Check out this funny post about what 7th graders wrote when asked to write about what they’ll do with a time machine.
By the way, this post is from the excellent The Old New Thing – Raymond Chen’s blog.
4 Replies to “7th Graders And Time Machines”
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I think the kid who wanted to pull the fire alarm in the WTC, 11 minutes b4 the crash was the most innovative.
Amit, what would you do ?
I wonder why no1 thought of travelling to many times and many places.
I think time travelling could be a lot more fun, if someone could come along with you, and you both could travel in time, time and time again, and do many weird stuff.
However, most people would probably fight and argue with their fellow travellers, about where to go next, and what to do.
So there are 2 options left:
1. Do it with a girl you love.
2. Go back alone in time, meet other YOUs, explain them the situation, collect a few of you, and form an army of yous, going back and forrth in time, setting things right/getting rich/having fun/research time travel/talk about time philosophy / whatever…
The “army of you” idea is nice, but being adults we know (after watching so many SciFi films and shows) that there’s a problem with meeting yourself because it puts you in an endless loop: I meet my past self and change history so it affects me now, too.
I’ll definitely go to the future. The future must be cool :)
And yeah, the 11 minutes kid was the one who really thought things out. I wonder if he thought about it before or it just popped to his mind. By the way – part 2 was published:
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/12/05/1211410.aspx
OK Amit, you’re right. Going back to the past is problematic. While in the past, I must avoid at all costs the possibily that in the future I won’t be able to go into the time machine and do what I want to do.
This is indeed more complicated than I thoguht.
Therefore, I want to offer a challenge, a mental riddle, a reality-tunnel mind puzzle.
The Challenge.
1. You have a time machine
2. You’re here to save the world.
What do you do ?
To make it interesting we must divide the question into 2 different variations.
A. How do you do it with going to the past ?
B. How do you do it without going to the past ?
This can be either a discussion between you and me, or between everyone on your site, I don’t mind, it’s upto you (and them).
The discussion can be directed in many paths (doing it alone, with others, with creating more time machines, with going to other planets, etc.)
This is a riddle for hackers. you’re in a given system of rules, you’re allowed to search and manipulate the boundries of that system, you must avoid crashing the system, you’re looking for something, and optimal performance is needed.
These are some of my initial thoughts:
Going back:
1. To the time of Hiter, prevent the holocaust, and find way to make sure the future stepping of you in the time machine is unavoidable (A riddle in itself).
2. Go back to the times of Exodus, find some guy in the crowd which will teach you the language, kill him, go with the time machine to mount sinai, in the time of the giving of the law, hit moses on the head with a rock, and leave a new written law for mankind, which moses will see as the divine law, and give it to his people. the new law must make sure you (or someone else) go back in time at the appointed future and make this giving of the law possible. It should also be a pretty good law.
one way to do it, is to make a copy of the law, and to put it with instrutions on how to build a time machine, in the holy arc of the covenant, together with instructions for the future messiah.
Since a new law for mankind, will probably create a world where there is no you in 2006, a messiah that will be sent back in time to give the new law to moses instead of you must be described in the law.
The messiah of 2006, as prophecied by the law must open the arc of covenant (whose existence is also protected by the law), build a time machine, take the law with him back in time, and give Moses the law. The law should limit the appointed missions of the messiah to this and this alone, in order to avoid creating other expectations from the messiah. The future messiah should in no way be able to resist his mission, and one way to make sure he’ll do it, is to let him know what he needs to do only after he went back in time (closed envelope…), which will put him in a situation that if he doesn’t do his job, he couldn’t come back.
Even though this might save humanity, if the new law is good enough, all the world as we know it now will probably drastically change, though.
3. If you’re Christian (i.e. believe that there was a Jesus, and that he is God), you can go back to the time of Jesus, stop the crucifixion, tell God what’s going on, and ask him to make things better. All the paradoxes of timetravell will not apply, since God is on your side, and he is all-powerfull, and can do everything, including getting you back without harm, and still save the world. If for some reason this is not possible, ask God to make a copy of himself. After you have two copies of God with you, ask one of the copies to sacrifice himself and get crucified, while explaining to him that this is the only way you can save humanity, and that this is what he needs to do, and that it’s not a real Death, and that other kinds of existence of Him are guarenteed, and that according to the stories he will come back from the dead in 3 days, and that he should let it happen as if you’ve never met before, and that you know that he can do it becasue he is God. Take the other copy of God with you in the time machine back to the future. This will cause both history to remain the same, thus enabling your time travel, as well as the bringing of God to the now, enabling the Christian Second Coming. After that you can leave the rest of the saving of the world, to God.
Hmm. Christianity always allows easy redemptions…
Going to the Future….
Next time.
I only noticed this posting of yours today. It’s a very interesting question, and it’s a shame I don’t have a message board to appropriately host this kind of discussion. As always, you display original thought (copies of God reminds me of something about the philosophical work of Kurt Godel regarding the existence of God) and a lot of knowledge. Unfortunately:
1. I don’t think I have enough knowledge about the past to respond intelligently.
2. I’m at work right now :)
3. As I mentioned, the comments are not the right place to do this, and good stuff can be “lost” as most people don’t go back to read comments of past posts.