Scenario : a mandatory trip to 1935 is in your future. You will either arrive in New York City or Berlin. You have 30 minutes and your smartphone and any tablet computers you own. While you may not leave your home or workplace, the internet access still works, and it inexplicably has infinite bandwidth (you are limited by the processor speed of your phone/tablet and the internal storage).
What documents will you download before your trip? What loose items lying around will you bring (whatever you bring, the weight must be supported by your body when you warp to the past. This mean you’re going to lose your shoes if you are wearing them)
First, download all Wikipedia, (the total size of the text data is about 10 gigabytes) since laptops have now a terabyte or more in storage I think that then a lot of the images can be downloaded too.
Then concentrate on saving information and data on how to make communication devices, network devices, computers, and storage to save the data in other formats. Start with a way to translate your data into fax form.
Bring also solar battery chargers and power supplies.
If you land in the USA head to the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania.
If you land in Germany, pretend you are an athlete or scout looking for places for the Olympians to visit that will come next year to the Olympics, and head for England and Bletchley Park at the first chance.
Stock prices for 1935 and after. After I make bucko bucks, we’ll think of other things.
As I’m a WWII buff, as much of the details of the history and as such have books in my home which would completely alter history.
The most valuable information would be technical data on inventions which occurred in the late 30s and early 40s. The information you could take back could save years of effort. Radar and gun control systems are examples as well as German rocket technology.
The most valuable would be the technology for processing radioactive material for the nuclear bomb, although if your information prevented WWII, it many not be necessary. Speaking of which a list of Communist spies would be valuable.
More important than the actual weapons would be the history, since the clarity of hindsight would allow the war to be prevented.
Do you have any control/foreknowledge of the destination? If not, various English-German resources (dictionaries, language courses) would be a must; if so, I guess you only need 'em for Berlin.
Boy, imagine landing in Berlin and having all that information confiscated by the Nazis. Clearly dressed as I am carrying a whole bunch of odd stuff I’d stand out and be stopped and searched. Okay, sure it can be password encrypted but I don’t relish trying to stand up to torture being asked what it is.
I want something with me that I can kill myself with quickly in that case and some way to destroy that which I brought before it got into the wrong hands. Above all else do no harm.
Otherwise as above, highly detailed specs for computers and communication technology a few decades ahead of where they are and the ability to get to people in the UK or the US or could implement them. Enough information to be able to provide proof of what was about to happen. Maybe some detailed listing of Hitler’s schedules to get to an assasination team.
The last bit is confusing to me. Why would I lose my shoes if I can carry other things? Can I fill a bag and carry it, or are you saying only what I can grip with my hands will come with me? If my shoes are disappearing, does that mean my pants will come off a well?
Anyhoo, a German language program, German/English dictionary (in case I land in Berlin) and a sports almanac. Details of the stock prices for the next ten years if I can find them.
Also, my family tree, so I can track down some relatives. My Grandfather should be around, and I know I can convince him of who I am. I look just like my Grandmother, so he’ll be very happy to hear that she says “Yes” eventually.
I would also grab all my silver and jewelry, so I have something to sell and survive on.
Hm, my Mom’s jewelry box [among other things, it has a very nice Tiffany wind up watch, and something on the order of $100 000 1990 dollars in jewelry that is classic enough design that it would not be glaringly out of place and very marketable. Not many diamonds, mom like me prefers colored rocks and pearls. Settings other than a couple rings in platinum are in high karat gold. I could easily dump the contents into a fanny pack along with one of our older small frame pre ww2 Walther PP [um I want to say 1933, but I might be wrong, it might be 32.] with spare laded magazine. My messenger bag already has my tablet stuff - both wallwart and my solar charger, and my SD-pack of collected ebooks. I can add a couple almanacs to get sports and stock data, and one or another of the various resource books to get technical information on chemical/drug manufacture. I would definitely snag everything I could download on insulin research and manufacture, and then synthesis. Same for the various other meds I need to stay alive and functioning. Having a 3 month set of meds helps, I can spring for some meds as exemplars for analysis.
And I would shoot for NY, as while I know I have absolutely no Jewish people in my family, proving it is a problem! I could use a few of my WW2 history ebooks as an introduction to a few scientists to demonstrate my bonafides in wanting to help the war effort - if I could sneak out of NY by train up to my families home town, I know more than enough about my family to convince my grandfather and great grand father into sheltering me and helping me get in tough with the right people. I figure I could ‘pawn’ [really, sell] some jewelry to pay for the ticket north. I happen to have a decent looking outfit that I used as a costume a few years back that blends in to most of the 1930s decade that I could wear so I don’t look too outragous, though I would have to forgo my favorite forearm crutches for wooden standard crutches
I’d want to pack something that I could use to quickly end it all. It wouldn’t be a good idea for me to go back to 1935 at all, and things certainly aren’t going to go well for me if I end up in Germany. Pretending I’d stand a chance, I’d download Wikipedia and grab spare medicine and jewelry. I’ll make sure I’m carrying shoes and my glasses.
Any objects touching only your body and air come with you. This means a backpack will come with you, so long as you are not leaning it against something when wearing it.
Your shoes touch you, the air, and the ground, so they do not come with you. Maybe the upper portions of the shoes do.
Solar chargers are cool and all, but I think they had standard electric plugs in 1935 that standard computer chargers work with. If that fails, if you could get to a friendly electrical engineer they could easily rig up some DC batteries and voltage dividers to get the right voltage for your electronics.
Interesting. My father was 15, in the Bronx. I’d want to take him his radar research from the 40’s. If I landed in Germany (bin nicht ein Berliner)-or not- I’d brush up on the German. It’d come in handy, mostly for getting the hell out of there and then making my way to Southern California to my mother’s Bell relatives. Show them some helicopter plans- and both Dad and the Bells would appreciate a full set of Jane’s military aircraft;).
Back in NY I’d like to be able to show Margaret Sanger a copy of Contraceptive Technology, for her good efforts, and some genetics to deflate her bad ones.
I would take lots of pantyhose.
If I could make money on the stock market with market records I’d help Grandpa buy that bit of empty beach and potato fields way out Montauk way, so he could fish and clam to his hearts content.
Railway timetables so that I can get from New York to Baltimore.
1930 US census for Baltimore City so that I can stop in and ask my mother’s parents ‘What the fuck?’ (grandfather, as he was maintaining two families a street apart, and grandmother for not allowing my mother to be raised by my grandmother’s sister, which would have given her a much better life).
The contents of my external harddrive, so that I can continue my writing and research (and of course having a leg up on particular schools of thought albeit limited to source evidence extant in 1935.)
I haven’t got a smart phone nor have interest in acquiring one, so would have to negotiate over taking a netbook or something instead.
I’d also go to my other grandfather’s house actually to see/hear in working order the c.1929 radio that I inherited. And to tell him, ‘Cheers for buying all of that stock in Standard Oil!’
