# If you could travel forward/backward in time



## Bullgrit (Dec 9, 2013)

Three part post -- 

Part the first:
The concept of a modern-day person seeming like a "wizard" when thrown back in time is a bit of a trope in fiction. But what would really happen?

Say you were thrown back in time, at least 100 years, would your modern skills and knowledge be helpful to you? Would you thrive in such a scenario? Or are your modern skills and knowledge pretty much a waste in a time before electronic technology? How about 1,000 years?


Part the second:
Say you were going to travel to the future, (suspended animation, a time machine, whatever mechanic you want), how far into the future would you have to go to reach something "futuristic," something truly alien to what you live in now? 


Part the third:
If you were going to reach back in time and yank someone, (at least of average or better intelligence, and middle aged), forward to this day and age, how far back-to-forward would you have to bring someone to have them completely out of their world? Would someone from 1913 (100 years ago) be able to come "up to speed" with our world today? How about someone from 1813?

Bullgrit


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## Nellisir (Dec 9, 2013)

Bullgrit said:


> The concept of a modern-day person seeming like a "wizard" when thrown back in time is a bit of a trope in fiction. But what would really happen?



Beggery and death, usually.



> Say you were thrown back in time, at least 100 years, would your modern skills and knowledge be helpful to you? Would you thrive in such a scenario? Or are your modern skills and knowledge pretty much a waste in a time before electronic technology? How about 1,000 years?



A hundred years ago, I'd probably be screwed.  Most of my professional knowledge is in construction.  I can use handtools, but not well.  I might be able to invent a few things. I might actually do better 1,000 years ago, assuming I landed in England, and America.  Construction techniques were less advanced, but the tools were basically the same. Probably see if I could survive long enough to invent the printing press and a few other things. Proper hygiene - maybe I could pass off as a physician.  I might qualify as some kind of scholar, but not sure. Biggest hurdle would be learning the language before I starve to death.



> Say you were going to travel to the future, (suspended animation, a time machine, whatever mechanic you want), how far into the future would you have to go to reach something "futuristic," something truly alien to what you live in now?



I think the world is going to be pretty weird in fifty years, honestly.  So...a hundred.  That should give genetics and computers plenty of time to get funky.



> If you were going to reach back in time and yank someone, (at least of average or better intelligence, and middle aged), forward to this day and age, how far back-to-forward would you have to bring someone to have them completely out of their world? Would someone from 1913 (100 years ago) be able to come "up to speed" with our world today? How about someone from 1813?



Well, even today there are un-or minimally contacted tribes in South America and...New Guinea?  So I don't think any random homo sapien is really incapable of being acclimated to modern day life. Specific individuals might not do well, but that wouldn't be a function of their time period.


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## Dioltach (Dec 9, 2013)

Re your first question: Dara O'Briain on technology: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ0T6E2j3Lo&desktop_uri=/watch?v=yJ0T6E2j3Lo.


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## Bullgrit (Dec 9, 2013)

Dioltach, that's a hilarious video. Thanks for linking it. (I can't give you xp now.)

Bullgrit


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 9, 2013)

Hilarious video!

Anyway, being a black dude, going back 100 years means my income and social status drop alarmingly.  Depending on where I was, I would not be allowed to practice law.

Still, I'd make a good cook!


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## GMforPowergamers (Dec 10, 2013)

Movies that throw people back in time and have them invent things miss a lot of things. I ran a super hero game with a real life engineer as one of my players, and we did the whole time slip thing...

I jumped them back to 1897 and crashed there plane... they needed to repair the plane, something I thought would be easy, until the player started to flip out on how screwed they were... I indulged him and he went on to explain that they don't just need to make parts, they need to make tools and instruments that they can use to make more tools and instruments that they can then use to make the parts... but the materials for that second set of tools aren't able to be made in 1897. 

Not withstanding finding another time traveler he figured it would be at best twenty years to fix there plane...


In the few years since that game we have talked about it a few times, and the end result is that it is pretty hardcore. 

I am also watching sleepy hollow (someone from the past living now) and we joke about how his stomach must suck... imagine what is in our food, and think for a second about how little of that was around 100 years ago..


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## Umbran (Dec 10, 2013)

Bullgrit said:


> Say you were thrown back in time, at least 100 years, would your modern skills and knowledge be helpful to you? Would you thrive in such a scenario? Or are your modern skills and knowledge pretty much a waste in a time before electronic technology? How about 1,000 years?




Heh.  100 years ago is 1913.  Einstein published Special Relativity a few years ago, and he's still working on General Relativity (which he publishes in 1915).  If I'm really good, I might be able to reconstruct it from memory, and scoop him!  I could certainly beat Chandrasekhar to the basic theory of Black Holes (1931).  Quantum mechanics comes to the fore in the 1920s - I could probably manage to get myself into the Solvay Conference of 1927, and become one of the fathers of modern science!

I could probably step into any University in an English speaking nation and start teaching math or physics.  I'd be set. 

My wife would probably be able to set herself up as the mother of antibiotics - penicillin comes along in the 1920s and 1930s...

1000 years ago... If I stayed in North America, well, I'm now stuck in with a stone age culture.  My "modern" skills won't mean much at all, 'cause there's so little to work with.  



> Part the second:
> Say you were going to travel to the future, (suspended animation, a time machine, whatever mechanic you want), how far into the future would you have to go to reach something "futuristic," something truly alien to what you live in now?




This, honestly, I don't have an answer to.  The problem is that I cannot imagine how long it would take to come up with technologies I cannot actually imagine right now.  



> Part the third:
> If you were going to reach back in time and yank someone, (at least of average or better intelligence, and middle aged), forward to this day and age, how far back-to-forward would you have to bring someone to have them completely out of their world? Would someone from 1913 (100 years ago) be able to come "up to speed" with our world today? How about someone from 1813?




Someone from the USA in 1913 wouldn't have too much trouble.  They know cars and electricity exist.  The first commercial news radio broadcast is only seven years later.

From 1813 -  Steam power is just debuting in Europe.  

From 1513 - Well, if we take someone from Britain, we still speak something they'd basically recognize as English.  Communication and learning wouldn't be too hard...

But really, it depends on what culture you're talking about.  There are folks today who live stone-age lifestyles still in South America.  If I pull such a person to New York City now, how hard would it be for them to adapt?


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## Nellisir (Dec 10, 2013)

Umbran said:


> From 1513 - Well, if we take someone from Britain, we still speak something they'd basically recognize as English.  Communication and learning wouldn't be too hard...



1513 was the middle of the Great Vowel Shift.  I'd aim for someone that was literate.


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## Jhaelen (Dec 10, 2013)

A hundred years ago, I think I would have been fine. A thousand years ago, though, I probably wouldn't have any useful skills for that.

I think it will take at least another 50 years before the world has changed in significant ways from today.

For a person from the past to deal with today's life wouldn't be that hard, I guess. It would depend on the person's age to a certain degree, though. The older the person, the harder it would be to deal with the changes.


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## Dioltach (Dec 10, 2013)

Bullgrit said:


> Part the third:
> If you were going to reach back in time and yank someone, (at least of average or better intelligence, and middle aged), forward to this day and age, how far back-to-forward would you have to bring someone to have them completely out of their world? Would someone from 1913 (100 years ago) be able to come "up to speed" with our world today? How about someone from 1813?




There are people today, in Western society, who have difficulty coming "up to speed" with a lot of the stuff going on. People who are baffled by all the cell phones, computers, ATMs, GPS devices, DVD recorders, and much else.


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## Janx (Dec 10, 2013)

Dioltach said:


> There are people today, in Western society, who have difficulty coming "up to speed" with a lot of the stuff going on. People who are baffled by all the cell phones, computers, ATMs, GPS devices, DVD recorders, and much else.




In some ways, unless they are of low IQ, those people are just being whiny and not applying themselves to stay current.

as side business, I've had 70-90 year old clients, normal people who use computers on a regular basis.  If people who predate the computer can figure it out...anybody can.  So those who don't, chose that.


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## Morrus (Dec 10, 2013)

Folks with poor eyesight might struggle. Contact lenses would run out quick (assuming you took some) and glasses would be hard to replace if they got broken.

My tooth infection a couple of weeks ago - just needed some anti-biotics. Without them? I don't like to think!


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## Zombie_Babies (Dec 10, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Folks with poor eyesight might struggle. Contact lenses would run out quick (assuming you took some) and glasses would be hard to replace if they got broken.
> 
> My tooth infection a couple of weeks ago - just needed some anti-biotics. Without them? I don't like to think!




This is kinda what I was thinking.  People take a lot of stuff for granted.  So, I'd probably be ok in a lot of different time periods cuz of the stuff I know how to do _but _if that time period was sufficiently before easy access to glasses, well, I'd be boned in a couple of years or sooner.  Doesn't matter how well you can do much of anything if you can't see.


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## Janx (Dec 10, 2013)

Part 1: going to the past
Umbran has the advantage.  A physicist going back 100 years is in position to use his primary skillset to his advantage.  He could probably scoop Newton if he went back farther.

I'm a technologist, with a wide swath of other skills.  Unless I happened to have all my gadgets on me (and a charger), my ability to appear wizard-like dwindles as fast as my battery capacity.  After that, I'm just a madman ranting about things to come.

Assuming nothing bad happens to me, I could probably get work as a carpenter's assistant or laborer (having laborerd before, the concept isn't foreign to me).

The printing press is likely the main invention I could cook up.  Maybe typewriter if I get help from a metalsmith or machinist.  Otherwise, my knowledge of science to come, while advanced, isn't complete enough to "prove" anything.  I know penicillin comes from mold on oranges, but I have no idea how to process it to "save" somebody to score some credibility points.

Part 2: going to the Future
As a technologist, the future is where all the cool stuff I've been waiting for is at.  So for me, going there, I'll be able to adapt to what I see, based on understanding how we got to that.  I'm not sure how weird it has to get before I'd be stumped, but I should hope it has to get wierder for me than most other people.

Sadly, all my mad skills will be hopelessly outdated.  I can hope there's interest in history, as I could perhaps work as a technology historian or something.  Though I imagine forging credentials in the 25th century is even harder for a guy from the 21st.

Part 3: bringing the past back
Consider that watching the city scenes in Bladerunner when it came out, is akin to bringing one of those current day primitives to New York City.  A lot of hustle, bustle, and seeing things you've never seen before.

Nobody died from that.  And if you have somebody explaining it all to you, at least so you know what its called, can make the transition easier.


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## Umbran (Dec 10, 2013)

Janx said:


> Part 1: going to the past
> Umbran has the advantage.  A physicist going back 100 years is in position to use his primary skillset to his advantage.  He could probably scoop Newton if he went back farther.




Ooh!  I could invent calculus, and have high school students curse my name for time immemorial!  Woot!


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## Dioltach (Dec 10, 2013)

If I were stuck in the past I'd buy up large tracts of land that nowadays are known to hold oil, gold or diamonds. Allow others to mine them, but the proceeds get stashed away until, say, 1991 and then get released to me.

Or I'd write a book of prophecies. Or draw pictures of 1980s rock stars on the walls of ancient buildings.


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## Janx (Dec 10, 2013)

Umbran said:


> Ooh!  I could invent calculus, and have high school students curse my name for time immemorial!  Woot!




Yup.  Where I could only tell the academics that such complicated math or physics is possible, you can show them.

However, depending on the exact time period and where we land, I doubt we'll face as warm and easy a welcome as the Doctor usually gets.

Imagine landing in England, circa Henry VIII.  Dressed oddly, with a "foreign" accent, prove you aren't a french spy, crazy person or heretic and avoid offending a nobleman or guard until you can get to Oxford or wherever England kept the nerds back then.

Figured that every other thing you say might be blasphemy or treason, even trying to spill the beans about how many wives Henry's going to grind through is not likely to be received well.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 10, 2013)

Going into the past 100 years, I _could_ become one of the greatest sci-Fi writers of all time....


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## Dioltach (Dec 10, 2013)

Just in case anyone has any misguided ideas about the joys of living in Victorian times: 10 more things that could kill you.


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## Janx (Dec 10, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Going into the past 100 years, I _could_ become one of the greatest sci-Fi writers of all time....




How do you get to that point?

On the one hand, we've got our "can do" American spirit that won the West to succeed at anything we put our mind to.

On the other, life is hard, and if you're not in the right place at the right time, you can wish in one hand and crap in the other, and you'll be needing to wash your hands frequently and then you die.

Land in the wrong spot, and nobody will give you break to get started or front you some money so you can write and publish your first story.  Land in the right spot, and somebody will help you at just the key moment you need it.


Consider Einstein.  We kidnap him, before he took the job at the post office, started working on math, and put him in a mud farming family in Elbonia, and he doesn't become a world renowned Physicist.  Instead, he frets over his family as MudRot slowly takes them all as he toils in the soil.


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## Quartz (Dec 10, 2013)

I can read and write and am numerate, and I remember my Latin and a smattering of Greek so I'd be pretty good 1000 years ago as long as I'm in Western Europe.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 10, 2013)

Well, first, I'd have to move to the North to escape the worst of the violent racism. 

Then, in my 1 spare hour a day, I'd be typing on my second-hand or borrowed manual typewriter.

Then, I'd start submitting my stories to periodicals...

...just like other genre writers of the age.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 10, 2013)

Quartz said:


> I can read and write and am numerate, and I remember my Latin and a smattering of Greek so I'd be pretty good 1000 years ago as long as I'm in Western Europe.



You'd probably sound like a hick or foreigner...or the policeman from _Allo, Allo_.


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## Zombie_Babies (Dec 10, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Well, first, I'd have to move to the North to escape the worst of the violent racism.
> 
> Then, in my 1 spare hour a day, I'd be typing on my second-hand or borrowed manual typewriter.
> 
> ...




And there were a great many who never got published and never made a dime.


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## Janx (Dec 10, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Well, first, I'd have to move to the North to escape the worst of the violent racism.
> 
> Then, in my 1 spare hour a day, I'd be typing on my second-hand or borrowed manual typewriter.
> 
> ...




That's assuming you were successful in escaping to the north.  Being of African descent, your doubly hosed as some chunk of the population was actively hostile to such back then.

For all we know, the original time travel experiment sent dude back, and one got beaten to death for being an escaped slave who lied about where he come from.  Another got his head chopped off for heresy and lies about the queen.  A third died from velociraptor evisceration.

As such because no word was heard back from the subjects, the project at MIT was scuttled in 2048 and the whole concept of time travel was poohpoohed as anti-Einsteinian conspiracy theory.

Meanwhile, popularity of blue Police Callboxes continues rise.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 10, 2013)

Hey, I'm just sticking to the original 100 year jump as originally proposed- "escape" being a relative term- because any further back and, well...it would simply suck to be a literate black in the southern USA outside of New Orleans.  (It would still suck there, too, but not nearly as much.)

Yes, I know that many writers failed to make a penny, but they weren't operating with a knowledge of what actually sold...as well as what kind of technology was to come.  Ditto events.  While I can't claim to be able to write the classic pulp/Sci-Fi/fantasy/horror stories of 1913+ from memory, I _do _have the advantage of knowing general plotlines, as well as which periodicals were hungriest for that kind of material.

I think I'd start off with a bit of Asimov ("Nightfall"), utter time-theft of Leiber's Fafhrd & Grey Mouser stories, pre-invent the Eternal Champion, majorly steal from Gibson's _Difference Engine_, give the world a dose of Superman, and maybe a cautionary tale about a _Second_ World War.

Which I'd follow up with some Christian allegories centered around children who find a fantasy realm and maybe a story about a quest centered on a powerful piece of jewelry...

I don't have to precreate the classics, just write good stories using...errhem...pioneering their tropes.


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## Nellisir (Dec 10, 2013)

Quartz said:


> I can read and write and am numerate, and I remember my Latin and a smattering of Greek so I'd be pretty good 1000 years ago as long as I'm in Western Europe.



And can get to a priest who understands Latin.


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## Zombie_Babies (Dec 10, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I think I'd start off with a bit of Asimov ("Nightfall"), utter time-theft of Leiber's Fafhrd & Grey Mouser stories, pre-invent the Eternal Champion, majorly steal from Gibson's _Difference Engine_, give the world a dose of Superman, *and maybe a cautionary tale about a Second World War*.




Slaughterhouse 5 would be an awesome warning.  And, well, Vonnegut is still the best sci-fi author I've ever read so he'd be pretty good to, er, take 'inspiration' from.


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## PigKnight (Dec 10, 2013)

Bullgrit said:


> Three part post --
> 
> Part the first:
> The concept of a modern-day person seeming like a "wizard" when thrown back in time is a bit of a trope in fiction. But what would really happen?



Dying in a ditch. With a lack of familial ties in alot of time periods and places would make you screwed.



> Say you were thrown back in time, at least 100 years, would your modern skills and knowledge be helpful to you? Would you thrive in such a scenario? Or are your modern skills and knowledge pretty much a waste in a time before electronic technology? How about 1,000 years?



100 years I'd be fine. 1000 years becomes tricky.

[/quote]Part the second:
Say you were going to travel to the future, (suspended animation, a time machine, whatever mechanic you want), how far into the future would you have to go to reach something "futuristic," something truly alien to what you live in now? [/quote]
I have the feeling stuff wouldn't ever be truely alien to me. The future does not interest me.



> Part the third:
> If you were going to reach back in time and yank someone, (at least of average or better intelligence, and middle aged), forward to this day and age, how far back-to-forward would you have to bring someone to have them completely out of their world? Would someone from 1913 (100 years ago) be able to come "up to speed" with our world today? How about someone from 1813?
> 
> Bullgrit



I think people can learn to adapt. If anything it'd beeasier for them to adapt than for someone being thrown into the past. Also, any 1813 Brit could easily pass as being from the USA or Canada.


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## Morrus (Dec 10, 2013)

I can't help wondering that 'discovering' laws of physics too early would just get you branded a madman or worse. 

It's all very well knowing this stuff, but it's still going to be hard to get anyone to listen to you.  You can't make a website.

I suppose you could demonstarte some simple experiments like a street magician, and just start working your way up the chain.


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## PigKnight (Dec 10, 2013)

Morrus said:


> I can't help wondering that 'discovering' laws of physics too early would just get you branded a madman or worse.
> 
> It's all very well knowing this stuff, but it's still going to be hard to get anyone to listen to you.  You can't make a website.
> 
> I suppose you could demonstarte some simple experiments like a street magician, and just start working your way up the chain.



Basic physics would probably be accepted among the high classes; it's the impractical stuff like dark energy, atoms, theory of relativity that requires advanced techniques and tools to show that would get you labelled as eccentric.

History is not nearly as "burn the witch" as people think it is.


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## Umbran (Dec 10, 2013)

Morrus said:


> I can't help wondering that 'discovering' laws of physics too early would just get you branded a madman or worse.
> 
> It's all very well knowing this stuff, but it's still going to be hard to get anyone to listen to you.  You can't make a website.




What, you think scientific discourse is new to the internet era, or something?  Before the internet, there were print journals.  The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society is an academic journal dating back to the 17th century.  Those who didn't go in for journals went for books - like Newton's _Principia Mathematica_.

How do you afford to publish, in ages before those in which you can just get a teaching job?  Go find and impress a noble patron!  Magicians (and later scientists) have always been showpieces for nobility.  At the time, they got social credit for their patronage, and the showpiece got money to do their work.


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## Morrus (Dec 10, 2013)

Umbran said:


> What, you think scientific discourse is new to the internet era, or something?  Before the internet, there were print journals.  The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society is an academic journal dating back to the 17th century.  Those who didn't go in for journals went for books - like Newton's _Principia Mathematica_.
> 
> How do you afford to publish, in ages before those in which you can just get a teaching job?  Go find and impress a noble patron!  Magicians (and later scientists) have always been showpieces for nobility.  At the time, they got social credit for their patronage, and the showpiece got money to do their work.




Oh, I agree.  I just wonder how easy the "go find and impress a noble patron" stage of the process is! Would they even take your (metaphorical) calls?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 10, 2013)

Actually, given my high blood pressure and the dietary options of the underclasses in 1913, I'd probably die of a heart attack after 5-10 years.


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## Janx (Dec 11, 2013)

Morrus said:


> I can't help wondering that 'discovering' laws of physics too early would just get you branded a madman or worse.
> 
> It's all very well knowing this stuff, but it's still going to be hard to get anyone to listen to you.  You can't make a website.
> 
> I suppose you could demonstarte some simple experiments like a street magician, and just start working your way up the chain.




Having watched the Tudors, and pondered the whole "what if I time traveled back to then" concept, I'd have key concerns that you raise.

They were killing people for disagreeing whether the sacramental wine turns into Jesus blood or is merely symbolic when you drink it.

Start contradicting the Church on the Earth being the center of the universe, etc and yer gonna have problems.  Physics is how they predicted where planets would be discovered.  Once you go down that mathematical trail, heresy is soon to follow.

While I get Umbran's point that there were vectors for getting your work distributed, like scientific journals.  However, Morrus has a valid concern.  Just because Danny and Umbran want to publish their work, doesn't mean getting it to happen is simple, especially for a time traveller who is basically a total stranger to the entire world.

With zero social connections, and a number of cultural knowledge gaps, unless your TARDIS pops right next to a dude under an apple tree, it may be incredibly hard to get to the right people without the right introductions, especially because higher society seemed to work by direct connection or letter of introduction.


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## PigKnight (Dec 11, 2013)

Morrus said:


> Oh, I agree.  I just wonder how easy the "go find and impress a noble patron" stage of the process is! Would they even take your (metaphorical) calls?



It actually wouldn't be that hard. Having a house scientist or philosopher was pretty common back then.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 11, 2013)

> While I get Umbran's point that there were vectors for getting your work distributed, like scientific journals. However, Morrus has a valid concern. Just because Danny and Umbran want to publish their work, doesn't mean getting it to happen is simple, especially for a time traveller who is basically a total stranger to the entire world.




In some ways, I have an advantage over Umbran, in some ways he has an advantage.

In his favor, he is going to be working with provable facts, with the power of math & science behind them.  As long as what he seeks to publish is supported by reasonable thought experiments, and/or testable with the technology of the day, he has an advantage.  However, he'd have no credentials, so he would have a tough time getting the right people to listen to him, much less getting his stuff published in a peer reviewed journal.

In my favor is that the standards of publication are so much more relaxed in the venues I'd be submitting my work to.  However, I would have more competition, and my work would be judged on more subjective grounds.


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## Man in the Funny Hat (Dec 11, 2013)

> Say you were thrown back in time, at least 100 years, would your modern skills and knowledge be helpful to you? Would you thrive in such a scenario? Or are your modern skills and knowledge pretty much a waste in a time before electronic technology? How about 1,000 years?



Exactly how far back in time and exactly where on the globe one comes in for a landing would have rather a significant impact.  If it's just 100 years ago but I show up in the middle of Greenland I'm not lasting any longer than if I show up there tomorrow and have to survive.  I MIGHT do better getting myself out of the Amazon or the Gobi - but then I'm still stuck somewhere that I don't speak the language.

Assuming I can at least choose to land somewhere "civilized" - which for me is gonna mean someplace decidedly English-speaking then even in 1913 I think I might carve out a fair existence.  Get a job in a shop somewhere and start trying to make some money as an author - whether of SF or social commentary or both.  But I'm sure it would not take long to convince myself that playing Kerbal Space Program and pointing VSAT satellite equipment for a living will NEVER translate into much of an opportunity beyond that.  I'd probably tell stories about a schlub who plays Kerbal Space Program and assembles things called satellite dishes, and let Heinlien and Asimov as well as Lucas and Speilberg keep their own tales unless that fails.  Maybe try and go BACK to school and actually get somewhere.  After all, I can at least grasp the concepts of atoms and relativity despite their not having been known to science yet.

Now, there is the notion that although I don't know much about WWI (which is just over the horizon) I do know a fair bit about WWII which is just 26 short years away.  If I wanted to try to CHANGE history I have some time to think about how and when to do that.  And THAT would make a few decades of working as a shopkeeper worth the wait.  Or maybe get into the auto industry or aircraft industries right as they start...

If it's 1000 years?  Lessee, that's 1013.  What the hell is going on in the year 1013?  It's over 50 years yet before the freaking battle of Hastings!  520 years before bleedin' COLUMBUS sets sail.  We're talkin Middle Ages here still.  That's gonna suck just about anywhere.  Not much that I know is gonna make much impression on anyone.  It's more a matter of knowing what I want NOT to do.  I might try to invent a telescope a good 600-700 years early, followed by a microscope.  If nothing else that ought to make me somewhat worthy of being deemed smart enough to keep around as a pet.  Maybe put quill to a few pages of parchment with some ideas about... indoor plumbing, political theory (gotta be careful with that one), economics, medicine, etc.  I don't know if I could make gunpowder NOW if I had the recipe and ingredients in front of me but a few years of alchemy ought to produce some good results.  Follow that up with a touch of metallurgy and I'll be running the planet, right?

More likely that I'll die early like everyone else of disease, injury, or simply work.



> Part the second:
> Say you were going to travel to the future, (suspended animation, a time machine, whatever mechanic you want), how far into the future would you have to go to reach something "futuristic," something truly alien to what you live in now?



Change is accellerating.  Things are rather different today than they were even 20 or 30 years ago.  I'd say maybe 10 years.  Possibly 20 and things will be remarkably changed in ways both good and bad.  For something truly ALIEN?  50 ought to be more than plenty.



> Part the third:
> If you were going to reach back in time and yank someone, (at least of average or better intelligence, and middle aged), forward to this day and age, how far back-to-forward would you have to bring someone to have them completely out of their world? Would someone from 1913 (100 years ago) be able to come "up to speed" with our world today? How about someone from 1813?



Depends on the person of course, but 1913 would adapt fairly well.  Having already seen the uses of electricity and the automobile would help as a foundation of knowledge to build off of.  1813 would be more of a shock as that'd be the later part of the Industrial Revolution and simply coming to grips with a steam engine might help, but electricity being still just a lot of science theory and no practical application would be harder to grok.  I'd say that if you go back before practical steam engine applications then time matters less and less - they'll be as flummoxed if they're from 1713 as 1013.  Then it'll be more a matter of their individual ability to learn to seperate religion and superstition from practical scientific reality.


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## Scott DeWar (Dec 11, 2013)

Dioltach said:


> Re your first question: Dara O'Briain on technology: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ0T6E2j3Lo&desktop_uri=/watch?v=yJ0T6E2j3Lo.






Bullgrit said:


> Dioltach, that's a hilarious video. Thanks for linking it. (I can't give you xp now.)
> 
> Bullgrit




"Its, uh connected to the wall .. . . . " I am an electrician, If I were to try and explain it I would be burned at the stake as a heretic. heh.

Also, [MENTION=31216]Bullgrit[/MENTION], I gave him an xp for ya.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Dec 11, 2013)

I'd rather move forwards in time and hope that there will be equally good or better social welfare options than there are now. Maybe I can catch up.

If humanity is regressed technologically and culturally, well, than I am out of luck. 

I don't really want to go back in time. I don't think my half-remembered physic lessons or my experiene as software developer will be of any use.


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## WayneLigon (Dec 11, 2013)

Bullgrit said:


> Part the first:
> The concept of a modern-day person seeming like a "wizard" when thrown back in time is a bit of a trope in fiction. But what would really happen?
> Say you were thrown back in time, at least 100 years, would your modern skills and knowledge be helpful to you? Would you thrive in such a scenario? Or are your modern skills and knowledge pretty much a waste in a time before electronic technology? How about 1,000 years?




'Thrown back' seems to imply something that happens suddenly and without consent. In that case, I'm likely screwed without a substantial bit of luck. If I emerge in 1913, I'm basically unskilled labor, excepting the ability to read and write at the post-grad level. I know _about _a lot of stuff but I have few practical skills. Sure, I know the basics of Relativity and a bunch of other stuff but I don't have the mathematical underpinning to actually put it to use or prove what I 'know'. At best, I might get a publisher interested in pulp stories or something and only in my dotage would I be hailed by geeks around the world as the 'guy who really predicted everything we know'. 

Given, say, a year of prep time, though? Or the ability to carry even modest amount of cargo other than my skin and bones? If luck broke my way and I didn't die from a primitive doctor fooling around in my insides, I'd have a level of wealth that would beggar the imagination and the power that such a thing brings. 

1,000 years in the past? Dead within hours, most likely.



Bullgrit said:


> Part the second:
> Say you were going to travel to the future, (suspended animation, a time machine, whatever mechanic you want), how far into the future would you have to go to reach something "futuristic," something truly alien to what you live in now?




If the promise of the biological revolution pays off, about 150-200 years. Even if not, in 200 years our culture might well be something unrecognizable. 



Bullgrit said:


> Part the third:
> If you were going to reach back in time and yank someone, (at least of average or better intelligence, and middle aged), forward to this day and age, how far back-to-forward would you have to bring someone to have them completely out of their world? Would someone from 1913 (100 years ago) be able to come "up to speed" with our world today? How about someone from 1813?




I think anyone reasonably intelligent and intellectually flexible could come up to speed within a year or so and be able to do pretty much anything a modern human can do, language barriers aside. Take a kid from the Ice Age and plop him down here, inside of a year he'll be fussing about his iPod and showing girls the cool scar from when a sabertoothed cat almost got him.


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## ghostcat (Dec 11, 2013)

As far as going into the past is concerned, what no-one has mentioned is that most 1st world residents have some familiarity with how the human body works. Probably not much good 100 years ago but anything over say 250 years and you should be able to survive  as a doctor.  Provided, of course, you don't got burnt as a heretic or are blamed when someone dies who would have died without your intervention


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## Nellisir (Dec 11, 2013)

So thinking about this a bit...a hundred years ago, (December 1913)

women could not vote in the US
Woodrow Wilson was president
Russia was a monarchy (but not much longer!)
The Woolworth Building in NYC is the tallest in the world (the confluence of the safety elevator, 60 years old in 1913, and steel frame construction results in skyscrapers shoot up all across the US)
Mexico was having revolutions
The Mideast is still the Ottoman Empire
Ford introduces the moving assembly line
You can drive coast to coast on the Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental "improved highway" for automobiles
Traffic signs have not been standardized (or, in some cases, invented).

Fun fact: penicillin wasn't mass produced until the mid-1940's!  Honestly, I thought it was much earlier than that.

Medically, most of us are probably relatively safe from disease in 1913, since we'll still be vaccinated and since we are "downstream" of events like the spanish flu pandemic of 1918, and so have a greater chance of having had some exposure to a related virus (additionally, the H1N1 antivirus from 2009 apparently confers some resistance to Spanish Flu, which is also a H1N1 virus.)

I wonder if our best niche in the past would be as "efficiency experts" or consultants of some kind.  I don't need to know how to build a moving assembly line to explain the concept to someone. There are probably a lot of things that we're not aware of that we benefit from every day that are system improvements, rather than feats of engineering or chemistry.


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## Dioltach (Dec 11, 2013)

Here's a chilling thought for anyone in Europe: in 1913 World War I was only a year away. Not something you'd want to be caught up in, even indirectly.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 11, 2013)

Heh...it just occurred to me I could also ply my trade as a guitarist/singer.

I _would_ have to change the lyrics to "Smoke on the Water" a bit, though...


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## tomBitonti (Dec 11, 2013)

Don't think this would work out very well ...

Just about everywhere, you would be immediately noticed as a foreigner.  If you are lucky, you will find a nearby community of similar folks.  Lots of segregation by ethnicity.  If you are very lucky and your ethnicity is of the current ruling class, you might win big.

A lot of folks will present themselves with a lot more deportment and good looks than might be common.  Nowadays, there are a lot fewer folks with pox marks and the like.  You might get snatched up to a brothel or taken as a concubine, or worse, immediately set upon (I'll spare folks details of what would ensue ...)

Knowing how to read and write could be a big plus ... if your language matched the society where you landed.  In a lot of places you could probably teach letters.  Although, your lack of knowledge of social customs would hold you back.  Your knowledge of hygiene and nutrition would help to keep you safe, as long as you were in a position to put the knowledge in use: If you are in prison, you would probably have to make do with what you are given.

In a lot of places, folks would immediately dismiss you as an out-of-place foreigner, and jail you or push you into a foreigner's enclave.  Lack of papers would likely be a big problem, and would get you jailed.  From there, seems that you would have to get lucky or be incarcerated indefinitely, and consigned to labor for the rest of your miserable existence.  In a lot of other places, your failure to respect your social betters would get you in trouble.  Simply looking at folks directly is going to get you roughed up.  Failure to answer questions with a proper honorifics will just turn a bad situation worse.

You might be in rather big trouble as a disease vector.  You might be a carrier of a lot of diseases which don't exist yet.  And, at the same time, you would probably be susceptible to a lot of what is carried in the food and water, to which you have no tolerance.

Folks with advanced knowledge might have an edge -- if they can get an audience.  Problem here is that without credentials most won't give you any time, and even those of the day who presented what turned out to be true ideas had a long time to get their ideas accepted. (As a kind of example, consider Ramanujan in England.)

Thx!

TomB


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## tomBitonti (Dec 11, 2013)

On the other hand ... things might work out better.

What would really matter is what folks you encountered first.  There are plenty of charitable folks would would provide assistance, if they thought you had a "higher" upbringing, and were needing help.

Being clean and mannerly, and having a good complexion and no flaws of the sort brought about by malnutrition, would probably give you a leg up.  Being attentive and having a good work ethic would help considerably.

Explaining your background would be a problem.  Virtually no explanation would work.  Hopefully, one of your benefactors would be able to provide a convincing cover story.

From there, what would matter is how well you handled yourself and negotiated the intricate society around you.

Thx!

TomB


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## tomBitonti (Dec 11, 2013)

To say ...

Folks with an academic background might have a rough time.  Assuming placement in a western society, knowledge of several languages (Latin, Greek, French, German; whatever was in use in your field at the time) would be necessary. A lack of knowledge of the state of the field at the time could be a huge problem.  In an area such as physics or mathematics, there could be issues of the style of presentation and notation.  A very good depth in the field, and having surveyed a lot of older writings, seems necessary to make headway.

For engineering (including chemical engineering), knowing a few specific processes unknown at the time might be a big plus.  On the other hand, the current practices might be quite different than modern practices, and differences in the available materials and tools could be a big problem.

Thx!

TomB


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## Umbran (Dec 11, 2013)

tomBitonti said:


> Folks with an academic background might have a rough time.  Assuming placement in a western society, knowledge of several languages (Latin, Greek, French, German; whatever was in use in your field at the time) would be necessary.




Depends on the when and where, and how far back you're going.  Certainly, if you go back 1000 years, nobody's even speaking what you'd recognize as English, much less have that language be commonly used.

Closer to now, if you are in the British Colonies, you don't need to know many languages.  If you're in Britain, knowing several would be nice, but isn't so much required.  If you land on the Continent, then you have an issue.  But then, we haven't stipulated - you could be in Feudal Japan, and then Greek and Latin won't mean diddly.



> In an area such as physics or mathematics, there could be issues of the style of presentation and notation.




Standardized notation in mathematics is fairly new - it didn't exist in Newton's time, for example.  And, for much of what I mentioned, the concepts came along with brand-new notation anyway, so no big deal.


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## tomBitonti (Dec 11, 2013)

Umbran said:


> Depends on the when and where, and how far back you're going.  Certainly, if you go back 1000 years, nobody's even speaking what you'd recognize as English, much less have that language be commonly used.
> 
> Closer to now, if you are in the British Colonies, you don't need to know many languages.  If you're in Britain, knowing several would be nice, but isn't so much required.  If you land on the Continent, then you have an issue.  But then, we haven't stipulated - you could be in Feudal Japan, and then Greek and Latin won't mean diddly.
> 
> Standardized notation in mathematics is fairly new - it didn't exist in Newton's time, for example.  And, for much of what I mentioned, the concepts came along with brand-new notation anyway, so no big deal.




Yeah.  Have no idea outside of the west.  I suppose if you end up in India or China there will be a few languages of note, e.g., Cantonese vs. Mandarin vs. a local dialect, which would be associated with a social class / background.

For intellectual stuff in the west, up until not too long ago, I though knowing Greek and Latin was more or less assumed.  That was considered a foundation for a university education.  For specialized subjects (say, Mathematics at the beginning of the 20'th century), I would expect knowledge of German and French would be a must.

For mathematics and physics, again, around the turn of the century, there were a couple of standard conventions?  E.g., the Einstein summation convention (which rather irked one of my professors).  I would expect some more modern notations to be unknown to the time.

Thx!

TomB


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## Zombie_Babies (Dec 11, 2013)

Nellisir said:


> So thinking about this a bit...a hundred years ago, (December 1913)
> 
> women could not vote in the US
> Woodrow Wilson was president
> ...




Hmm ... sort of a Six Sigma deal.  That may work.



Dioltach said:


> Here's a chilling thought for anyone in Europe: in 1913 World War I was only a year away. Not something you'd want to be caught up in, even indirectly.




I'm 35.  The draft don't scare me none.  Oh, and I wouldn't be on file anyway.


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## Umbran (Dec 12, 2013)

Zombie_Babies said:


> I'm 35.  The draft don't scare me none.  Oh, and I wouldn't be on file anyway.




Neither would have saved you in WWI.  This was before Social Security numbers, remember, so they didn't have anyone "on file".  They held several rounds of registration for the draft for the War, eventually covering men from age 18 to 45.


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## Zombie_Babies (Dec 12, 2013)

Umbran said:


> Neither would have saved you in WWI.  This was before Social Security numbers, remember, so they didn't have anyone "on file".  They held several rounds of registration for the draft for the War, eventually covering men from age 18 to 45.




My eyes likely would have.  Always have a backup.


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## sabrinathecat (Dec 12, 2013)

I'd be burned at the stake as a blasphemer, heretic, atheist, and several other crimes.


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## Nellisir (Dec 12, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> I'd be burned at the stake as a blasphemer, heretic, atheist, and several other crimes.



I'm not sure that was such a big thing in 1013. A few hundred years later, absolutely. In 1013 Christianity was still gaining a foothold in parts of northern Europe, but otherwise the Roman Catholic Church was pretty monolithic, and without an opponent, not so much zealotry. The Reformation was several centuries away. Even the first Crusade is about eighty years in the future.


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## sabrinathecat (Dec 13, 2013)

Nellisir said:


> I'm not sure that was such a big thing in 1013. A few hundred years later, absolutely. In 1013 Christianity was still gaining a foothold in parts of northern Europe, but otherwise the Roman Catholic Church was pretty monolithic, and without an opponent, not so much zealotry. The Reformation was several centuries away. Even the first Crusade is about eighty years in the future.




There may not have been an enormous organized purge, but anyone giving voice to ideas in the wrong area would be "in trouble" to put it mildly.
One version of the "Saint" Patrick legend is that the  way Ireland was christianized was by killing all the Bards and Druids (so not only were the rituals lost, but so were their songs).  Thus driving out the snakes. And that was 4th century.
Cromwell had the witch-finder general in the 1800s.
And then there's arriving in a non-christian area, which could be even worse.

No, my drafting skills might come into play anywhere after the industrial revolution, but that's about it. Otherwise, I'm back to swinging a sword (assuming I'm allowed to carry one in that culture).


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## Nellisir (Dec 13, 2013)

sabrinathecat said:


> Cromwell had the witch-finder general in the 1800s.



If you mean Oliver Cromwell, that was the 1600's. The Counter-Reformation was in full swing as Rome retaliated against the Protestants who had broken away. Six hundred years after 1013. George III was monarch in 1800.

"...the peak of the witch hunt was during the period of the European wars of religion, peaking between about 1580 and 1630. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_trials_in_Early_Modern_Europe


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## trappedslider (Dec 13, 2013)

Bullgrit said:


> Three part post --
> 
> Part the first:
> The concept of a modern-day person seeming like a "wizard" when thrown back in time is a bit of a trope in fiction. But what would really happen?
> ...




I wouldn't last very long without my asthma meds..but if i were bale to plan for the trip then i'd want this shirt to be with me : http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=QW-CHEATSHEET&Category_Code=QW


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## sabrinathecat (Dec 13, 2013)

Nellisir said:


> If you mean Oliver Cromwell, that was the 1600's. The Counter-Reformation was in full swing as Rome retaliated against the Protestants who had broken away. Six hundred years after 1013. George III was monarch in 1800.
> 
> "...the peak of the witch hunt was during the period of the European wars of religion, peaking between about 1580 and 1630. "
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_trials_in_Early_Modern_Europe




stupid keyboard... rushed typing...


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 13, 2013)

trappedslider said:


> I wouldn't last very long without my asthma meds..but if i were bale to plan for the trip then i'd want this shirt to be with me : http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=QW-CHEATSHEET&Category_Code=QW




That is a good shirt...


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