Feedback competition results 2008: gifts from future time-travellers
āHELLO, Iām from the future,ā the creature announced as it jumped out of the Large Hadron Collider. āAfter the Bad Thing happened, life was pretty bad, but weāve invented this thing called Fire and now life is pretty good. So Iāve brought you some Fire.ā
The second time traveller, as David Malarkey tells it, announced that āafter the Bad Thing and Fire we were very happy except for carrying heavy things. So we invented the wheel and now life is almost perfect. So hereās a Wheel.ā
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And the third declared that ālife was almost perfect, but we still had to work. Now weāve invented something to abolish work, and itās called Money. You just pass it round, and apparently, if you can pass it quickly enough, it grows and grows and grows all by itself and nobody has to work at all. So Iāve brought you some Money.ā
THIS, regular readers will have deduced, is one of the winning entries in the 2008 Feedback competition. Given speculation that the switch-on of the LHC might attract visitors from the future, we asked: what gifts might three such time travellers bring? The other winning entries follow, ordered only by theme.
ENVIRONMENTAL foreboding was, naturally, at the front of many readersā minds. Thus Jonathan Lotz describes visitors bringing one polar bear, with engineered gills and flippers; one eight-year-old bottle of āChateau DuRantā Antarctic Pinot Rouge wine; and a letter from His Greatness, Emperor Bush IV, telling us not to worry: āThereās still loads of oil to be found.ā
āResearch project title of the week, if not the year: āStudy of Dust in the Old Library (SOLD)ā at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland.ā
DAVID HALLās gifts are a pair of breeding Dodo birds, a pair of breeding passenger pigeons, and a pair of intelligent breeding Homo sapiens. Thanks, David.
THE mechanics and consequences of time travel and the LHC were another recurring theme. The āPrime Directiveā, in Star Trek, is not to interfere with alien civilisations ā and to Julian Mooreās visitors we seem to be fairly alien. The first brings the gift of an instruction: āI canāt say anything specific, but whatever you were about to do, donāt!ā The second appears, opens its mouth to speak, and disappears. The third comes with a large party of noisy schoolchild entities and declaims: āAnd this is the very day on which they didā¦ Or didnātā¦ Be careful what you sayā¦ Doā¦ Yāknowā¦ That thing weāll have talked about next week.ā
MICHAEL PETRASCHECK wins prizes for suggesting that the first visitor will be less careful, bringing āa serious fault between two superconducting bending magnets that immediately shut the Large Hadron Collider downā.
The second, shortly thereafter, brings ā quite implausibly, as commentators were agreed beforehand ā a Wall Street crash, followed by a long-lasting worldwide recession that makes it impossible to come up with money for the repairs.
The third arrives, as time travellers are wont to do, out of sequence, with a golden plate inscribed with the words āUnder no circumstance switch the Collider on, ever.ā
THEN there are contrasting attitudes shown by different groups of time travellers. Bob Steeper describes a European research consortium ā predominantly Scandinavian, French and German ā bringing a visitor from the future, who provides clear guidelines for good humanitarian social development and in return takes a small quantity of seeds and environmental samples to aid future research.
An American project brings a horde of visitors who extract large quantities of minerals from present-day Earth, leaving bright trinkets with selected tribal leaders.
Both the Europeansā visitor and the Americansā bring news that the UK will dither over which research project to join, before finally making a brave choice to go it alone. Despite funding cuts, the equipment will be about to have been completed, and the UKās visitors are out there, somewhen.
PRACTICALITIES of visiting the present concerned some. Clive Bashfordās visitor brings a valid ID card, a work permit and a birth certificate: treats for early-21st-century bureaucrats.
ALSO bringing shiny beads are Justin Arthurās visitors, plus a mirror and a magnet. āTheyāll think weāre wizards,ā one is overheard whispering, āWizards!ā
HAVING studied our most advanced communications, Edward Howellās visitors know what we like: āa herbal remedy to improve length, circumference and performance; a guaranteed natural weight-loss pill; and a letter from an unfortunate chap who genuinely does want to transfer his millions into your account, if youāll send him your bank details first.ā
FINALLY, Mike Fawcettās visitors bring Jesusās genome, Maryās genome, and the genomes of all the men that Mary knew.
FEEDBACK sends you seasonal greetings, a belated āEid mubarak!ā, and best wishes for the atheist day of celebration of your choice. The winners will receive Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku and Ā鶹“«Ć½ goodies, including Last Word books.
