Physics Challenge 2011

Alright, here's my take on the most effective way to get credit for time travel. Using information from this TED video, and general biology knowledge from fellow student Steven, my strategy hopes to get a message of my choice into the DNA of as many strains of bacteria as possible. As of today, about 400 different types of bacteria have been sequenced and studied. By inserting my code DNA into as many (number) of as many types of bacteria as possible, there is a significant chance that it will be found by modern scientists. My code will be a typical base-3, length-3 code using the base pairs ACTG, with AAA = A, AAB = B etc. and TTT indicating a space. Alternating G and T in binary will give me access to numbers. TTTT = 0 TTTG = 1 etc. Translated, the message will read: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ (FULL NAME) (social security number) HAS TOTALLY GONE BACK IN TIME AND IT IS AWESOME (double space) WWW (FULLNAME)ISATIMETRAVELER COM (double space) GIVE MY REGARDS TO DAVY This is all assuming that the lab from the TED talk (referenced above) does not allow me to use their biology-specialized-no-screwing-up-of-the-bacteria-and-ruining-everything code for me to use. According to Steve (an undergraduate studying biophysics), the basic steps for inserting junk DNA are as follows: 1. take electrocompetent/chemo-competent cell out of -80 degrees C 2. thaw for 5-6 minutes 3. add DNA that you want injected (should be on a plasmid for bacteria with appropriate antibiotic resistance) 4. Allow to sit for 15-20 minutes 5. Deliver electric shock or heat shock (42 degrees C, 45 seconds) 6. Place in nutrient broth and incubate at 37 degrees C for 1-2 hours 7. plate onto petri dish with LB and appropriate antibiotic (this allows to select for colonies in which the plasmid was accepted) 8. the resultant bacteria have the DNA in them.... After making 1 Delorian (SI units) of coded bacteria, all that's left to do is register the mentioned website, load up, don my back-in-time t-shirt and plunge into the time stream. Assuming I arrived in pre-human history and I'm unable to come back to the present, I will dedicate the rest of my life to traveling the globe and establishing colonies of bacteria to carry my message... Back to the Future! The hope is that having a huge sample size and a large variety of bacteria will ensure that the message is preserved through genetic mutation and mass bactericide, and that the same string of DNA found among most of single-cellular life will be peculiar enough that someone from today will eventually decode the message and found a new religion in my name (or at least start a blog). If I can meet and interact with ancient peoples, After doing the above I will procede to integrate myself into society and gain fame and popularity (using magic (also known as physics) and what's written on my t-shirt) and create a written record of the my DNA code and its translation. Obviously, the less time I travel back, the more likely it is that my DNA is preserved, but at the same time it's also more likely that established strains will compete (more effectively) against my bacteria. In the best case, these two factors mitigate each other, which allows my strategy to be (somewhat) time invariant.

Hello, I know it is past the deadline, but I have yet to see an answer posted and thought, what the hell. This will be merely a partial solution (at best!) because I have never taken a physics course (let alone chemistry, or above high school algebra in math!) but I wanted to share some of my ideas nonetheless. I hope my response is not laughable due to my ignorance. My solution will provide what I believe to be the basic idea of how to go about solving the problem, but will leave the technical aspects open to be completed by those with more knowledge than myself, i.e. you! I will say, as best I can, exactly how to follow up from where my solutions finish. I have divided up my answer into three parts to target each requirement you have set. Problem 1: Proof. This is the easy part. The scientist will travel back in time with a detailed description of the processes required to make time travel possible, e.g. in Doc Brown's case, an analysis of the inner workings of the flux capacitor should suffice. Any modern day scientist should be able to read the description and create his own working model, thereby proving that whoever left the information was capable of time travel and since that person will not be around when the findings are found, it should not be difficult to deduce that this is because he did indeed travel back in time with these documents. Not to mention, the time travelling scientist could just write that fact down on the paper. Heading - "Yo, if you're reading this, I travelled back in time and didn't make it back because I died or got caught up riding dinosaurs. How did I do that shit? Read on." Problem 2: Stand the test of time. What is the most durable substance known to man?? My comic book brain was saying "Adamantium of course!" but alas, that is fiction. But, isn't there some (non-fiction) substance that scientists are working with currently called carbon nanotubes or something? I remember hearing about them being so strong we could make an elevator to the moon? Is it too much to assume that this substance would be the most likely substance to stand the test of time? I understand it would be extremely costly, but cost was not a parameter set by your question so, frankly, I don't give a damn. I say, make a time capsule out of this (or a substance of equal or stronger durability) and put the proof inside of it.. Then I thought, will paper decompose over millions of years inside a perfectly sealed adamantium container? Once again, I do not know, but I highly doubt it will stand the test of time no matter how well sealed our container is. So, why not engrave the description microscopically onto thin adamantium sheets that we put inside the adamantium container? There, problem solved. ( I hope). Problem 3: Modern man will find it. This was the hardest one in my opinion. How do I guarantee modern man will find it? What if I fall into a canyon and get covered in ten miles of sediment a thousand years later and then the pacific ocean covers me a million years later? I will not be found! Constant radio signal?? But how to make it last without constant energy input? Using the surface of the earth, nothing seemed, statistically, to ensure that my adamantium proof capsule would be found...so...why use the surface?! Here again, I don't know if this is possible. In fact, I highly doubt it is, but hey, I am not a scientist. I figured, shoot that bastard into space! We don't have to worry about geology fucking with us anymore! Basically, now it's a satelllite as well. As to the internal navigation system of this adamantium proof capsule, I leave that to you, the scientists. But, can our delorean be equipped with a satellite? Probably not the ones we're familiar with( aren't they pretty big?), but instead of making those, don't you just need the initial propulsion to get it into the right spot in space around our atmosphere and then the freefall effect takes care of it from there? I don't know if that is true, but it sure as hell sounds nice. And you might say, "Yes! that is true, theoretically, but, Kyle, how could we fit enough energy to propel your adamantium proof capsule into space within the passenger seat of my deloran? To which I would respond, "To the best of my knowledge, time travel alone requires more energy than modern man is currently able to produce. Yet modern man can currently produce enough energy to send satellites into space Therefore, if you can bottle up your time machine's energy source within a delorean's backseat, bottling up enough energy to shoot an adamantium time capsule out to space should be child's play!" Also, if our capsule is floating around our atmosphere, modern man will find it. And another thing, do things decompose in space? There is no air...but what about radiation?? I only ask because maybe, we wouldn't even need the documents describing the flux capacitor to be made out of adamantium engraved sheets if paper will not decompose in space. You tell me. What will set this whole process off? The time travel sets a sensor on his heart to trigger the launching of the adamantium satellite proof capsule if it stops beating. So...Did I solve it? Probably not :[ But as a person completely ignorant of any technical science, I hope I at least impressed you a bit. Fare thee well.