If you had a time machine...

[Rubycon]

Say you had a time machine and went forward in time to see powerball numbers, came back to the present and picked just the winning number and won the jackpot.

THEN you did it AGAIN...

How many times do you think you could do this, win by picking the number yourself - before someone would be suspicious of cheating or an inside job?

Imagine the odds of picking the winning number yourself not just once or twice but thrice. :awe:

 

[TecHNooB]

I would attempt to cause a paradox just to see which theory of time travel applies to us

 

[gorcorps]

I would never go into the future in a time machine... here's why:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY#t=00m45s

 

[sdifox]

this is covered in Back to the Future...

 

[Rubycon]

this is covered in Back to the Future...

No Back To The Future was full of plot holes.

The picture that Marty was carrying around would NOT change nor would the newspaper that the Doc had (in part 2). The current things in the future would change but papers would not and people would not disappear.

If Marty did not play (guitar) at the dance and George never hooked up with Lorraine THEY would not be his parents in the future and he would just be an orphan. (like me)

The whole thing with time travel is questionable because if it were possible in the first place someone surely would have come back to our time (future's past) and done something, right? Or it's done wisely not to mess anything up and we just don't know. (yeah right!)

 

[alkemyst]

I'd just loop the machine to repeatedly slap some people.

 

[Rubycon]

I'd just loop the machine to repeatedly slap some people.

That reminds me of the scene in Click where he stopped time to slap his boss and then jumped on the desk and farted in his boss' face! Now a remote like that would be very cool - if used wisely.

 

[sdifox]

No Back To The Future was full of plot holes.

The picture that Marty was carrying around would NOT change nor would the newspaper that the Doc had (in part 2). The current things in the future would change but papers would not and people would not disappear.

If Marty did not play (guitar) at the dance and George never hooked up with Lorraine THEY would not be his parents in the future and he would just be an orphan. (like me)

The whole thing with time travel is questionable because if it were possible in the first place someone surely would have come back to our time (future's past) and done something, right? Or it's done wisely not to mess anything up and we just don't know. (yeah right!)

Causality is a big issue. We haven't really figured out time. The thing you were describing is what happened in BTTF2.

 

[Arcadio]

I wouldn't do it. Not even once. What's the point of playing the lottery if you know the winning numbers. It takes the fun out of the game.

 

[Jeeebus]

if I had a time machine, I probably would not fuck around with traveling into the future. Chances are that I would hit my head on something, fuck up the dates, and end up hundreds of thousands of years in the future with Jeremy Irons lecturing me and trying to kill me. No thx.

 

[Rubycon]

Causality is a big issue. We haven't really figured out time. The thing you were describing is what happened in BTTF2.

Yes but back to the original question. We're not talking about consequence here. If I did this and won half a billion dollars the only change that would come from that is I'd donate every penny of it for operations in Haiti. I've always felt that way with something like that. (really that money would do ME no good!)

BUT you'd have people wondering HOW someone picked a number and won the powerball not just once but several times in a few months. (you would have to let the jackpot build up for best winnings THEN make sure nobody hits it when the number is 150-200 million!)

And THAT is the question. You know people would start asking questions.

 

[edro]

I would go BACK in time... and become a locksmith.

 

[Locut0s]

Given the odds of winning? I'd say even twice would/should cause a small investigation.

The odds of wining it twice in a row being 3.8x10^16.

 

[Rubycon]

Given the odds of winning? I'd say even twice would/should cause a small investigation.

Right but where? Do they stake out your place, bug your phone and all that crap to see if you're talking to the people that work for the Lottery commission? It's kind of hard to mess with the balls.

 

[DesiPower]

I would diversify, lottery, stocks, investment... powerball alone, wont do it the 3rd time

 

[LinuxIdiot]

AD 33 maybe you would see me
Telling Jesus his friend Judas was untrustworthy
You think that's fresh? Well just you'd wait
I'd battle rap Chaucer in 1388. I'd tell Lincoln in 1865
Going out to plays alone was somewhat unwise
In 1963, I'd make JFK's day
I'd say, "before you go to Dallas, wear this helmet, okay?"
In 2001, I'd make the world alright,
I'd go back to 9-11, and cancel all flights
In my time machine, you couldn't get with me
Because E equals this squared MC

 

[lxskllr]

They can suspect anything they want, prove it. I'm a mystic, prove otherwise ;^)

 

[rasczak]

I wouldn't do it. Not even once. What's the point of playing the lottery if you know the winning numbers. It takes the fun out of the game.

Who the hell cares about the stupid game. If i win the lotto, I won't effing care how fun the game is anymore.

 

[sdifox]

Yes but back to the original question. We're not talking about consequence here. If I did this and won half a billion dollars the only change that would come from that is I'd donate every penny of it for operations in Haiti. I've always felt that way with something like that. (really that money would do ME no good!)

BUT you'd have people wondering HOW someone picked a number and won the powerball not just once but several times in a few months. (you would have to let the jackpot build up for best winnings THEN make sure nobody hits it when the number is 150-200 million!)

And THAT is the question. You know people would start asking questions.

you would be killed in no time.

 

[Terzo]

Obviously we have to be smart about this. I would shy away from any big game winnings as they would attract too much attention. Not to mention it's been shown that jackpot winners often have difficulty following their big wins, from newfound "friends" to poor financial management.

I would treat it as a second, "bonus" income. Stick to small winnings, and space it out in time and location. Maybe a MD $500 ticket in January, then a $700 VA ticket in March. Stay under the radar and you can probably keep it up for a while, without a lot of the drawbacks of a huge win.

 

[Rubycon]

I would go BACK in time... and become a locksmith.

I wouldn't mind experiencing the music of the '60s and '70s again!

Most of the techies would go back to the '80s and squabble up all the three letter domains.

Imagine walking around with an iphone in the '60s. Sure there would be no signal but all your apps would run and you could still charge it up. People would freak out seeing that. Ditto with high powered handheld lasers.

 

[SunnyD]

Quantum mechanics dictates this can't happen, otherwise everything that happens in the universe is fixed and immutable. What has happened will always happen, and what will happen is inevitable. If this were the case, time machines (and humanity for that matter) would have existed since the big bang, and will exist through the end of the universe as we know it.

Think about it - if someone creates a working time machine, someone inevitably will go back to the dawn of time. However, the question is, how can you go back in time to a point before a key event happened - say, before time machines existed? You would be changing reality from that point forward. Yes, that's the point of this exercise. However, say you did go forward in time to collect the winning powerball numbers? You have reality along the original timeline, until you go back in time to what was your apparent reality timeline. You now go back with knowledge you didn't have before, thus changing the future timeline, and everything about quantum mechanics says that now you have irrevocably changed time and space forever, so other than random probability that the numbers you got from the future will be the winning numbers - well, you just played the lottery with time itself. Otherwise, it would prove that matter, energy and time are fixed and immutable. What has happened will always happen... and with that said, why haven't we seen time machines already. Paradox? Yup.

 

[Locut0s]

Quantum mechanics dictates this can't happen, otherwise everything that happens in the universe is fixed and immutable. What has happened will always happen, and what will happen is inevitable. If this were the case, time machines (and humanity for that matter) would have existed since the big bang, and will exist through the end of the universe as we know it.

Think about it - if someone creates a working time machine, someone inevitably will go back to the dawn of time. However, the question is, how can you go back in time to a point before a key event happened - say, before time machines existed? You would be changing reality from that point forward. Yes, that's the point of this exercise. However, say you did go forward in time to collect the winning powerball numbers? You have reality along the original timeline, until you go back in time to what was your apparent reality timeline. You now go back with knowledge you didn't have before, thus changing the future timeline, and everything about quantum mechanics says that now you have irrevocably changed time and space forever, so other than random probability that the numbers you got from the future will be the winning numbers - well, you just played the lottery with time itself. Otherwise, it would prove that matter, energy and time are fixed and immutable. What has happened will always happen... and with that said, why haven't we seen time machines already. Paradox? Yup.

Not sure if you know what you are talking about here At any rate none of this has to be the case if one accepts the many worlds interpretation, vs the Copenhagen interpretation, of quantum mechanics.

 

[Arcadio]

Not sure if you know what you are talking about here At any rate none of this has to be the case if one accepts the many worlds interpretation, vs the Copenhagen interpretation, of quantum mechanics.

But if one accepts the many-worlds interpretation, then you wouldn't be able to win the lottery even if you brought the winning numbers back from the future...

 

[lxskllr]

Quantum mechanics dictates this can't happen, otherwise everything that happens in the universe is fixed and immutable. What has happened will always happen, and what will happen is inevitable. If this were the case, time machines (and humanity for that matter) would have existed since the big bang, and will exist through the end of the universe as we know it.

Think about it - if someone creates a working time machine, someone inevitably will go back to the dawn of time. However, the question is, how can you go back in time to a point before a key event happened - say, before time machines existed? You would be changing reality from that point forward. Yes, that's the point of this exercise. However, say you did go forward in time to collect the winning powerball numbers? You have reality along the original timeline, until you go back in time to what was your apparent reality timeline. You now go back with knowledge you didn't have before, thus changing the future timeline, and everything about quantum mechanics says that now you have irrevocably changed time and space forever, so other than random probability that the numbers you got from the future will be the winning numbers - well, you just played the lottery with time itself. Otherwise, it would prove that matter, energy and time are fixed and immutable. What has happened will always happen... and with that said, why haven't we seen time machines already. Paradox? Yup.

Depends on what you call time travel. You could go back in time to an alternate universe that's very close to the present one, but a bit different. Get your winning lotto numbers, then come back to the present time/universe. Nothing's been broken, and it'll all continue to work properly :^P