I would ether send back a model glider, or a replica of the U.S.S. Constitution, the destination being Norway.
Does a virus count as “live”? Because my thought was to send Cowpox to North America.
Unwrapped of course
No go.
So…a singing, dancing frog is out? Rats!
Or read about it a thousand years later, as the case may be.
Does this time machine have the necessary government mandated paradox protections? I’m not going to send back an Uzi and have my great*grandfather get shot, am I?
If an Uzi fits in a 2ft x 2ft x 2ft box, it’s a go. In case of such a paradox, the event occurs but the original cause of the event(you) is wiped from history.
I did…did you?
The thing is, the idea of a breech loader was around for hundreds of years before anyone managed to make one that was safe, effective, and comparable in cost to a muzzle loader. Everyone knew that breech loaders would be awesome, they just couldn’t manufacture the metals and machine them to the correct tolerances to build a gun that wouldn’t spray hot propellant gasses all over your face when you shot it.
The concept of multiple barrels had been around for a long time, and as soon as breech loaders were able to be built revolvers got built very quickly, since a revolver is nothing more than a simple refinement of a multiple barrel system–you just rotate the chamber, and save the weight of multiple barrels and firing mechanisms.
Improvements in firearms were much more the result of improved metallurgy and manufacturing techniques and smokeless propellants than they were new ideas for how to put guns together. The ideas invariably came long before people could build practical models of the weapons. Without smokeless powder and precision manufacturing and modern metals a 15th century Uzi is just going to get the operator killed.
I think modern people forget that ideas for things invariably happen long before the actual invention gets made. The inventor isn’t the inventor of the idea, the inventor is the guy who figures out the manufacturing process for the invention, how to actually build it. And then the guy who figures out how to make the product easily and cheaply enough that it isn’t just a curiosity but a product that people will actually use.
So take the problem of longitude for instance. Everyone knew that determining longitude could be done very simply if you could only have an accurate clock you could carry aboard a ship. But no one could make such a clock. And it’s all very well to send a marine chronometerback to 1492, that instrument will remain a curiosity unless the people who get ahold of it can manufacture more copies. And this is not easy, in real life it took hundreds of engineers working on timepieces a hundred years before they could make economical clocks that actually worked.
Not explicitly stated as such in the OP…but corrected in post #40.
This, minus the type. Frankly, I’m shocked anything else is under consideration.
Minus the type and all you have is a screw-type wine press. It’s interchangeable type that was the revolution, not the press itself.
If you left in blank interchangeable pieces, do you think they might figure it out?
Not one of the important parts, which was the method of manufacturing more type (basically, casting it in a mould.)
A pre-loaded Polaroid Camera to maybe Greece.
Although, I wish I could leave instruction to leave the exhausted polaroid pictures back in the time machine, so we could see what they ended up doing with the instant camera after figuring out what it did. Byzantine Selfies?
Ah, so I should have read the post that came after mine to understand that I was wrong. Got it…what’s the point of this again?
Have considered switching to decaf? It’s just a simple “what-if” scenario, dude-nobody is forcing you to play along with the premise. It’s not that you were technically wrong, it’s that you pointed out a loophole that I subsequently closed.
Might they have a better chance of figuring out a simple box camera?
I LOL’d.
Similarly a tiny thermonuclear device for even greater hilarity. To where? Who cares!?
Yeah, that’s why I was saying I would have to really research who to send it to. I’m sure someone was probably thinking about such things before Gootie.
That’s why I was also thinking a model of some industrial revolution (or just before) textile machine.
Send it to China, maybe? To the Arabian Muslims?