Time Machine...if u had one???

[etilit]

sometimes i use sleep to just move on to another day its like my own time machine

but..if you had one would you go back or forwards??

i think id look at past but play in the future lol

 

[garth33]

I would want to go back in time to an old place but I'd be afraid of not knowing what to do when I land there....picture yourself today and suddenly removed 500 years in the past to a medieval protectorate How would you act? What would you do? I don't know...i prefer time travel as a drunk blackout thing I guess....

 

[XMan101]

The one thing you don't see in the movies is the language barrier.

500 years ago in Dr. Who they speak plain English - Captain Kirk beamed down to every English speaking planet in the known universe )

If you went back even 200 years you might have a bit of trouble communicating, go back further it would be even more difficult.

As for the future, who knows how much might change!

 

[hawtsean]

I would want to go back in time to an old place but I'd be afraid of not knowing what to do when I land there....picture yourself today and suddenly removed 500 years in the past to a medieval protectorate How would you act? What would you do? I don't know...i prefer time travel as a drunk blackout thing I guess....

The late Michael Crichton wrote a fanstastic book about the subject, called Time Line. I suggest reading it, to anyone whose fantasies include time travel. Talk about science fiction blurring into potential reality!

 

[RuG]

i'd like to go back in time and fixed some things that now i'm regretting. for example, i was so lazy in studying for an exam back in 2006 so i failed. if i have a time machine i will go back and kick myself in the nut for being a lazy bum

 

[jeansGuyOZ]

Funny, I just read H G Wells' The Time Machine, having first read it many years ago.

It had less of an impact this time, probably because I've read so much science fiction since then.

The best SF novel on the theme of time travel that I have read is The End of Eternity, by Isaac Asimov. After I read this one, every other time travel story I read seemed sort of amateurish.

I think it was Robert Heinlein who wrote a rather thought-provoking story called By His Bootstraps or something similar. The main character travels into the past a couple of times, and has a sex-change somewhere along the way; the upshot is that he ends up being both his own father and his own mother.

 

[XMan101]

Funny, I just read H G Wells' The Time Machine, having first read it many years ago.

It had less of an impact this time, probably because I've read so much science fiction since then.

The best SF novel on the theme of time travel that I have read is The End of Eternity, by Isaac Asimov. After I read this one, every other time travel story I read seemed sort of amateurish.

I think it was Robert Heinlein who wrote a rather thought-provoking story called By His Bootstraps or something similar. The main character travels into the past a couple of times, and has a sex-change somewhere along the way; the upshot is that he ends up being both his own father and his own mother.

I loved reading Robert E Heinlein, but my memory has gone, I read so many I can't remember which now.

There was a story very similar to what you described called "The Man Who Folded Himself" and can't remember who wrote it.

 

[garth33]

The late Michael Crichton wrote a fanstastic book about the subject, called Time Line. I suggest reading it, to anyone whose fantasies include time travel. Talk about science fiction blurring into potential reality!

read it and enjoyed it. Big Crichton fan! He was one of my fav fiction writers

g

 

[8oclockcoffee]

The one thing you don't see in the movies is the language barrier.

500 years ago in Dr. Who they speak plain English - Captain Kirk beamed down to every English speaking planet in the known universe )

If you went back even 200 years you might have a bit of trouble communicating, go back further it would be even more difficult.

As for the future, who knows how much might change!

The language barrier is overlooked (sometimes quite deliberately, sometimes probably from the ignorance of the author on the subject), but perhaps more important would be microbes.

Those of us from 'modern' or 'First World' countries would probably not last long in a past environment due to our immune systems being unaccustomed to the levels of germ activity in everyday life.

Those who bathe in the Ganges river, on the other hand, could probably survive almost any time period, as they are exposed constantly to germs from human and animal excreta, rotting corpses, etc.

I have always fantasized about traveling back in time to ancient Egypt, but even though the upper classes were quite clean relatively speaking in that culture, the lack of indoor plumbing and toilet paper would probably drive me to madness before too long! So the safest bet would be to simply memorize some winning Lotto numbers and just take a small jump back in time.


Regarding language, scholars say that English in Shakespeare's time probably had a sound closer to standard American English than British English of today. A lot of characteristics that are thought of as essentially 'English' are encroachments from courtiers and 'nobles' adopting bad speech patterns from the Hanoverian kings. English was a rhotic language, but the latest OED has pretty much dropped the voiced 'r' from most words. Vowel shifts have been dramatic as well. Travelers from the American Colonial Era noted the growing language differences, and commented on the Colonists speaking a "purer" English. This was doubtless due in large part to the comparative levels of literacy between the two regions. In the late 1700s, it is estimated that Colonists had a literacy level over 90%, and this includes women and children. By contrast, literacy in England was in the 25% to 30% range for men and privileged male children, with almost no women being literate. So between George I and his sycophantic court and the low literacy rate throughout the country, English began its huge shift in pronunciation.

 

[8oclockcoffee]

The late Michael Crichton wrote a fanstastic book about the subject, called Time Line. I suggest reading it, to anyone whose fantasies include time travel. Talk about science fiction blurring into potential reality!

Yes, the book was quite entertaining, and dealt with the language problem better than most, if memory serves. It's been quite a few years since I read it, so I'm a bit hazy on a lot of details.

I think the movie based on the book ignored the language aspect completely, but then it would be difficult to do it right. You'd need scholars to play the roles (or actors like Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Ian McKellan, etc., who are skilled at subtleties of accent), and then you'd have to subtitle it for most viewers!

 

[8oclockcoffee]

I loved reading Robert E Heinlein, but my memory has gone, I read so many I can't remember which now.

There was a story very similar to what you described called "The Man Who Folded Himself" and can't remember who wrote it.

I haven't read that novel, but the author was David Gerrold. It sounds interesting--I'll have to add it to my reading list! :cheers:

 

[chillyboi]

right back into 1970, though a quick pit stop to the 1700-1800's just too see what it was like !

 

[zortek]

i have read/watched too much science fiction, and would be too concerned about the stability of the spacetime continuum to use a timemachine. not just that, but i would destroy the machine in order to prevent anyone else using it either.

 

[Behrluvr]

Regarding language, scholars say that English in Shakespeare's time probably had a sound closer to standard American English than British English of today. A lot of characteristics that are thought of as essentially 'English' are encroachments from courtiers and 'nobles' adopting bad speech patterns from the Hanoverian kings. English was a rhotic language, but the latest OED has pretty much dropped the voiced 'r' from most words.

I seem to remember reading something along these lines as the origin of the distinct "New England" accent. The colonists in the new world copied a language fad going on with English courtiers, where they would drop 'r's and stretch out 'a's. With the result being its wholesale adoption by the masses including those in the American colonies.

The result of which is the speech patterns of people like John Kennedy, Matt Damon, or Leonard Nimoy.

 

[Tom]

Think I would go back and invest in a bunch of stocks when they first launched and gold.
Yes, that's right, I'm greedy.
Or maybe just on few months an pick the winning lottery numbers.

 

[imaginetruth]

If I had a time machine, I would go back and do any number of things. Unfortunately, that creates a paradox if something I do prevents my parents from ever meeting, or one died in a bad accident before I was born. I couldn't have existed to have gone back in time, to cause it to happen, but since I did do it, the universe might likely tear itself apart by that paradox. So, as much as I'd like to do it, I wouldn't for that very reason.