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Sending a book back in time
#1
Sending a book back in time
Ok, here is the scenario...

A small time machine has been created that has the ability to send something about the size of a book back in time. You can only send one book and it will be translated into any language you want so that the people of the time you're sending it to can read it.

The time machine was very difficult and time consuming to make and can only be used once.

What book would you send back in time and what time period would you want it to be sent to ?


For me - There is a "How things work" book that contains loads of information broken down to explain things on a child like level of how a windmill works, how a paddle wheel functions, using glass in tubes to see further, how gears work, etc.

I would send this book back to a time when humans first began to read and write.
Mesopotamia about 3400 BC

It would be interesting to see the impact of being given useful information before it was naturally discovered.

I'm sure I could think of a better book, but this one is the first one that came to mind.

What book would you send back ?
Insanity - Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result
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#2
RE: Sending a book back in time
A portable nuke.

Jerusalem, 2100 BCE or possibly back to wherever Mohammed was from...



Oh, book?

A something along the lines you suggest.

Or Lord of the Rings.

Who knows, we might replace the Abrahamic religions with a Hobbitses one.
Dying to live, living to die.
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#3
RE: Sending a book back in time
A Brief History Of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell.
https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Brief...0307291170
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#4
RE: Sending a book back in time
Its a paradox. But for shits and giggles I'd send harry potter.
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#5
RE: Sending a book back in time
(November 5, 2019 at 2:08 pm)LastPoet Wrote: Its a paradox. But for shits and giggles I'd send harry potter.

Scare the shit out of them by sending Deathly Hallows.
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#6
RE: Sending a book back in time
(November 5, 2019 at 1:54 pm)The Valkyrie Wrote: A portable nuke.

Jerusalem, 2100 BCE or possibly back to wherever Mohammed was from...



Oh, book?

A something along the lines you suggest.

Or Lord of the Rings.

Who knows, we might replace the Abrahamic religions with a Hobbitses one.

Lets say you travelled back in time, to kill me as a baby, bbq and all. That would prevent you from travelling back in time to kill me in the first place. p -> q AND ~q

Going back in time is one of those things that we muse about. I wouldn't change anything in my life, hardships aside, it has been rewarding.
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#7
RE: Sending a book back in time
A how to book sounds like the smartest answer. Tell people how to make simple machines, or cure illnesses, or hatever other simple things that every grade schooler knows today, but would have been beyond adult understanding thousands of years ago.
Poe's Law: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."

10 Christ-like figures that predate Jesus. Link shortened to Chris ate Jesus for some reason...
http://listverse.com/2009/04/13/10-chris...ate-jesus/

Good video to watch, if you want to know how common the Jesus story really is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88GTUXvp-50

A list of biblical contradictions from the infallible word of Yahweh.
http://infidels.org/library/modern/jim_m...tions.html

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#8
RE: Sending a book back in time
(November 5, 2019 at 2:56 pm)LastPoet Wrote:
(November 5, 2019 at 1:54 pm)The Valkyrie Wrote: A portable nuke.

Jerusalem, 2100 BCE or possibly back to wherever Mohammed was from...



Oh, book?

A something along the lines you suggest.

Or Lord of the Rings.

Who knows, we might replace the Abrahamic religions with a Hobbitses one.

Lets say you travelled back in time, to kill me as a baby, bbq and all. That would prevent you from travelling back in time to kill me in the first place. p -> q AND ~q

Going back in time is one of those things that we muse about. I wouldn't change anything in my life, hardships aside, it has been rewarding.

I know about the paradoxes.

I’m just musing about the fun I could pitentially have.
Dying to live, living to die.
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#9
RE: Sending a book back in time
(November 5, 2019 at 3:12 pm)The Valkyrie Wrote:
(November 5, 2019 at 2:56 pm)LastPoet Wrote: Lets say you travelled back in time, to kill me as a baby, bbq and all. That would prevent you from travelling back in time to kill me in the first place. p -> q AND ~q

Going back in time is one of those things that we muse about. I wouldn't change anything in my life, hardships aside, it has been rewarding.

I know about the paradoxes.

I’m just musing about the fun I could pitentially have.

I'd send 'On The Origin Of Species' back about 300 years.  Maybe all the kerfuffle would be over by now.

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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#10
RE: Sending a book back in time
I would send "God Delusion" by Dawkins into medieval times so that people smarten-up.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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