Everybody Wants a Time Machine


Time machines. Everyone wants one. After all, everyone can think of so many uses. The adults’ version, at least in the movies and books, always  involves deliberate or accidental tampering of events and the paradoxes they create. In real life, most adults would probably use a time machine to make a killing in the stock market, but that doesn’t make for an interesting story…

Kids’ versions of time machines, on the other hand, are totally utilitarian.

Calvin’s time machine, for example, was the simplest of them all:
Like everyone who dreams of a time machine, Calvin too uses his time machine to go back in time to see the dinosaurs. One time, he planned to go into the future to see the latest tech but that didn’t work out the way he intended:

Calvin is very creative in the oh-so-many ways to deal with homework:
And another time:

I was amused by my 8 yo daughter’s use of a time machine, something she came up during our holiday at Goa:
“When our holiday ends, if we had a time machine, we could go back in time to the start of the holiday. And do it over and over again.”

Another time, she was reading a mystery where a character disappears and the only clue is his blood found near a Mayan pyramid. The hero is told to use a time travel potion to go back in time to the age of the Maya, then find and rescue his friend before he is sacrificed by the Maya. My daughter turned around and asked:
“Wait a minute. If the friend was kidnapped, then how can his blood be found in present day? Shouldn’t it have been found in the age of the Maya?”
TouchĂ©. I guess she does understand the concept of time travel better than I thought. It’s good to know that sci-fi movies might lie in her future: it would be such a welcome change from the endless animation movies….



Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarOctober 31, 2019 at 7:22 PM

    Well, well...this blog did transport me back in time! I caught up again with what I had left behind in time - Calvin comic strip! :-)

    Time travel appeared as science fiction first, then relativity led to the fantasy of time travel giving rise to Hollywood movies and all. They are all adult stuff. Actually, as the blog says, children deal with the subject with a lot more spirit and easy "willing suspension of disbelief!" Children can do it because they don't have to truthfully evaluate if time travel is allowed by science or if technology can pull it off. Naturally it is charming to see the blog writer's daughter's delightful responses in the context of time travel.

    Even as an adult, sometimes I dream like this: if only God appears before me and insists on giving me several boons :-) , I would demand that I have a darshan of the Buddha going back by 2-1/2 millenniums, be present during five music concerts of my favorite Carnatic musician during 1940s. If God is not exasperated by now, I don't mind time travel to the Egyptian era so that I can watch the building of the magnificent pyramids.

    Last but not the least, I would like to visit our dear country in the year 2120 (a hundred years from now) and watch its better ways than what is now. That way, I get rid of my fears and pessimism about our future, with the threats in our time - the population explosion, the ecological damage happening, non-diminishing poverty, lack of law-abidance all around and at all levels. :-) Unfortunately God must be far too busy to come over, listen to me and then offer me boons galore!!

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