Time Travelers too well informed

The captain and first officer accidentally travel back in time from the umpteenth century.

Captain: Looks like the late 20th century to me. Maybe 1980?
First officer: Only an idiot would think it was 1980. Check out the styling on that ground vehicle. It’s clearly a 1982 Chevy Impala, which was first available for sale on Oct 10, 1981.

I’m exagerating of course, but, come on, really.

If you were suddenly transported back to, say, the 14th century would you be able to identify the time period within even 200 years?

Neptune’s traveling companion: What century is it?
Neptune: Could be the Middle Ages, or the Renaissance or something like that.
Neptune’s companion: What century is that?
Neptune: I don’t know. 13th? 14th? 15th? One of those loser centuries.

Yes, if I were in a major European city; I’d look at what the upper class people were wearing and make a rough estimate. Wouldn’t expect to nail the exact year, but probably within 20.

[backpedal]Well, maybe 50 years.[/backpedal]

Easy. I just keep my trap shut until the Doctor tells me when we are, because he’s never wrong.

-fh

Ah, but you’re forgetting how much better the school systems are in the future. Since they get important stuff like calculus out of the way at age 10, they have plenty of time to study late 20th century technology and popular culture.

Sent back to my own or a nearby country, I think I should be able to guess the year with a 25-50 years error margin by looking at the clothes of the upper class, up to perhaps 1200-1300.

Before 1200, it would be much more tricky, but I believe a 200 years margin would be very comfortable, even during the dark ages (military equipment could be a better hint for that period, though)

Or conversely: Bones gets angry at the idiot doctors in ST:IV for their ‘barbaric’ practices. Shame on us for not living up to the 24th C. standards. Although that did seem to be the standard take in TNG. I wish I could recall some instances of their apalling lack of knowledge of their own history but I can’t find my book.

I’m not sure I’d be able to tell when I was. I could tell some by technology, but I’d have to wait for something about King or Queen of England.

Star Trek generally was pretty sanctimonious regarding the 20th century. I wanted just one 20th-century person to say to a wandering Trek character: “Look you preachy asshole. You might have it really soft in the future where all sentients are created equal and nobody goes hungry, blah blah blah, but who the hell do you think came up with the technology that makes your little socialist utopia possible? It was US, you ungrateful fuckwit!” Then the 20th century character backhands the Trek character like an disrespectful grandchild, which is kinda what they are.

Well, maybe “fuckwit” is a little harsh. “Dickhead” would suffice.

For any time traveller landing in an urban center after, say, 1850, there should be enough newspapers handy to give an exact date, assuming the traveller understand the local language.

Prior to that, you might be able to make a good guess to the year based on the current President/Monarch. At the very least, I’d hope time travellers wouldn’t act like idiots; a serious pain in the ass in many time-travel movies.

The reverse, I guess, is when you have characters from the past brought into the present, and we get to make fun of them for not having grown up in our environment. I think it’s important to remember that we’re not any smarter than people used to be.

What’s funnier than a fish out of water? Could be Captain Kirk in present day California, or a frozen caveman in present day California, or Crocodile Dundee in present day California.

And thus we have the brilliant Phil Hartman as Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer.

For the western world, I can get it within about 5 from about 1830 on…maybe 20-30 either way from about 1300. This is for Europe, of course, where I could look at the Latin (helps to know some Latin). In England, France, or Ancient Rome, I could ask/see who the king/queen/emperor was and know the approximate date. Before about 1300, though, I doubt I could get it within 200 without directly asking. Yeah, you could use weapons as indentification, but I’d suck at that. This excludes America, though–I could probably get that within 5 from about 1775 on. Asia or Africa or Australia, though…I’d be lucky to get it inside a few hundred or so.

You have to realize, though, these people are FUTURE people. They could look at the stars or something and cross-reference it in their Big Computer of Knowing What Time It Is. They’re special.

RIMMER: What’s the time period?

HOLLY: Well, it’s difficult to pin it down exactly, but according to all the available data, I would estimate it’s round about… lunchtime, maybe half-one.

RIMMER: What period in HISTORY, dingleberry-breath? I mean can we expect to see Ghengis Khan and his barbarian buddies sweeping across the hill? Or a herd of flesh-eating dinosaurs feeding off the bones of Doug McClure? What is the year?

HOLLY: Well, I’d need some more data before I could give you a precise answer.

RIMMER: Like?

HOLLY: Well, this year’s calendar’d be handy!

I think the time travellers here have it a bit easier than we’d have it in the past for another reason: the rate of change, at least in technology, is much quicker now. The very fact that a 1982 Ford Mustang doesn’t look like a 1976 Ford Mustang is of great help to the time traveller landing here. On the other hand, an oxcart from 1100 AD looks much like an oxcart from 1200 AD.

Are you kidding? The 1100 oxcarts were cherry! With the dung-absorbing wheel rims and solidified hay bed-liners? Man, those were sweet. By 1200, oxcarts all looked the same - all boxy and soulless. No comparison.

Actually, I suspect that even people with doctorates in history would have trouble getting within 20 years just because our own view of history is so distorted by chance: we talk about styles and technonology things “appearing” or “disappearing” from the historical record, but the actual process was a great deal more gradual on both ends: there is all kinds of overlap. Weapon design is a great example: weapons were handed down all kinds of ways, and their appearence and disappearence was subject to local trends as well. Furthermore, as very few (and in many cases no) people left detailed descriptions of daily life, social historians often have to piece things together from fairly spotty sources. It’s as if someone had a catagorical knowledges of all Sears catalogs from 1900-2002, but nothing else, and you put them down in a mall and asked them to name the year they were in. Even with the rapid changes in fashion (which makes more precision easier), they would have a hard time of it.

Must have a lot of history majors in this thread. I’d have trouble deciding on when I was if I was displaced too far from the 20th Century (I know the 20th cold, and would have no problem getting good bearings with limited information even if I was without readable papers) and not close to any major events (and even major events would probably only give me a general knowledge of the year I was in).

But, damnit, I could troubleshoot any mechanical computers they might have. :smiley: (Okay, maybe not a Difference Engine. Babbage’s wizardry always baffled me.)

As an offshoot, how many here could determine the year if they wound up more than a thousand years in the past (and, for extra credit, nowhere near Greece or Rome).

I’d be doomed. I live in North America. Trying not to be insensitive to the North American Aboriginal peoples, [small](I’m part North American Aboriginal peoples myself)[/small], and admitting my complete ignorance, but did a teepee or igloo in the 14th century differ from those in the 12th? - How quickly did technology and fashion move along in other non-European continents in that time period?

Me, personally, I can’t tell a Ford from a non-Ford, a Mustang from a non-Mustang, and certainly couldn’t tell a 1976 from 1982. And I live here. I just have no interest in cars. I can’t imagine that a typical person from the 24th century would know or care any more about cars than we do about ox-carts. There are exceptions of course, like Lt. Paris and Smeghead.

If I am in a literate town or city in the United States, Canada, or Mexico, after 1750 or so, well, there are going to be newspapers, and books, with dates. I would be an idiot not to use them in preference to my encyclopedic knowledge of men’s clothing fashions in the pretranstemporal period.

Now, out in the boonies, things change. If I ask some yokel for a look see at his flintlock, to determine if it has rifling, or a flash pan cover on a hinge, well, he might take that interest in some unintended manner. Let’s not even mention asking about the number of petticoats a lady might be wearing. If the Algonquin village has no horses, it’s sometime prior to 1650, more or less. (or they are poor Angonquins, who have eaten their horses.) Other than that, I couldn’t even begin to guess how long after fifteen thousand BC it might be.

Europe: If I am not in England, I am so screwed. If I am in England, how badly I can understand the better educated people I meet is a fairly good estimator. However, I can’t understand some of the less cosmopolitan accents of England in the twenty-first century, so this is a scale of limited accuracy. Dates on Papers, monuments, and such are a better clue, I can read roman numerals.

If I get out in the boonies here, I am toast. Unless someone mentions the king, by number, I am not likely to have even a clue. There are some very time specific events, but in my case, that mostly includes pleasantries like the black plague, the War of the Roses, or similar things which indicate beating feet (or clock ticks) the heck out of here anyway. Even a casual reference to Her Majesty is of limited use. Elizabeth ruled for a long time. Both of 'em, although I think I would be able to guess which one.

OK, now, assuming my universal translator is working, the rest of the world still remains a complete mystery to me, in all but a few celebrated locations and times. I should be able to tell the date in China by the relative level of completion or disrepair of the Great Wall, but I can’t. Not to within a century. Japan? Well, if someone decides not to cut my head off with one of those great big swords, it is sometime between 900, and 1800, give or take a hundred. A quick tricorder scan to reveal the metal content, and age of the sword might let me narrow that down a bit. It might make him change his mind about using that sucker though.

Most places in the world I can give you "some time before . . . " for a few general events, like British Colonial Expansion, or The Empire of Kublai Khan. The presence of the Romans is probably noticeable here and there, or Alexander. But if there isn’t a colonial presence in Africa, I could not begin to guess a date, unless I was actually in the court city of the Ashanti Empire, or some such place. If the Great Zimbabwe was currently occupied, I would not know the date.

However, if my tricorder can sight on planets, and the moon and stars, It should be able to read the date like a clock, leaving me with the task of deciding which 15,000 year long cycle of positions I am in. That close I can guess, most anywhere.

Tris

“The difference between a violin and a viola is that a viola burns longer.” ~ Victor Borge ~

Technically, if someone came from the future back to now they could just pick up a newspaper to check the date. Walk around long enough and there’ll be a newspaper just sitting somewhere, likely from the most recent 20 years.

easy. i could get the exact date. haven’t you people seen the movies?

(i run up to random stranger in the street)

me: what’s the date??? what’s the date?

him: 24th of may.

me: no, godammit! the year! what year is it?