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From: kaufman@nike.uucp (Bill Kaufman)
Newsgroups: net.physics,net.sci,net.philosophy,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: A Sane Man Proposes A Time Travel Experiment
Message-ID: <462@nike.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-Aug-86 12:40:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: nike.462
Posted: Mon Aug  4 12:40:11 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 4-Aug-86 21:17:19 EDT
References: <289@axiom.UUCP> <5723@lanl.ARPA> <7489@tekecs.UUCP> <83@unc.unc.UUCP> <556@sunybcs.UUCP>
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Reply-To: kaufman@orion.UUCP (Bill Kaufman)
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	[this was, I assume, sent to me accidentally]
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 86 21:36:05 cdt
From: caip!ihnp4!mmm!cipher (Andre Guirard)
Message-Id: <8608020236.AA18362@mmm.SERCNET>
To: floyd!caip!nike!kaufman
Subject: Re: A Sane Man Proposes A Time Travel Experiment
Newsgroups: net.physics,net.sci,net.philosophy,net.sf-lovers
In-Reply-To: <451@nike.UUCP>
References: <289@axiom.UUCP> <5723@lanl.ARPA> <7489@tekecs.UUCP> <83@unc.unc.UUCP>
Organization: 3M Company, St. Paul, Minn.
Cc: 
Status: R

In article <451@nike.UUCP> you write:
>In article <7489@tekecs.UUCP> mikes@tekecs.UUCP (Michael Sellers) writes:
>...If you were the one capable of sending something back, what (or 
>>who) would it be?
>
>A nuclear bomb.  Something that would, by "appearing" in that time,
>materialize in my grandfather.  A computer & manual, destined for T.A. Edison
>in Menlo Park, NJ.  The plans for "Opertion: Overlord" to die F^uhrer's 
>office (excuse the attempt at an umlaut) in Berlin.
>In general, anything that would cause an identifiable, unavoidable mistake
>in time.  Great way to verify whether we live in a "parallel" universe, or
>a "serial" one (cf. "Thrice Upon a Time," by (James P.?) Hogan).

It's a good way to tell if you live in a parallel universe, but it's
not a good way to tell if you live in a serial one, since the
experiment would have a high probability of causing the experimenter
never to have existed, or at least never to have conducted the
experiment.  Better to conduct the experiment on a smaller scale, then
you can be sure that you'll be around to see the results.

It seems like I've heard a theory to the effect that time travel can't
exist not because it's theoretically impossible, but because the
invention of time travel makes it possible to modify the past, making
time travel never to have been discovered.  Knowing how to travel in
time is an unstable situation.
-- 
===+===                                         Andre Guirard
 /@ @\                                          ihnp4!mmm!cipher
/_____\
( @ @ )    My mission: to explore strange new words.
 \ _ /     To seek out and utilize new applications.
  `-'      To shovel snow that snow plows have shoved before.

[And now, for the same, low price: a reply! ;-]

OK, maybe I was stretching it.  Something a little less severe, perhaps.
Just so the experimenter will continue to exist--say, kill off someone
current and famous.  If you're in a serial universe, the event (person,
in this case) will simply cease to exist.  In other words, if nothing
happens, you're in a serial universe! ;-)

					-Annoyingly,
					 Bilbo.
 ___________________________________________________________________________ 
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