This is the second open Physics challenge problem of 2011. We welcome all submissions from anyone interested. All of the solutions should be submitted by email using the Contact link above.
Questions, comments or want to hash out your idea in public? Post on the Discussion page!
The Problem
Posted: 5 Sept 2011, Open Until: 4 Nov 2011You've made a time machine out of a DeLorean. It is ready for its first test and you are fairly certain it will work. You have worked out all the ephemerides so your time machine will always land on Earth (no matter when it is) and have fueled up your flux capacitor with all the gigawatts it can take. If the machine works, you want the world to know it, no matter what happens. But what happens if there is a problem? Say you accidentally go back 70 million years and smash into a Triceratops at 88 mph, rendering the time machine unusable. Your machine will have worked, but no one will know!
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to design a strategy that would maximize the odds of convincing people that you had in fact travelled back in time (even if you are stuck in the past). You can use any tools you may have brought back with you in your DeLorean. Since an error could cause you to go to anytime in the past, your strategy should ideally work if you got stuck a thousand or million years in the past.
Remember, your goal is to convince scientists of the present that you had actually travelled back in time. This is an extraordinary claim! Therefore, you will need extraordinary evidence. Your solution maximize the probability that the following criteria are met:
- What you leave will stand the test of time for an almost arbitrary length of time.
- Modern man will find what you left.
- What you leave is able to convince modern scientists that it was actually left by a time traveller and not a loon or hoaxer.
Good luck! As always, we will give bonus points for thoroughness, creativity, and anything that we find amusing.
Update: The challenge has been closed. See the Award Show post, or look at the Solutions.