A question for all you time travelers

[Greg in Maryland]

Ok, all you Dr. Who, Star Trek, Quantum Leap and time travelers ...

Here's the scenario:

A time traveler brings an object from the present time, travels back eons and leaves the object in the past. The object survives the eons and is then discovered in the present time.

If the object is analyzed using such methods as: carbon dating, potassium-argon dating, uranium-lead dating, thermo-luminescence obsidian hydration or uranium trail dating, etc., what age would the object show? The age of eons ago or the present date?

Just musing on the way home from work ...

Greg

[Uncle Cracker]

Yes...

[jackellis]

I'd like to help but your question caused by brain to short out.

[LinuxRandal]

Wouldn't that depend on some of the arguments, they are STILL having about carbon dating?

[Uncle Cracker]

I'd like to help but your question caused by brain to short out.

Not circuit breaker protected???

[Russianwolf]

Well, you need more info, as Carbon dating for example only works on objects that were once alive. Doesn't work on Stone for instance.

If it were a piece of wood for example, then it would show the age related to eons in my opinion.

[jackellis]

Not circuit breaker protected???

I've been blowing fuses all week and just plumb ran out.

[gary]

How about before you analyzed it I took it back in time again and left it again?

[Mr__Bill]

As I understand it, the dating systems rely upon the breakdown of the substance. That breakdown takes place over time. It has no memory of when it was created only a history of breakdown since it was created, thus it would record the time from creation, to the time tested without regard to when in time the creation and testing take place.


Bill, somewhere in time....

[gerti]

42






:d

[vaking]

Carbon dating is a scientific method, time travel is a fantasy concept. One has nothing to do with fiction, another with science. Put the two rogether and you get an incompatible mix. Which brings 2 questions:
1. If an elephant and a whale get into a fight - which one shall win?
2. How long is the commute from work that makes you muse about things like this?

[crokett]

What Bill said. It would show the age of eons. h

[Greg in Maryland]

Carbon dating is a scientific method, time travel is a fantasy concept. One has nothing to do with fiction, another with science.

In 1869 manned flight was just a fantasy concept, but a 100 years later we landed men on the moon. Which was a more important concept, the fantasy of flight or the reality of the moon landing?

Today's fantasy is tomorrows science. Always has been and always will be.

Today's commute was particularly slow, though.

Greg

[Alex Franke]

Yeah, I think it would date very old, too. Either that or 42, like gerti said. It's a toss-up, really.

I believe the consensus, though, is that you can't send something back in time any further than the time that the time machine was created. So if you build a time machine now, you can only (at some point in the future) send something back to now -- the machine would already have to exist at both points in time.

Of course, that doesn't mean that our friendly neighborhood aliens couldn't have built the machine eons ago. But I don't think the time travel by itself would have an impact on the rate of radioactive decay in the object that did the traveling.

vaking... I think it depends on if the elephant and whale fight on land or in the water!

[LCHIEN]

what have you guys been smoking?