h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The only thing I would want to bring was a working time machine and enough fuel to get back. I really wouldn't want to live in the past for any length of time. This would seem like a step back to me, for one thing. If I went back very far, I'd be entering a realm where I could be openly bisexual. And if I went back just a bit further, I'd enter a time when women weren't credible workers -- much less inventors!

I'd also be worried about changing history. For instance, if you send back some penicillin, aren't you going to create an overpopulation problem by a humanity that isn't ready to compensate for the people you have saved? Even living in such a time, I would be tempted to help people, thus changing history in some way. In my mind, this is a very tricky business. I wouldn't want to 'save' a potential Hitler, you know -- nor his father or grandfather.

So I'd bring a time machine and enough energy/fuel to get me back. I'd treat the whole excursion as a sight-seeing vacation. If I could be alllowed to bring anything else, I suppose I'd be selfish and bring some money along. I would invest in a company I knew would do well by the time I returned, like Microsoft or Coca Cola. Hopefully my little purchase wouldn't change history too much, and when I returned I'd be ready to make history starting from the proper location in time -- my own!

you are right, even a thing that seems like a good idea could have really unforseen consequences. also be sure to take old money or something that you could sell or pawned. you wouldn't want money from 2000 in 1985.

I would take my laptop back to about 1949 and show to IBM. Probably sell it for about £100Billion.

Oh, and warn them about Bill Gates.

In my opinion the universe extends infinitely outward and infinitely inward. How could a finite universe contain infinite elements such as pi or the golden mean? Based on this assumption, if you were to travel some distance x in a given direction you would eventualy arrive in a location that is similar from where you left except that a person who was wearing white socks in point A is now wearing black socks at point B. Continuing with this same reasoning if you kept traveling you would eventualy come across a world similar to yours except that it is a future or past "time". The main point of this post is that time can not exist without space and space can not exist without time. They go "hand in hand". So time must be located in another point in space. I would truly like to expand upon this "theory" but in order to truly prove it I must learn more. Once I have the required tools I will publish a paper. Until then let us discuss this fascinating issue of modern science and learn from one another.

Note that this theory resolves all paradoxes that I am aware of. I prefer to call it Transdimensional theory or perhaps Interdimensional theory. Remember Occam's razor.