It’s like if you imported all modern technology into the past: an iPhone alone would standout in the 50s for example. You have the device in hand but no service (cellphone towers are non existent during that era, nor is the internet & social media) so its functions remain basic (note taking, photos, voice memos) while pretty much all apps won’t function (no phone calls either).
You could record what happened back then via video but you’ll be too late when the internet’s infrastructure comes into fruition, so that “1950s lifestyle video” becomes old fast by the time you returned to the present day, but would you be believed if you said “this is shot in 1956” despite the resolution being in 4K in color or consider it mere fiction even though it is not.
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I find it amusing that supposedly a modern smartphone is “useless” because it lacks mobile data. Tech like the iPod and PDA were innovative and changed society. Having a device that functions as a camera, calculator, note taking device, information database, audio recorder and even light source is insane.
Other than that, I think one of the best things to do is to learn how something works, head back in time and invent it. Seems like a good way to get reliable income.
Dude, you need to go and watch Back to the Future again. There are ways to make easy money using time travel - without understanding how complicated technology works, going back in time and trying to replicate it without proper infrastructure.
Obligatory “time travel is not enough,” as in, just last month, Earth was in a different fixed point in space, and you can’t calculate it either, because just as the Moon orbits Earth, Earth orbits the Sun, and the Sun orbits the centre of the Milky Way. There is no point of reference. Going back a few days might be possible, but you’d be guessing where on Earth you wind up (or you might even be in space, even then).
I think this may be why TARDIS (Dr Who) stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space because the show’s writers are aware of this. The heart of the TARDIS is sort of a living, sentient thing, and I think it has a point of reference, so it can go precisely where it means to (when things are working). It also hand waves a lot of science away, so maybe not… the show is good entertainment, but I think it does try to tackle the space thing. Maybe.
If you brought an iPhone back to the 1950s, no, most apps would not stop working. Put your phone in airplane mode and see what you can do. A lot, actually! I got the 512GB one, and I have a bunch of movies on it. I have a few anime series, and I have my 3 favourite episodes of Dr Who (and some of Black Mirror as well). Imagine showing the Black Mirror episodes to Rod Serling (creator/narrator of Twilight Zone and Night Gallery), modern Dr Who to the BBC, and modern anime to Disney. You would blow their minds, and they would be taking notes. And as for movies, imagine showing Interstellar to guys like George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry. Heck, I have the original Star Trek Discovery trailer on my phone — I could show that to Roddenberry. I would say show the 2019 Cyberpunk 2077 trailer to game developers, but there weren’t game developers in the 1950s per se, and anyone who saw it would not believe it wasn’t a movie with special effects (which is kinda true, it’s a CGI movie advertising a game).
The text of Wikipedia is something like 16GB, very much doable for most phones. I’m not sure, but you could probably bring a charger back to the 1950s? Find some science think tank somewhere in the UK, the US, Sweden, or somewhere like that, donate your iPhone to them, teach them how to use it… and let them get all that data. They would advance science and medicine by decades, giving us all kinds of advances in both.
The other issue is prevention of key historical events. Going back to the 1950s means you could presumably stop the assassination of American president Kennedy in 1963. Stephen King wrote a whole book about that (11/22/63) and it’s absolutely worth reading. (There is a TV show that is a pretty good adaptation, but I would advise splitting the difference and listening to the audiobook.) What historical events would you try to prevent? Assuming you could.
History is littered with examples of ideas that were out of their time.
for example, Electric cars have been invented almost as many times as crabs, yet unlike crabs they’ve always failed.
Maybe these ideas who were ahead of their time were from your time traveling descendants, trying to answer your question?
Depends on your goals:
setup surveillance stations around the world to record history?
Take back a encyclopedia to ancient Egypt?
Setup your own idyllic getaway island?
The right knowledge at the right time could have huge impact on a developing society
I feel like it depends a lot on what you want to get out of it, you seem to be coming at it from a very specific perspective, which isn’t necessarily the same way others might look at the opportunity. For me for example, I would want time travel so I could say some choice words to my parents and abduct my younger self :\
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It makes great television.
