Motivation for time travel into the past

[Mutsi]

Hi,

Today I was sitting in the train and I wondered what the motivation for a time traveler would be if he wanted to go in the past. Say that I live in 2011 and I went back 210 million years ago to see the dinosaurs, that would be my motivation. But when I would travel back to there and satisfy myself from what I have seen and went back. I would no longer have that motivation in the present and thereby I would never want to go back 210 million years in the first place. Or is my way of thinking about this just wrong?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Well one could give an earlier version of oneself the lottery numbers followed by how the stock market will go (and key sports results). Once you've turned yourself into a billionaire tycoon you could transfer back technologies for your companies to patent. You could become the worlds richest person.

Although time travel in this fashion is understood to be impossible, a time machine (it it were possible and CPCs didn't interfere) would only allow travel back to a certain point after the creation of the machine.

 

[russ_watters]

Mutsi, that would only be true if you returned before you left!