A true time travel story
When I was a frosh at Tech, my friends and I decided to build a time machine. We sat around pondering, using whatever little knowledge we had of the subject to come up with something.
However, we were not smart enough to dream up something original, but we decided to not give up. It was a goal we were going to stick with in case we solved it. Then, one of us came up with the idea that if we were successful some day in the future, than our first priority should be to travel back in time and tell the younger us's to keep cranking. That is, we wanted to create a time-loop that ensured our success. How could we do this?
It was early in the week, and we decided to set a very specific time and location to meet our future selves. The date we picked was the following Friday. We chose an outdoor location, in case there was a lot of whizbang sparking cool stuff, etc ... The location was the stone bridge in front of the Milikan library and we decided to meet at a time when there wouldn't be many people around. So the time was Friday at midnight in front of the library.
The four of us continued to develop ideas during the week. We also collected recording equipment, a camera, video camera, tape recorder, etc ... to record the momentous occasion. Finally, Friday rolled around and we went up to the bridge around 11 PM. We scoured the bridge for anything unusual ... in case our future selves screwed up and came too early and found nothing. At one point, a campus security officer ambled over and inquired into our presence out so late at night. We explained our situation. Shaking his head, he left us alone.
As the midnight hour approached, we waited ... tape rolling, cameras ready. At midnight ... nothing. Hmmm, what happened. We really had psyched ourselves into believing something would happen. We started shifting around uncomfortably when at 12:01, I suddenly noticed a glint in the middle of the bridge. Holding the camcorder, I ran up to the center of the bridge to identify the source. There, sitting right in the middle of the bridge was ...
A 5 amp Fuse!!
This fuse was very similar to the ones we used in our freshman physics laboratory kits for circuit experiments. We did scour the bridge, right? This fuse wasnt there before. Was this the sign we were waiting for? Confused, and a little disappointed, we picked up the fuse and headed back to the dorm.
Back in my room, we sat around in kind of a circle, with the fuse sitting in the middle of us like a campfire. We started to philosophize and glorify the fuse in front of us. Maybe, we thought, We sent a fuse because we couldnt send something more revealing. Some sort of do not disturb the timeline too much kind of rule. Maybe it was impossible to actually send a person, or anything large back in time. Maybe the fuse was symbolic? and more bullshit like that ... Then, it occurred to me - if this fuse is indeed from the future, then it must be indestructable, because it has to survive into the future to eventually find its way back here. At this point, my roomate, who was not involved in the whole affair, looked at me and smirked."I could destroy that fuse right now if I wanted to."
"Well indeed you could, but the point is ... you wont", I replied
He didn't respond, but instead picked up a sock and his math book, put the sock over the fuse and then slammed the book on top of it. Needless to say, the fuse was shattered.
"Huh ..." was about all I could come up with.
And could be the anticlimactic ending to this story ... but there is one more quick anecdote I would like to mention which may or may not be related ...
Back in 1982, when I was in 4rth grade, I was visiting India with my parents. We went to visit some relatives of mine who lived out in the country. They had a big house with a nice open courtyard with a high stone wall going all around it. At some point, I wandered away from all the adults in the main room and started exploring the courtyard outside. That's when I ran into another little Indian boy, about my age, who looked rather strikingly like me, and who had my exact name. How neat, I thought ... and I talked to the boy about something, I dont remember what anymore. Later, I returned to the adults in the main room and told them about the boy I met in the courtyard. I remember everyone got very concerned and started searching around the house. I think they thought a theif might have gotten in, or something. They found nobody ...
So anyways, that's my story. Either I've been blessed with a fuse and my double from the future, or I have an overactive imagination... Dare I say it? Ok, I will ...
Only time will tell