living conditions.
Alpha Persei
Active Member
that would be funny , just imagine their disgusted or pity reaction
DevaCat
Well-Known Member
Well, one line of speculation has it that messing up the chain of causality could result in things like a universe in which you no longer exist and a universe in which you do -- simultaneously.
Another line of speculation has it that microwave radiation can help traveling into the future, but I'm not sure about that lol!
RazorbackPirate
Well-Known Member
And if you had a time machine, you could.
MarktheMagnificent
Active Member
I have often wondered how a polymath like da Vinci, arguably the greatest 'oumo universale', could understand 21st century technology. There is no doubt that he had the intelligence, but could a 15th/16th century mind, no matter how good, bridge half a millennium of human advancement?
Nicholas002
Well-Known Member
It might take him a while to learn, but I think he would be able to figure it out soon enough
Nicholas002
Well-Known Member
though someone from the 15 century would likely look at our technology as magic. even 50 years ago, it would have been unimaginable that 90% of the world would be walking around all day with a computer in their pocket, or on their wrist. (though I was not around then, so only speculating...)
Another thing: if FoE lasts for any length of time, it will be wierd that the "contemporary era" is from the distant past, and the "future" is also in the past.
plinker2
Well-Known Member
Then the Government would seize it and the the patent on it for their own use.
DevaCat
Well-Known Member
Lol, I was drinking beer 50 years ago, and yes there was plenty of mention about wrist and pocket computers in speculative fiction of the time. The wrist computer they are still trying to get right was predicted in Dick Tracey comics in what, the 1930s? But it's true nobody at that time was seriously anticipating the explosion of smartphone usage that's taken place today.
I think it would be difficult for anyone, not just da Vinci, to be a true polymath in the 21st century simply because the depth of knowledge built up over time in each of the disciplines makes true mastery exceedingly difficult to attain. I don't believe Leonardo would look at our technology as magic -- to the contrary, he'd try to take your phone apart to see how it worked. And he quite likely could teach us a lot about human anatomy, among other things.
As to the question of could he bridge half a millennium of human advancement -- lets whisk him to the present day, but at an age at which he can receive typical modern schooling. I'm willing to bet that upon graduation he would do quite well indeed. Could he reach Hawking level success in a given field? Unknown, but certainly possible. Technology has advanced considerably since his time, but the human brain is essentially the same.
Lady Gato
Well-Known Member
I sincerely beg to differ with you @DevaCat - our typical modern schooling would be beneath his abilities so he'd probably become an autodidact like I imagine he was during his own time frame. But with the libraries that he would now have available to him (20th & 21st centuries) as well as the internet (later in life), I imagine he would at least reach Hawking or Einstein level of intelligence and success. I benefited from our modern schooling but it was supplemented by living in a rural area where the school I attended had 100 students from K to 8th grade. The teachers had time for us and taught us many things that weren't even taught at the high school level. But when my children went to school, the curriculum was dumbed down so it met the "test" requirements. Where the US once was tops in the educational process, I fear we have fallen way behind other countries. Otherwise, I agree with you.