If you had a time machine....

[Molch]

....which earth age/ time period would you want to visit?

My new favorite book is a large coffee-table tome on major fossils of Earth's bygone periods. It has great pics of awesome fossils next to reconstructions of organisms and landscapes. It's a huge thing, big and heavy enough to use as a murder weapon. It spends a lot of time on some of the less glamorous, but nevertheless fascinating fossils such as plants and invertebrates - although the dinos and mammoths and other classics get their time too. It's called "Prehistoric Life: the definite visual history of life on earth" by DK publishing. It's on amazon for 26 bucks:
Amazon.com: Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth (9780756655730): DK Publishing: Books



If I had a time machine, I'd want to see it all - but the very first trip would be to the tall fern and horsetail forest swamps of the carboniferous age. CO2 levels back then were many times higher than today; the earth was a warm and fuzzy hothouse, Oxygen levels were also higher, allowing insects to reach enormous sizes. Id paddle my kayak through the swamp jungles and watch fat 10-foot newts wallaw in the shallows like hippos and dragonflies with 2-foot wingspans buzz around my head.

Where would you go?

 

[xxianxx]

Dont forget a big can of bug spray, mossies the size of hedgehogs would be tiresome.

 

[Molch]

Dont forget a big can of bug spray, mossies the size of hedgehogs would be tiresome.

well, I'm quite immune to mozzies thanks to several years on the Arctic tundra

 

[daedae]

I'd love to join you, I'd bring an extra paddle to double as a flyswatter. Can you imagine the tadpoles :O

 

[xxianxx]

well, I'm quite immune to mozzies thanks to several years on the Arctic tundra

LOL, yes i have read your post about achieving a zen like state whilst being surrounded by swarms of those little blood sucking pests, however super sized mossies may be slightly more challenging.

 

[wrage]

i know this is kind of boring but i think it would be pretty cool to meet my parents or grandparents when they were young(early 20s) and get to know them as people...

 

[will_j]

I would go back to Europe just before humans colonised it just to see some of the amazing biodiversity that's been lost since then.

 

[Italicus]

considering the fact that time travelling would be possible only in one direction, i would go to the future, (hoping we still have one). better technologies, better lifestyle, better everything. if it would be possible going in the past, definitely ancient greece, simple life, great natural lifestyle, clean air, pure water, and almost uncontaminated landscape. plus i could teach Euclid and Archimedes their own geometry, that would be fun

 

[Linus]

This thread pleases me. Continue.

 

[Azhael]

Definitely carboniferous period first, to check those labyrinthodonts. If more than one time were possible, i would then go to the early cretacious to see the origin of the first flying maniraptorans. Argh...i shouldn´t even think about it....knowing that i will never get to see that but still long for it is unimaginably cruel.

 

[emz]

I like these off topic threads.
I have always had a fascination with dinosaurs so i would also go to the cretaceous period but the middle cretaceous so i could witness in person the sheer size of an argentinosaurus walking across in front of me.
As long as i could get out of there before something eats me.

 

[Jan]

Hmmm, my fascination would be with the 31st century, 1000 years from now. What would be our knowledge, our life and our world....perhaps even new worlds. I would rather see where we will be vs. see from where we've come.

 

[Molch]

as for the future, I would like to see the world long after humans have disappeared; say, in 1 million or 5 million or 50 million years from now. Who knows what critters are in charge then? Which taxa will experience an evolutionary bloom, and which ones will have fizzled out? Maybe it'll be another Age of Newts.

I'm a cynic, but I always imagine the world most beautiful without humans in it.

 

[Italicus]

as much as i am a lover of dinosaurs (i grow up watching Jurassic park), i would visit it for few hours but not living in that period, that is not a world where humans can live. instead i still consider as the ancient greece as the golden age for human. let's think about it, no smog, humans have not destroyed the environment, and the religion teach us to have respect of nature, instead of considering humans better than eat. if you are not scared about working you can have a simple life enjoying the product of your work and live a happy life with your family. of course you need to consider a shorter lifespan and medical treatment will not be as efficient as today, but i would still go.

 

[Italicus]

by the way, i am sorry of destroying your time travelling dreams, but if we consider one of the basic laws of physics, the one that says " energy is not created and cannot be destroyed" (sorry guys but i study business and it is quite complicated to translate physics concept and laws in another language without the appropriate vocabulary), we cannot travel in the past but only in the future. the reason is: if i move in tha past, i will bring with me energy in the past, that means that in the universe there will be new energy that is impossible, while when i move in the future we don't have this problem. in the end, we can go in the future, but we cannot go back to our time, being basically stuck in the future.of course until the time someone figure out time travelling this will just be theories, but i honestly consider this one quite realistic

 

[Molch]

by the way, i am sorry of destroying your time travelling dreams, but if we consider one of the basic laws of physics, the one that says " energy is not created and cannot be destroyed" (sorry guys but i study business and it is quite complicated to translate physics concept and laws in another language without the appropriate vocabulary), we cannot travel in the past but only in the future. the reason is: if i move in tha past, i will bring with me energy in the past, that means that in the universe there will be new energy that is impossible, while when i move in the future we don't have this problem. in the end, we can go in the future, but we cannot go back to our time, being basically stuck in the future.of course until the time someone figure out time travelling this will just be theories, but i honestly consider this one quite realistic

sure, sure - but I've never let reality interfere with my travel plans.

 

[michael]

I think I would give my teenage self a sports trivia magazine and have myself bet on events I would know the outcome of. I could take the money I made and fly anywhere in the world and see anything I wanted to with that money. Of course this displaced energy might divert the space time continuum and I could wind up shoveling sh-t in Louisiana.

 

[daedae]

I think I would give my teenage self a sports trivia magazine and have myself bet on events I would know the outcome of. I could take the money I made and fly anywhere in the world and see anything I wanted to with that money. Of course this displaced energy might divert the space time continuum and I could wind up shoveling sh-t in Louisiana.

Hey! It could be worse! What if it landed you in Texas!

 

[allegoriest]

Hey! It could be worse! What if it landed you in Texas!

Hey, it COULD have landed you in New Mexico.



...I'd probably only go like, a hundred years back and leave all, man, it's hot, I miss a/c.

 

[Traxolotl]

idk but this got me thinking about black holes, since they literally bend time, space, light, matter, everything into it... where it go? and since they exist are there white holes that release that stuff? As for where i would go i for sure am not going to a place where i could get carried off by a 50 foot mosquito. No place where i would meet people i know that were young then cause ive seen the photos that some scary stuff so i think i would go to the future and get a suit that does everything for you and makes u immortal then go back in time and steal a giant newt egg then come back to our time and beat up science... or go back and buy a burrito and see if they are better than they are now.