So, you find a time machine good for one trip back:

So here is this time machine, and you can go on a one way trip back in time anywhen you want. Given our knowledge of math, electronics, geology, geography, and such, what time period would you aim for.

We think if you do make a real time machine and go into the past, no matter what you did, go back and kill the 15 year old Hitler, go back to save the library from the fire in Alexandria, whatever you do would not effect us because you would go back to an identical earth but an alternate time stream so you would not ruin things here or make them better, but only change the world if you do, in the time stream in which you find yourself driven by the time machine, so it really wouldn't be a time machine in the strictest sense of the word and it better be a space machine also because if you just went back, say 1000 years in the past, the Earth would be light years away from the spot you just left so this machine can track where the Earth was, is and will be and will send you to the exact spot on Earth you left by also sending you through space to cover the difference in locations of both Earth's.

So given all that, what would you aim to do and what era would you go back to?
I read a nice story about a guy going back in time a couple of decades before Columbus got to the America's and educated the 'Indians' to build a sophisticated civilization including thousands of sailboats much larger than the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria and presented Columbus with a culture to respect and leave alone and they sent a thousand ships back to Spain where they made a treaty leaving all of the America's alone, that would change things a bit, eh!

So what would you come up with, what plan would you set out with to go to your special time and change things?

One thing I would do is sink the Titanic on her maiden voyage so that
chess tournament held on the return trip would never have taken place.

Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Reti, Marshall, Rubinstein, Mieses, Tarrasch,
Nimzovitch and Tartakower all perished when it hit an Iceberg.

These could have been some of the greatest players in the history of the game.
Who knows what great games and brilliant chess books were lost to the
world of chess that day in June 1912.

Originally posted by greenpawn34
One thing I would do is sink the Titanic on her maiden voyage so that
chess tournament held on the return trip would never have taken place.

Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Reti, Marshall, Rubinstein, Mieses, Tarrasch,
Nimzovitch and Tartakower all perished when it hit an Iceberg.

These could have been some of the greatest players in the history o ...[text shortened]... at great games and brilliant chess books were lost to the
world of chess that day in June 1912.

Wow, you really ARE from another universe, eh🙂

But what if my grandfather was on the maiden voyage
and me sinking the Titanic meant I did exist so then I could
NOT sink the Titanic.

Which means my grandfather did not drown so I did exist
and I DID sink the Titanic which means I don't exist so I did NOT
sink the Titanic. Which means my Gradfather survived and I did exist
so I DID sink.......

😕

...better stop there before I write myself into a continuous time loop.

I don't think a time machine will ever be invented because if someone
from the future did invent one then there would time travellers all
over the place telling us they were from the future.

(Perhaps the future where they invent a time machine has not happened yet.)

Originally posted by sonhouse
So here is this time machine, and you can go on a one way trip back in time anywhen you want. Given our knowledge of math, electronics, geology, geography, and such, what time period would you aim for.

We think if you do make a real time machine and go into the past, no matter what you did, go back and kill the 15 year old Hitler, go back to save the li ...[text shortened]... me up with, what plan would you set out with to go to your special time and change things?

Rather than physically traveling backward in time, I would rather speculate on sending information backward in time, in a way such that people would receive, understand, believe, and act on the information the way we would act if we went back physically. This is, after all, the essence of it.

Say we want to get someone to assassinate Hitler just before he became chancellor. Getting them to receive the information is the first hurdle. Getting them to believe it might be the second-toughest part. We might demonstrate our reliability by "predicting" some then-current events a few days ahead of their occurrence, enough times to convince them we are reliable.

But I see another problem. It gets weird, because if we succeed and Hitler is assassinated, that's what our history book will say, so we won't even think of doing it. Or will we say, when the time comes, 'It's time to send that message." and pat ourselves on the back realizing we are responsible for the assassination? But still, if we succeed, what will tell us we need to act? Won't our history book already lack any reference to Hitler as the villain behind whatever happens in the 40's, so how would we know we had to send the message to assassinate him?

In a way, its the information that gets to us in the future, because of the information that we send to the past, that creates a paradox of sorts.

Originally posted by JS357
Rather than physically traveling backward in time, I would rather speculate on sending information backward in time, in a way such that people would receive, understand, believe, and act on the information the way we would act if we went back physically. This is, after all, the essence of it.

Say we want to get someone to assassinate Hitler just before he b ...[text shortened]... because of the information that we send to the past, that creates a paradox of sorts.

People love to make themselves crazy with numerous scenarios like this.

It's a good thing that, according to Einstein's theories, time-travel into the past is impossible.

Originally posted by sonhouse
So here is this time machine, and you can go on a one way trip back in time anywhen you want. Given our knowledge of math, electronics, geology, geography, and such, what time period would you aim for.

We think if you do make a real time machine and go into the past, no matter what you did, go back and kill the 15 year old Hitler, go back to save the li ...[text shortened]... me up with, what plan would you set out with to go to your special time and change things?

maybe someone has already went back in time and killed someone worse than hitler. of course we have no memory of this, if the person had more trips he would eventually kill all tyrants at a young age. history would be nothing but peace. personally i would go back 1 week with the lottery numbers, selfish i know.

Originally posted by Suzianne
People love to make themselves crazy with numerous scenarios like this.

It's a good thing that, according to Einstein's theories, time-travel into the past is impossible.

maybe someone has already went back in time and pursuaded Einstein that time-travel was impossible. of course we have no memory of this,

(actually I dont think any Law of Physics precludes the possibility of time-travel .. does it?)

Originally posted by wolfgang59
maybe someone has already went back in time and pursuaded Einstein that time-travel was impossible. of course we have no memory of this,

(actually I dont think any Law of Physics precludes the possibility of time-travel .. does it?)

Well, you can travel forward in time pretty easily by approaching the speed of light. We've even tested this with really accurate clocks on very fast planes. I don't remember ever hearing anything concrete about travelling back in time, but I also don't know much about M theory/string theory or how credible various parts of it are. Presumably we'll need to build up more evidence for some kind of multi-dimensional theory before we can say if it's theoretically possible.

Originally posted by sonhouse
So here is this time machine, and you can go on a one way trip back in time anywhen you want. Given our knowledge of math, electronics, geology, geography, and such, what time period would you aim for.

We think if you do make a real time machine and go into the past, no matter what you did, go back and kill the 15 year old Hitler, go back to save the li ...[text shortened]... me up with, what plan would you set out with to go to your special time and change things?

Go back and fix my own childhood by chatting with my Dad.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Go back and fix my own childhood by chatting with my Dad.

I knew my dad, I don't think chatting with him would have helped much.
I think the latest theory of timelike loops, says you can make a time machine but only between the future and the first time you make a functional time machine. I still think if you do you and went back even one second you would find yourself 200 miles away, maybe in space, maybe embedded in deep rocks because of the movement of the Earth. You would have to know exactly how the Earth moves to get to where in time you want to go. One year back in time could put you 6 billion miles away from Earth. What do you do about THAT, even assuming time travel is possible?

🙂

The barmen says;
"No. We don't serve Time Travellers here."

A Time Traveller goes into a bar and asks for a beer.

Originally posted by sonhouse
I knew my dad, I don't think chatting with him would have helped much.
I think the latest theory of timelike loops, says you can make a time machine but only between the future and the first time you make a functional time machine. I still think if you do you and went back even one second you would find yourself 200 miles away, maybe in space, maybe embed ...[text shortened]... illion miles away from Earth. What do you do about THAT, even assuming time travel is possible?

An interesting question. Imagine a Google Earth that allows you to enter latitude and longitude and also enter a date, and the images that it goes to are from that location and that date. But it could not be like firing a projectile at a moving object, because you are right, near misses could be disastrous. It would have to be like navigating from here to the moon, with a feedback loop for fine-tuning the touchdown. Hard to imagine "sensing" the "landing site" on approach. I still like the idea of sending information, which means interpretable signals, not people.

i would like to go to southwest spain at the turn of the century and have a small cafe.