Sharwood
Rich, doctor nephew
Why can't they be both?
Makes as much sense as anything Von Daniken writes.
If Time Travellers existed, who would they be?
- Thread starter bob bobato
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Makes as much sense as anything Von Daniken writes.eastsidebagel
Deity
Maybe all the guys who tried to assassin Hitler (it happened 42 times throughout his 12-year-reign, and they all failed) were time-travelers, or at least some of them.
They failed, because you can't alter what has already happened. Everything you do in the past is neccesary to happen in order that all the events which happened then are really all going to unfold, so that the time line won't get divided into two parallel worlds to each other, whereas in some universe an alteration had significantly changed the events which shaped the reality we experience now.
A person who travels into the past to prevent, lets say, Elvis' birth to happen, causes exactly those things which he tried to stop to occur in the first place.
They failed, because you can't alter what has already happened. Everything you do in the past is neccesary to happen in order that all the events which happened then are really all going to unfold, so that the time line won't get divided into two parallel worlds to each other, whereas in some universe an alteration had significantly changed the events which shaped the reality we experience now.
A person who travels into the past to prevent, lets say, Elvis' birth to happen, causes exactly those things which he tried to stop to occur in the first place.
Sharwood
Rich, doctor nephew
Yet he also failed to predict the invention of the radio and related technologies such as radar. Even a culture as advanced as the Martians didn't have them.Putting in my 2 cents for H.G. Wells. Among his many predictions were biological warfare, genetic engineering, World War II, submarine-launched missiles, and, well...time travel.
This brings up a philosophical question, though.
If someone in 10 BC said "there'd be chariots which fly in the sky", would he be credited with "predicting the aircraft"?
Statistically, anything given an infinite amount of time would invariably occur. (I.e. if t=infinity, P(any event)=1)
If someone in 10 BC said "there'd be chariots which fly in the sky", would he be credited with "predicting the aircraft"?
Statistically, anything given an infinite amount of time would invariably occur. (I.e. if t=infinity, P(any event)=1)
Sharwood
Rich, doctor nephew
It's only a prediction if it's an extrapolation from existing technology. Otherwise it's a prophecy. If that guy in 10BC said: "Someday man will create a device which enables us to soar like the birds," that's a prediction, and he deserves credit.
Question: How does one explain how a jet turbine engine works to someone in 10BC? I would imagine that a time traveler would be rather constrained in how one would go about explaining it. On the understanding that the bulk of the technical words required for such a thing would not exist, you would be left with analogy and other literary techniques.
I am a time traveller.
Sharwood
Rich, doctor nephew
They already had a jet engine around that time. Heron ftw!
You can explain stuff without treating them like idiots. This is what always annoys me about how people raise their children. Just tell them the truth in a dumbed-down fashion, don't make crap up.
Quite simple really: we wouldn't know. (As any Trekkie will know: time travel cannot interfere with the past - First Time Directive.)
In a more practical sense: anyone alive is a time traveller. (And the faster you move, the slower time passes. No really, it's a scientific fact.)
eastsidebagel
Deity
I firmly believe that John Titor was a time traveller from the year 2036! 
Terxpahseyton
Nobody
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Right, and your head lives in another time dimension than your feet, caused by the different distance to the earth core. This is a scientific-fact, too. But to know that doesn't really help, now does it?
They were assassins - Just as I speculated one might be tempted to if you could live through certain periods of history. But who are they working for, themselves ?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7894867&postcount=67
It is bizarre how so many attempts on Hitler failed - is it the old time paradox rule ?
Putting in my 2 cents for H.G. Wells. Among his many predictions were biological warfare, genetic engineering, World War II, submarine-launched missiles, and, well...time travel.
Jules Verne predated him with airships, submarines, time travel, hollow earth theory, and the moon landing
No. Clearly they were agents of those entities that, in alternate universes, were victims of God-Emperor Mohandas K. Gandhi, President-for-Life Robert F. Kennedy, Imperator and Shahanshah Iulianus, Basileus Autokrator Seleukos Nikator, and l'Empereur Henri IV.
Sharwood
Rich, doctor nephew
Jules predated Wells with a moon landing?
The best Jules Verne book I've ever read is Magellania, btw. That has nothing whatsoever to do with this thread, just thought you'd like to know.
Only in the literary sense of course. From the Earth to the Moon, 1865. A novel in which a massive cannon shot from Florida propels the astronauts to the moon (impossible), and one of the first sc-fi silent flickrs ever made. Jules also wrote some pretty cool stories about time travel and geological change. What was Magellania about ?
Wiki Quote:
In 1863, Verne wrote Paris in the 20th Century, a novel about a young man who lives in a world of glass skyscrapers, high-speed trains, gas-powered automobiles, calculators, and a worldwide communications network, yet cannot find happiness and comes to a tragic end.
Sharwood
Rich, doctor nephew
And here I thought he planted the French flag up there, which is why the Americans faked it.Ah yes, I remember that now. I've never read it, but I remember it inspired Wells to change the mode of transportation from Cavorite to a cannon in the film version of The First Men in the Moon. I've read Journey to the Centre of the Earth, but nothing about time travel from Verne. Read The Time Machine by Wells.
Magellania is very different from Verne's usual stories, at least the ones I've read. It was the last book he ever wrote, not being published until after his death, which might explain this. It's about a man, an anarchist, living in the vicinity of Patagonia and Tierra Del Fuego at the turn of the 19th century - the last place on Earth with no government. He comes across a shipwreck and has to put aside his political beliefs because his moral beliefs won't allow him to abandon them to die, since he knows how to survive there and they don't. He also ends up forming a government himself to do this, and hates himself for it. Magellania is the name chosen for the settlement. He does all this while attempting to maintain independence from Chile and Argentina, who have just signed a treaty dividing this area among themselves.
It's a fantastic book, and only around 180 pages. I'd recommend it to anyone. You have to be careful though, as Verne's son extensively re-wrote and published the original story, apparently not knowing his father had finished it but not published it before he died, and Michael's version, while not a bad read, is nowhere near as good as Jules', which is one of the best books I've ever read. Michael's is much larger than Jules', so you can tell the difference that way.
