Would time travellers have made history better?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Peter

Member
Time travel doesn't even seem to add up in fiction so I'm having a hard time seeing how it would work in the real world. Too many paradoxes. If it could happen I'm afraid history would become overcrowded with time travellers. The easiest way to change history is probably to rewrite the history books.
 

Genesis

Administrator
Staff member
Peter said:
Time travel doesn't even seem to add up in fiction so I'm having a hard time seeing how it would work in the real world. Too many paradoxes. If it could happen I'm afraid history would become overcrowded with time travellers. The easiest way to change history is probably to rewrite the history books.

Well, to play Devil's advocate, flying from South Africa to Vancouver, Canada entails 10 time zones. 10 hours different. And when one gets there, one experiences a different reality from the one where one had been 10 hours before. The feeling about Canada is different in South Africa, than actually being there in the flesh. When one is awake and the day has ended in South Africa, the same day only starts in Canada with a different reality in South Africa. So basically when one travels to North America from Africa, one is time traveling in reverse, and the other way round one is traveling into the future.

So I'd imagine with Pearl Harbour during WWII, if there hadn't been the time zone difference between Washington DC and Tokyo, whether it would have changed the course of history, in that those who already knew something bad was happening could've gotten that info across faster. I also wonder how the time difference could have created a delay in the US response to the attacks on other US fleets like Phillipines, Guam and Wake Island and on Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
 

Peter

Member
Yeah, and I save power when heating water by measuring the temperature in Fahrenheit instead of Celsius. :p
 

Genesis

Administrator
Staff member
Peter said:
Yeah, and I save power when heating water by measuring the temperature in Fahrenheit instead of Celsius. :p

That's a good one! Haven't thought of it before. :p

But seriously. Those who travel back and forth over more than 8 time zones I'm sure will feel the same way. Like I prepare for one reality in Canada in South Africa using all of the resources I have with Internet searches and speaking to people, and when I get there it's totally different. Must have been worse around WWII. They didn't have the tools we have today, and it took them much longer to travel from A to B and the other way round. Communications were also sent in memoranda and reports in private bags. Phone calls were a big deal.
 

Yozora

Moderator
Genesis said:
Peter said:
Time travel doesn't even seem to add up in fiction so I'm having a hard time seeing how it would work in the real world. Too many paradoxes. If it could happen I'm afraid history would become overcrowded with time travellers. The easiest way to change history is probably to rewrite the history books.

Well, to play Devil's advocate, flying from South Africa to Vancouver, Canada entails 10 time zones. 10 hours different. And when one gets there, one experiences a different reality from the one where one had been 10 hours before. The feeling about Canada is different in South Africa, than actually being there in the flesh. When one is awake and the day has ended in South Africa, the same day only starts in Canada with a different reality in South Africa. So basically when one travels to North America from Africa, one is time traveling in reverse, and the other way round one is traveling into the future.

So I'd imagine with Pearl Harbour during WWII, if there hadn't been the time zone difference between Washington DC and Tokyo, whether it would have changed the course of history, in that those who already knew something bad was happening could've gotten that info across faster. I also wonder how the time difference could have created a delay in the US response to the attacks on other US fleets like Phillipines, Guam and Wake Island and on Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

Reading this made me wonder why time travelers in stories never get something like jet lag...When I went from the Eastern US to Japan, I was basically traveling a day ahead, time-zone-wise, and the jet lag was surreal.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.