Best Practices for Time Travelers

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spaceprophet
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Best Practices for Time Travelers

Post by spaceprophet » 02-20-2005 03:43 AM

When John Titor first showed up on IRC chat in October of 2000, he was enjoying a neat kind of double billing - as his 38-year-old self sat downstairs in the kitchen, typing away, a two-year-old version of himself lay sound asleep upstairs in bed. The elder Titor had been sent back in time by the U.S. Army, which needed him to fetch some legacy computer hardware from the 1970's, and he had a sort of layover in the year 2000. So like anyone with time to kill, he went online.

Titor arrived in Florida in a 2036 model Corvette (later sold off) outfitted with a 500 pound military-grade time travel device that he photographed and posted online, complete with manual. The reason for his visit was utilitarian - he had been sent back to the 1970's to fetch a model IBM 5100 computer, "because Unix has problems in 2038", and the 5100 had an undocumented feature that made it highly desirable to programmers working on the Unix bug. Apparently the Army of 2036 knew enough to build a time machine, but wasn't able to fix a word-size error in a legacy operating system.

That bit actually made the whole story sound plausible to me.

While waiting for his connection to the 1970's, Titor paid a number of visits to IRC and message boards, answering questions and giving people an idea of what the future held in store. Because he kept his story internally consistent, offered a high level of detail, and didn't much seem to care if anyone believed him, Titor naturally convinced boatloads of people that he was the real deal.

The world of 2036, as Titor describes it, will be a strange place (and you don't want to drink the water). The capital of the United States is in Omaha. The whole world has been through a nuclear war, part of an agrarian/urban conflict that dates all the way back to 2004 (Titor calls it the Second Civil War). People are living in smaller communities, and have moved back to the land. Today's libertarians are all proven right. In many respects, the pace of technological change has regressed. Except, of course, for the bit about the time machine.

Titor moved along in his travels in 2001, leaving behind a videotape of his departure that is regrettably lost, as well as a thriving communitiy of true believers who are eagerly waiting for 2004 to see if his prophecy of a string of Waco-like crises pans out. There's presumably a five-year-old John Titor growing up somewhere in Florida, and some deliriously happy car nut tooling around in a used 2036 Corvette.

Titor's courage in telling his story seems to have opened the floodgates, encouraging other time travellers to come forward and tell their own stories. This makes sense - after all, if time travel is possible, then the present should be roiling with visitors from the future. Their silence suggests a certain bashfulness and a lack of certainty about how to reveal themselves online. So taking inspiration from John Titor, I would suggest the following set of best practices for the online time traveller. (If you've already made your Internet debut before reading these guidelines, don't fret - simply travel back in time and make the appropriate changes!):

1. Act like you don't care whether people believe you

A real time traveler would be crazy to try and prove his identity - you'll either end up somewhere in a Pentagon sub-sub-basement, or drugged out of your gourd in a mental health facility. Much better to say you've come to a paranormal discussion board because you know there's no risk of people taking you seriously. Play hard to get!

2. Don't be afraid to make wooly predictions

So maybe you don't remember your early 21st century history too well. Or maybe you've ended up in a parallel universe that doesn't quite match what you know of your own world's past. You can still make predictions - just don't tie yourself down! For example, Titor predicted that something interesting was about to happen at CERN: "The breakthrough that will allow for [time travel] technology will occur within a year or so [2001] when CERN brings their larger facility online". But when a giddy speculative article about miniature black holes appeared in 2001, did people nitpick and point out that no breakthrough had actually occurred? Of course not - they were impressed by Titor's spooky prescience. That's the effect you want.

3. Read up on your physics

Tensors, closed time-like curves, manifolds, shmanifolds - it's a lot to keep straight. After all, you just push the button, why should you know how the thing works? But if you want to be believed, you'll have to sound convincing about the underlying physics. Here again, Titor is your model. Instead of spouting voodoo about flux capacitors, tachyons, or the fifth dimension, he grounds himself firmly in general relativity with talk about electrically charged microsingularities (mini-black holes). Don't forget that quantum gravity isn't understood until... well, you know when. In the early 21st century, time travel through black holes is still an open question.

But do be careful if you start offering too many specifics. Not only might someone steal your plans and build a time machine decades too soon, but you might even slip up and end up with egg on your face. Just look at John Titor, who completely forgot to read up on Hawking radiation. His two-black-hole time machine was supposed to weigh 500 pounds. But even assuming that each of the black holes weighed 100 kg (220 lbs) - leaving only 60 lbs for the rest of the device - both of those puppies would have had to have been radiating energy at about 3 x 10e29 Watts (the equivalent of over a thousand suns), at a temperature of 1.2 x 10e21 Kelvin (twelve orders of magnitude more than the core of a supernova). And their lifetime would have been just eight trillionths of a second.

Whoops! Not a lot of time to hit the big red button.

So don't go all crazy on the details, or you're bound to misremember something. "Black holes" is plenty, you don't get hung up on weights and measures.

4. Cover Your Ass

What do you do when the harmonic convergence of 2004 turns out to be a wash? Or when Clark fails to win the nomination, as you predicted?

Well, the first rule of making non-wooly predictions is not to make predictions if you can help it. "I can't tell you, because it would change the future" is always a useful old standby. So is "telling you would take away your free will".

If you do have to get all specific, take your lead from Titor and insist on an infinite number of near-identical, parallel universes, so you can never travel quite to the same universe you came from. In Titor's case, our 'worldline' is within 2% of his own worldline, so things like sports scores or stock prices might not match up, even if major historical events do. Nicely done!

Whether or not the many-worlds theory corresponds to what you know of physical reality, it will make a good cover for accidentally leaving those 2003 stock quotes at the library.

5. Apocalypse, baby!

No one wants to hear about the Social Security Reform Act of 2027, or Byelorussia's triumphal entry into the European Union. We want nukes! We want plague! We want civil war! If the real future is boring, we'll find out about it soon enough without you.

6. Dazzle 'em with details

Every moment people devote to arguing an obscure part of your story is a moment they're not thinking "wait a minute, why should I believe that a bozo on the Internet is a time traveller?". Be sure to pepper your story with verifiable details to help establish your credibility. If possible, allude to things in passing, so readers can do their own sleuth work and create an illusion of corroborated evidence.

Here again John Titor leads by example. To take one example, he alludes to a "problem with Unix in 2038", which a little investigation will show is real. All Unix clocks on 32-bit architectures roll over in 2038, when the number of seconds since 1970 (Year One for all Unix clocks) exceeds 2^32. Some of us estimate that this Y2K38 problem will cause global devastation of the same magnitude as Y2K.

Entire megabytes of Titor discussion thread are devoted to parsing out the plausibility of the Unix motive - is an ancient IBM computer really so hard to emulate in 2036? Is Titor lying about the real reason for his return? People get so caught up in the fine points that they forget to question the original premise. And someone out there is bound to think "This Unix thing checks out - so he MUST be telling the truth!".

Don't skimp on the details!

7. Know your audience

Do you really want to face down a discussion board full of paranoid libertarians and tell them that 2025 will see the birth of world government, universal health care for everyone, clean energy and a reduction in Third World debt? Zzzz... Or do you want to tell them to stockpile water, learn to clean their guns, not trust the government, and stay away from cities?

8. Watch out for paradox

We all know that the first thing people think of when you say "time travel" is going back in time to kill their grandparents. So be prepared - the theory of multiple universes (or worldlines) will help you there. But do you have a good rebuttal to Hawking's empirical argument? Are you comfortable with violations of causality? Have you been adequately briefed by your commanding officer, pan-Galactic Intelligence, hive mind of Excedrin Theta, or whatever other entity sent you hurtling back into the past? If not, a good place to start is the University of Tasmania's excellent online lecture series on time travel, which helps you deal with those pesky paradoxes and the annoying skeptics who ask about them.

If you're not a temporal visitor, but still find yourself inspired by these best practices, why not pick up a copy of Time Travel: A How-To Insider's Guide to help you with all the technical bits? Or better yet, avoid all the hassle by ordering a ready-made Hyper Dimensional Resonator?

THIS IS A TWO DIAL, ONE BANK TREATMENT INSTRUMENT, WHICH PLUGS INTO A NORMAL 110V OUTLET. THIS DEVICE GENERATES AN AC/DC, 60-CYCLE, ALTERNATING FREQUENCY WHICH GENERATES AN UNLIMITED AMOUNT OF PURE TECYON ENERGY. THIS DEVICE COMES EQUIPPED WITH A WITNESS WELL, PHENOLIC RUBBING PLATE, MULTI- DIMENSIONAL STABILIZER, CLEAR SWITCH, POWER SWITCH, TIME COILS, AND ONE ELECTROMAGNET.


Aailable in navy, chrome, or midnight blue; a steal at $360. European readers may need an adapter.

You too can become a time traveller!

Incidentally, that link to the book above is worth following just to read the reader reviews, which include this gem:

I wish this book really taught me how to travel through time because if it did, I would go back in time and tell myself not to buy this book.

So I would go with the Hyper Dimensional Resonator. Bon Voyage!

Idlewords

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Advice taken and thanks!

Post by Malaria_Kidd » 02-20-2005 03:17 PM

showthread.php?s=&postid=245031#post245031

spaceprophet,

I wish your thread many views with many replies. I copied and pasted my true experience above. I thought it would appear on this line when I pushed paste on my mouse.

Rod Stewart had a big news documentary today on CNN. R. Gary Patterson's former discussion board held my story once. His answer was very good and a surprise to me. His exact words were,......."Well MK like Robert Plant you are a traveler of time and space."

He quoted the first lines Robert sings in Led Zepplin's 'Kashmir'.

:cool:

MK ;) Been there done that!;)
" So if your tired of the same old story,.....Oh, turn some pages!" REO Speed Wagon of Champaign - Urbana, Illinois / Robert Lowery, my cousin, was Hollywood's 2nd Batman.

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The link below I failed to get in above in 30 min limit

Post by Malaria_Kidd » 02-20-2005 06:55 PM

showthread.php?s=&threadid=9481

The message icon "the radio"? It was on AM WJPS 1330 that night thru Evansville.

I'll never forget "that TIME."

spaceprophet and all pirates aboard this thread,

Try it for yourselves. Play the Faces song Stay With Me as you travel 5.1 miles @ 45 mph then go 2 miles @ 50 mph. See how many miles you get out of the song that lasts 4 minutes and 35 seconds.

If you try it please post in the above links.

MK :cool:
" So if your tired of the same old story,.....Oh, turn some pages!" REO Speed Wagon of Champaign - Urbana, Illinois / Robert Lowery, my cousin, was Hollywood's 2nd Batman.

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Read Article in Hustler

Post by drnewel » 03-21-2005 08:04 PM

I read the Titor article is "Hustler" magazine, in a bookstore in San Francisco, while 5 people were looking over my shoulder.

"I am sure he is just looking at the articles!"

Hustler had a good point, that a black hole would bend all light, not just the laser pointer.

I always thought to myself, "Wavelength," and didn't ask any further questions about the laser pointer.

There is a type of plastic tube that conducts light, and a hoaxer could bend a tube in a shape of an exponential curve, and then shine a laser pointer through the bent tube.

This would require some one who still knows about orbital mechanics.

The descriptions of the effects of the rotation of our planet is still some one who knows too much.

Like every one says - it is a very compelling story, and has me hooked on it.
Dr. Newel

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Post by Historian__2172 » 03-24-2005 04:00 PM

I have been visiting this forum for quite some time, and this is the first thread I was compelled to register and post a reply in.
Firstly, extrapolate the process of time travel. At the beginning, surely messy probes would be sent. Recording devices to far distant times possibly. After a few successes, projects might be sent to human era interesting times. Very early on, you probably would notice interventions, areas of history where you were caught observing. As this apparently made no difference in the future, paradox theory might have to be modified.
Now let us examine actual human travel.
At first, it would be messy, as interactions get noticed. Later excursions would probably get better at stealth. A biological time trip would have to be carefully structured, not so as to prevent a change in the time stream, but more along the line of scientific procedure. A scientist does not wish to affect the process observed.
It might be instructive to create a thought experiment. Extrapolate the line of advances needed to allow for time travel. How many years would be needed for these advances to come to fruition? Using a well known theory, eighteen months to the doubling of capability, might put time travel as early as a hundred years. Of course, some theories might be discarded along the way, and you would need to be able to access more than three dimensions to negate matter/energy restrictions and discard the “if I killed my grandfather” paradox.
Thinking along this line, human travelers might be restricted from interference in word or deed. As can be currently observed, human/machine hybrids are increasing in complexity. Extrapolate out one hundred years and one can imagine a traveler might be installed with a gate keeper, a reverse touretts syndrome guarding against undesired actions.
As for needing to retrieve obsolete technology, why would this be necessary? Can you not currently do just about anything with obsolete technology, from running the old systems and programs, to decompiling and restructuring the code on your desktop system?
As for a vehicle to travel in, why not just manipulate a higher dimension where space-time, or better, space and entropy are not figured into the equation?

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Post by Gotrox » 03-24-2005 06:07 PM

As for needing to retrieve obsolete technology, why would this be necessary? Can you not currently do just about anything with obsolete technology, from running the old systems and programs, to decompiling and restructuring the code on your desktop system?


My thoughts exactly---------one of the parts of the story that made me think it was bogus.

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Post by vigo » 03-24-2005 06:32 PM

Maybe he is a collector and likes old video games:D Still can't find Defender in a pc version. Oh and Captain Archer fixed the timeline so thats why its doen't seem plausible;)

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Post by Gotrox » 03-25-2005 07:51 AM

emu sites have everything from pong on up----defender for atari 2600???? Was into the emu scene for a while----try here
Emulators

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Post by vigo » 03-25-2005 11:15 AM

Thanks Gotrox cool site:D Now if John could just google I'm sure he could find that all important and elusive vintage computer;)

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re:Titor

Post by drnewel » 04-18-2005 07:49 PM

The story is unnerving, daunting, and abhorrent.

It is almost like an interrogation, where we are forced to do a feasibility study just to prove it false.

In that way - a real device comes closer into existence. Some one who is not that savy, can read this analysis, and procede in their own way to build one, get behind the mechanics of it and perform their own agenda.

I almost wish we had one now, and that some one is running around with it - because if you read some of the other stories, we may need one.

The part where this guy runs around in a black ops sounds too real - that part is close - then the desription of the orbital mechanics is real.

Emulators mimic old computers they most likely could use one of those in the future.
Dr. Newel

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Post by Malaria_Kidd » 05-30-2005 03:59 PM

Gotrox wrote: My thoughts exactly---------one of the parts of the story that made me think it was bogus.


My story is fantasticly not bogus. I would leave Titor in the dust, and just follow the smell of 200 hogs northbound on Evansville's US 41 in 1974.

Close your eyes, pop in Rod Stewart's "Stay With Me", buckle up, don't speed, and hang on !

Ha! A Fox News guest said, "Stay with us" as I looked at "Stay With Me".:cool:

Report back to this thread or one of three in Paranormal relating to my unaccounted time UP North on US 41 ! !

MK:cool:
" So if your tired of the same old story,.....Oh, turn some pages!" REO Speed Wagon of Champaign - Urbana, Illinois / Robert Lowery, my cousin, was Hollywood's 2nd Batman.

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Story

Post by drnewel » 06-02-2005 03:04 PM

I have not read your story yet.

This thing with cars, either going real fast like in movies such as:" Back To The Future," or stopped with the parking break on: "John Titor," is strange. I think it realy comes from a "Road Warrior" type of futurist vision. Comparing to movies is tiresome as well.

A car does not have to be a frame for a time machine!

There are chasis of all kinds: 1. Am Radio, 2. Speaker Box, 3. Remote Control From a T.V., 4. A Pager, 5. A Stone Monument, 6. A scroll, 7. A Program In Software!

Imagine running a software such as a data base and it's access some how retrieves information back or forward in time!

When they turn on these new computers with fiber optics - the data may actualy leak out in time!

I think I know your story as I heard you describe it on the air on "Art Bell."

I am confused about it, as I still don't get it - how is it time travel?
Dr. Newel

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Post by Alien_UK » 06-02-2005 03:09 PM

It seems there are people going a long way to discredit Titor, now that makes me think.;)

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John Titor

Post by drnewel » 06-02-2005 04:35 PM

Yes.

The story cuts it very close to being true.

It is worrysome (The whole John Titor Thesis).

It's 2005 and no Civil War - thank God, However:

There are movements in the undercurrents of our Justice Department that scream Civil War. The director of the F.B.I. is not supposed to spy on the President to the point where they know he has received Felatio from an Intern in the hallway from one room to the next, or if the President has ordered a break-in for the D.N.C. (Carter's Notes were taken by Reagan if memory serves me right - no one said anything). The San Francisco area is a wild-wild-west show of vigilante action by these rogues. There are people considering removing judges in San Francisco for issuing the wrong secret search warrants. As primarily in the present we must describe this in terms of Sociology - we may actualy be in a Civil War now. It is troubling.

The Engineering:

The diagrams are too symetrical to have been done by an experienced draftsman or a General Electric draftsman. If you notice the labels, they are spaced equal like some one wasn't sure if the hoax would work or not if the drawing had variation. I have seen drawings from televisions, to toasters to computers and they are not that symetrical. In the future the drawing style may change. The drawings look like they were from the 1970's. That is troubling the whole drawings - the period is wrong for what he claims. The safety tape looks like it came from 1990. What if he is realy from the past? He said he was from 1974! 1974 the first microchip! he has no advanced technology except what looks like radio gear from a Ham Operator!

The bent laser light worries me. There is no way to fake a bent light. It is a coherent beam so it may be bent by a black hole - I have never seen a black hole - I don't know what it would or wouldn't do. It would seem that the Gravity that could bend light that far would rip the body to pieces. They have enough Gravity in the Time Machine for a self contained Quasar! Light around the planet earth is only very slightly bent. An entire Galaxy bends light only slightly in what is called a Gravity Lens. Hustler Magazine states that all light would be bent with that much gravity not just the laser light.

The part about letting privates in the Army run around with time machines worry me. Imagine some of our Army Privates today running around with a time machine. Let these young ladies from the recent scandal loose with one!

The part where he for reasons that are not clear - types the whole story on a chat room is weird. When was the last time you ever heard of a secret agent typing the entire mission in a chat room? It must be that he is not going to effect his future at all - which is from my theory that he is not from the future but from our past - taking technology back in the past for something. A chat room would be irresistable to some one from the past.

The story rings true in some sense yet in others has unprovable statements of either truth or false. Mostly I don't thin it is real.
Dr. Newel

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Post by Fred_Vobbe » 06-02-2005 08:13 PM

My father taught me time travel. Everytime I acted up he knocked me into next week.
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