just a bit of fun on a cloudy day

[xtreemchaos]

 well its cloudy and i do a lot of thinking on day like today, so here it is- the brainy people has developed a time travel machine and have decided to send some astro kit back in time, to some of the astro giants of the past thay can only send 20kg and lets say max spending £2000, thay can send scope , mount eyepeices barlow ect and one book, if there was no electric you carnt have a powered mount. what would you send and to who ? im interested to here your choice. charl.

[Alien 13]

I would send Issac Newton a SW 120ED with a manual EQ5 mount and a copy of Eisenstein's work on general relativity.

Alan

[xtreemchaos]

thats a good choice Alan, im still trying to make my mind up what send, but i think Issac Newton would be happy with them and the book would save him a lot of thinking.charl.

[Davey-T]

I'd send Galileo a decent pair of bin's and a Messier catalogue, he'd have to keep it a secret though

Dave

[Alien 13]

8 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

thats a good choice Alan, im still trying to make my mind up what send, but i think Issac Newton would be happy with them and the book would save him a lot of thinking.charl.

The choice was a bit tongue in cheek in the hope it would have prevented Newton from inventing the reflector.

Alan

[mikeDnight]

5 minutes ago, Alien 13 said:

The choice was a bit tongue in cheek in the hope it would have prevented Newton from inventing the reflector.

Alan

In Newtons defence he only made one with a 1" aperture and then gave up! 

I'd send the exact same ED 120 as my choice, but to Willy Herschel.

Mike

[xtreemchaos]

im thinking Galileo, and the best size mirror and secondry for the weight and price £1500, the book would be how to make a newt telelescope, and a pentax af zoom ep, and a few filters. charl.

[johnfosteruk]

To take this in another (dodgy) direction Is there a possibility that sending those items back to those guys would change the outcome of their work and thus the history leaving our present changed meaning that we wouldn't have those items to send to those people because we would potentially be further advanced

In other words how do we know that someone didn't already send Isaac his 1" reflector from the future and how would we know?

[SilverAstro]

1 hour ago, Alien 13 said:

 copy of Eisenstein's work on general relativity.

And perhaps Einstein's classic film Battleship Potemkin,   Dont you just love speelchuckers

Is that who Einstein copied the hair style from ?

 

[xtreemchaos]

 thanks John, paradox effect eh, thats too deep for me mate  , of course it would effect our present understanding. but its just a bit of fun.charl.

[SilverAstro]

There is considerable doubt over that claim of Newton, Mel Bartels has written on it and pulled some interesting refs.

http://www.bbastrodesigns.com/Think you know who invented the reflecting telescope.html

So perhaps someone already sent back the plans for a parabola to John Hadley

 

[DHEB]

8 minutes ago, SilverAstro said:

There is considerable doubt over that claim of Newton, Mel Bartels has written on it and pulled some interesting refs.

http://www.bbastrodesigns.com/Think you know who invented the reflecting telescope.html

So perhaps someone already sent back the plans for a parabola to John Hadley

 

Thanks for pointing to this interesting article, a bit of not so well known history that deserves to receive more attention by us.

[SilverAstro]

So, hands-up, who was it forgot to send back the info on glass to those guys risking severe injury with their speculuum metal !

[xtreemchaos]

54 minutes ago, johnfosteruk said:

In other words how do we know that someone didn't already send Isaac his 1" reflector from the future and how would we know?

because apple would be selling time machines instead of phones. that is a good point thro. charl.

[SilverAstro]

13 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

because apple would be selling time machines instead of phones. that is a good point thro. charl.

Maybe they are already - in the future !

and there are time travellers all round us but they have to remain hidden because A) they cant change the past to prevent disasters so no point in revealing themselves, or B ) they could change the past but choose not to do so cos it would prevent the invention of the time machines, or C )  we would kill them if we knew they could prevent disasters but choose not to - because they like to watch,  so again they remain hidden ( cloaked)

and I think I had a mis-spent youff reading too much SF   If only this rain would stop and the clouds clear , , ,

 

[xtreemchaos]

Ooooh thats a tricky one, im lent towards c but i think thay may only travel back in time to be game players in big brother. charl.

[SilverAstro]

2 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

may only travel back in time to be game players in big brother. charl.

Arrrgh ! I think you may be right !!

Sir, sir, please sir I know sir :- I'd send back the full details on and specification of the Higgs Boson to ,,, Brian Cox, then he neednt have spent all that money on the Large Hadron Collider.

 

[SilverAstro]

How about sending a picture of a steam locomotive to Hero of Alexandria and tell him to get on with it ?

Oh, sorry, off topic, not astro

 

[johnfosteruk]

15 minutes ago, SilverAstro said:

then he neednt have spent all that money on the Large Hadron Collider

But then you wouldn't have all the details on the Higgs to send to the coiffured one in the first (last) place would you, because the collider wouldn't have provided them to you. 

Aaaargh I'm going to go and do something productive now  

 

[SilverAstro]

23 hours ago, xtreemchaos said:

 well its cloudy and i do a lot of thinking on day like today,

and then it all went quiet Did the sun come out ?

Cloudy again today so I've been thinking (dont panic) about @Alien 13 's suggestion of sending a refractor back, or even an achromat , but there is a theory* that there is a time and place for inventions to be invented cos other things need to be in place ( like an iron &  steel industry to make Hero's steam toy into an engine ) So although the lens had been known for centuries it wasnt till they became commonplace for spectacles that a spectacle maker (Lipersey ?sp) thought of putting two of them together for television (in the latin sense )

Then there was my suggestion to send glass back to the speculum casters - in my innocence I thought that the silver nitrate - sugar -reduction method was a well known curiosity of the alchemists, but no, it seems that the process was not invented till the mid 1800s so it would not have done William and Caroline any good at all !

* might even have been an Azimov axiom, or law ?

time for coffee.

 

 

 

[xtreemchaos]

11 minutes ago, SilverAstro said:

and then it all went quiet Did the sun come out ?

yer got a few gaps in the cloud so baged myself a few daytime moon shots, got the V&X so wasnt  bad, even with a bit of cloud in every shot, but back to solid cloud again, darn weather. im a big beliver in chaos and anything can happen at anytime, but allso agree that inventions need other things to be invented first.  charl.

[LukeSkywatcher]

I cant think of anything or anyone because no matter who or what, it would end up a causing temporal paradox. Mind you, if i sent an 8" Newtonion to Newton AFTER he invented his original scope..........that may be allowed within temporal laws. I'd also send him a copy of TLAO.

[xtreemchaos]

good choice Paul, with good reasoning, i nearly went with a frac, but a newt would give them best bang for our buck and weight. charl.

[LukeSkywatcher]

17 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

good choice Paul, with good reasoning, i nearly went with a frac, but a newt would give them best bang for our buck and weight. charl.

Not sure which tripod/mount i'd send though.............i suppose a bog standard wooden German EQ, as the Dobsonian mount wasnt around back then. Not too sure if TLAO would be allowed by temporal laws either. I'm sure there's plenty in it that hadnt been discovered yet?.

I'd also ask him to send me back a signed note of good received.........you know.............just so i'd have his autograph. 

Then again, i'd also send Leonardo Da Vinci a letter telling him to keep working on his design for his flying cork screw thingie (i wouldnt give him the word helicopter). 

He would also have to reply with a signed letter of goods received.

LOL.

 

[xtreemchaos]

50 minutes ago, LukeSkywatcher said:

i suppose a bog standard wooden German EQ, as the Dobsonian mount

you could send a book covering building a mount or mounts ,theres plenty about, thats why i would send Galileo the mirror set and let him sort it out,there would be a few "mama mias" but i think he would figer it out.charl.