Posted on 04/12/2015 6:20:17 PM PDT by MNDude
If you time traveled back to 1015, would you have enough modern knowledge and education to improve your llfe?
I mean like could you invent gunpowder or serious medical advancements, etc?
I forget the particulars, but someone noticed the value of penicillin before 1928. Aside from him, there were some folks in North Africa who used a form of it, if I recall, they had it growing on saddles and knew it was useful to help heal wounds.
Anyway...who wants to go back in time? You’re likely to be mistaken for a lunatic or a witch.
One thing Baron Steuben or Von Steuben did for American armies was he made them go to the Prussian system of putting the latrine on one side of camp and the kitchen on the opposite.
I could brew beer. I would be the King of my beer fueled empire in short order! It’s good to be the King!!
Any classically trained engineer that was transported back a 1000 years could revolutionize technology easily.
What happened to the fellow that introduced aluminum to the emperor?
That principle's only consistent in a world where people cannot go back in time - by definition. But if someone actually did go back in time, then the reality of that ability would mean a world where time travel was possible. And in that case, only experimentation could resolve whether history could be changed.
“I could probably come up with a rudimentary generator “
once you invented copper wire and an insulator, yes. What would you do with the electric power?
You will have better luck with electrostatics.
Have too much knowledge or too many skills, and you’d get yourself burned alive as a witch.
I’d still be too late to off mohommad.
Susanna Gregory's "Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew", a Cambridge professor of medicine in the 1360s, provides great research into medical techniques of that era. Great mysteries, too..
My goodness.....I don’t think I would want to go back that much. I wouldn’t mind going back to 1986 and buy up Walmart stock and eventually hit up Apple around 1999 or so. Yep I would love that.
Sorry, but Ignaz Semmelweis was not Jewish.
While he was a genius, he was also an asshole and created unnecessary resistance to his approach as a result.
Much the same was true of Galileo, BTW. Newton was also a 1st class asshole, but came out on top anyway.
I may have a lot of modern knowledge, but it doesn't put food on the table. It doesn't make me tougher. I don't have sword/shield skills. I'm not a gunsmith, nor have gunpowder. It wouldn't be easy. I can use a bow and arrow, although not in the same league as the English Longbowman.
95% of the people here wouldn't last five years going back to 1015, myself probably included.
I think I would prefer to go back in time on this continent and bring a more primitive civilization forward. The Aztecs thought the Spanish were Gods and that’s a safer bet.
You could bring the civilization forward while quietly converting them to Christianity.
Basic firearms? You wouldn’t have the supporting metallurgy for it.
Actually, no. The Principle most certainly allows for backwards time-travel. It just requires that nature interfere as to prohibit the changing of history.
The classic example is this: Suppose you time-travel back to Germany in the 1930's. You decide to shoot Hitler. You will not be able to do it! Your rifle might jam. Or the cartridge might be a dud, etc.
FWIW, there’s a really interesting series of books, starting with 1632.
A small WV town, for reasons unknown, suddenly finds itself in 1632 Germany, which is in the middle of the 30 Years War.
Hilarity ensues. Well, not really, but there is a lot of excellent extrapolation of how much those with advanced knowledge can and cannot change the past.
Recommended.
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