# Wanted: step-by-step instructions on time travel **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 18, 2005, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800 "2005-06-18T07:48:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/41 "2005-06-21T03:57:51Z")
> [@Uvula Donor](#): > > [Time Cube](http://www.timecube.com/) explains it all. just…wow… ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/42 "2005-06-21T04:14:21Z")
> [@Uvula Donor](#): > > [Time Cube](http://www.timecube.com/) explains it all. Somehow, I Imagined Napoleon Dynamite narrating that. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crowbar_of_Irony_3)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/43 "2005-06-21T12:26:53Z")
You can always call on Yog-Sothoth. But beware the Hounds of Tindalos! ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/44 "2005-06-21T17:26:09Z")
Here’s what Dragon Ball Z has to say on the matter: Wait for your genius mother to build a time machine after the hero of the world dies of a heart attack and the last inventions of a manman bent on revenge go out of control and start killing random people, including the father you never knew and your mentor. If I can ever figure out the very convoluted cycle of time travel in _Chrono Cross_, I’ll post that, too. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/45 "2005-06-21T18:21:15Z")
_The Ancient One_ (T. A. Barron): Take a staff containing a shard of the Broken Touchstone into the presence of a very old living thing (a giant redwood will do nicely), and lose consciousness. _Castle Roogna_ (Piers Anthony): Use a magic potion on an animated tapestry showing the history of the kingdom to enter the tapestry and displace one of the characters into a flea. _Bearing an Hourglass_ (Piers Anthony: At the moment in time when the next (previous) Incarnation of Time is being born/conceived, take up the glowing Hourglass he leaves behind/ahead. Then change the sand to an appropriate color. “The Red Queen’s Race” (Isaac Asimov): Instantly fission the entire contents of a nuclear power plant, and redirect the energy into sending a few kilograms of textbooks back to ancient Greece. “Elsewhen” (Robert A. Heinlein): Listen to a special psychedelic hypnotic record, and, um, well, the details get murky from there. “By His Own Bootstraps” (Robert A. Heinlein): Open a portal to your own time to bring yourself into the future where you can open the portal to bring yourself. _The Door into Summer_ (Robert A. Heinlein): Use a modified gravity-shield device to send both yourself and an equal weight of ballast randomly in opposite directions. Be sure to dress appropriately for your destination. “Houston, Houston, Do You Read” (James Tiptree Jr.): On a close flyby of the Sun, pass close to an accumulation of microscopic black holes during a period of strong solar magnetic activity. Get rescued by a shipfull of young women who’ve never seen a man in their lives. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/46 "2005-06-21T19:18:11Z")
> [@Governor Quinn](#): > > Those learnt experts, Drs. Calvin and Hobbes, determined three things: > > 1. You can go back in time in a cardboard box, > > 2. That your going backwards or forwards in time depends on what way the cardboard box is pointing, and > > 3. That it takes complicated math to explain how the time machine works, so that it is best to not explain it. And _don’t_ try to go to the bathroom in hyperspace. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/47 "2005-06-21T20:02:37Z")
Realize that the upstart, cottage industry you’ve started with your 3 buddies just isn’t rewarding enough to keep your interest. Move onto something a little more experimental in your garage, in hopes of creating a device that you can figure out an application for later. Push up those sleeves, and be resourceful, efficient, and dedicated. After a month or two, you’ll have a machine that utilizes room-temperature superconducters and copper tubing from your refrigerator that somehow allows ordinary objects to defy gravity by a considerable amount. For precise measurements and an efficient fungus collector, use a Weeble-Wobble™. Now, Build a bigger one. In a storage facility. Jump in, wait a bit, and jump out at point B. After enjoying a relaxing afternoon, several hours in the future, return to the machine, wait a bit, and jump out at point A. Congratulations, you’re back home. It might be tempting to hit the public library and use their computers to gain knowledge of the stock market, so proceed with caution. Don’t be surprised if a future version of yourself drugs you and stuffs your body in the attic for a while either. Just stay put, he knows what he’s doing. Who can you trust, if not yourself? Right? RIGHT? ---
**Author:** ![Turek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turek/32/18782_2.png) [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/48 "2005-06-21T20:35:53Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > “By His Own Bootstraps” (Robert A. Heinlein): Open a portal to your own time to bring yourself into the future where you can open the portal to bring yourself. This is one of my favorite time travel stories along the entirety my personal timeline. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/49 "2005-06-21T20:38:32Z")
You could go visit the Guardian of Forever (but be careful not to accidentally change the past and erase the Enterprise), or accidentally do something around a ‘black sun’. Or just spout a bunch of technobabble, including the words ‘chronotron’ and ‘flux’ and ‘quantum’ and push a button on the bridge. :rolleyes: At any rate, however you do time travel (starship, jumping on top of a couch caught in an eddy in the space-time continuum, whatever), don’t forget to stop at the very end of the universe. There’s a good restaurant there, I hear. Bart and Milhouse stopped time (for others, but not themselves) with a watch they ordered from an ad in a comic book. ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/50 "2005-06-21T20:47:41Z")
Dial up the coordinates for home on the Stargate when a sun between you and home is going nova. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/51 "2005-06-21T20:56:55Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Bart and Milhouse stopped time (for others, but not themselves) with a watch they ordered from an ad in a comic book. This was probably inspired by _The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything_ by John D. MacDonald (of Travis McGee fame). At any rate, the “gold watch” of the title was such a device. I seem to recall also that Spider Robinson also used such a device in one of his Callahan books, and duly credited MacDonald. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/52 "2005-06-21T21:31:25Z")
> [@dotchan](#): > > If I can ever figure out the very convoluted cycle of time travel in _Chrono Cross_, I’ll post that, too. There’s an entire document discussing that. There’s no way you could summerize it here, even if you understood it. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/53 "2005-06-21T21:33:47Z")
> [@RandMcnally](#): > > **South Park** : Sing a song about going into the past and wait for the wavey lines. I think you have to hit your head also, but I’m sure someone will come along and tell me. No, you have to play a couple hours of TiVO’d history Channel on the era you’re interested in, and then jump into an electfied pool of water just as playback begins. The pool might have to be hooked to the TV. Well, that or get two geeks to attach a time machine to a wheelchair and send some poor retarded kid into the past. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/54 "2005-06-21T22:07:05Z")
If you are a good student and promise not to use it for evil, you can get authorization for the **Time Turner** from Professor McConigal. ---
**Author:** ![DirkGntly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d9b06d/32.png) [@DirkGntly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DirkGntly)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/55 "2005-06-21T22:35:32Z")
_A Wrinkle in Time_ Something to do with a Tesseract… _Kate and Leopold_ Jump off of a bridge… Hey, **Chronos** , I remember _Houston, Houston, do you read?_…neat short story - and oddly erotic at points, too…I thought I was the only person that had ever read that… ---
**Author:** ![Emerald\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Emerald\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emerald_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/56 "2005-06-21T23:53:42Z")
> [@Sean Factotum](#): > > Dial up the coordinates for home on the Stargate when a sun between you and home is going nova. Actually, I think all you need is to step through the gate at the exact moment of a solar flare. For example, see [this episode](http://www.gateworld.net/sg1/s2/221.shtml). I don’t remember an episode which used the supernova method. ---
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/57 "2005-06-22T02:32:42Z")
Have a little daemon you’ve summoned go into the future and bring you back a newspaper. Sell it to an acquaintance. Get into the totally insulating suit that the guy at the Weapons Shop gives you. Don’t expect to enjoy the trip. Be in the Castle Timeless when it breaks free and starts to slide around in time. Watch the corners. (Re: Tiptree) Be John Delgado. Walk home. Best. Story. Ever. (Re: Time Cube) [singsong]Someone has been skimping on their medication.[/singsong] ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/58 "2005-06-22T17:01:45Z")
> [@Emerald Hawk](#): > > Actually, I think all you need is to step through the gate at the exact moment of a solar flare. For example, see [this episode](http://www.gateworld.net/sg1/s2/221.shtml). > > I don’t remember an episode which used the supernova method. I misremembered that ep, having only seen it once. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/59 "2005-06-22T18:23:13Z")
> [@honeydewgrrl](#): > > A slightly different twist to time travel, the Arlo Strine character from Nicholson Baker’s _The Fermata_ is able to “fold” time, stopping it for everyone but himself, while allowing him to manipulate the environment, items, and paused humans around him. > > Applications of the ability to utilize “fold powers” include facilitating a sexually provacative stop animation show of images cut from porn magazines, on a table-top, around a book that a beautiful woman is reading at the public library. > > Or (my personal favorite), folding time after seeing another beautiful woman laying in the sun on the beach with her fingertips trailing in the sand. Take a few “fold days” to go back to your apartment and write a rich bit of customized erotica on paper, place the erotic story in plastic baggie, and burry the plastic baggie in the sand at the woman’s fingertips. Un-suspend time and sit a respectable distance away to observe the woman discover, read, and physically react to your writing. And to think the Velvet Tiger wasted her talents stealing high-value items in transit. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![rjk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@rjk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjk)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800/60 "2005-06-22T18:25:51Z")
> [@Thudlow Boink](#): > > This was probably inspired by _The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything_ by John D. MacDonald (of Travis McGee fame). At any rate, the “gold watch” of the title was such a device. I seem to recall also that Spider Robinson also used such a device in one of his Callahan books, and duly credited MacDonald. That might be the same watch used by Robert Bloch in _That Hellbound Train_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-step-by-step-instructions-on-time-travel/308800.md?page=4)