Brain Game: If you had a time machine that could travel back in time or to the future, what would you do? (Round 7)

Assuming the machine does not create a duplicate every time I use it, I would sleep until 7:59am every morning and breeze onto campus just before class.

Also, wouldn’t it be fantastic if I could talk to future me, or remind my past self not to make silly mistakes? I could even go back in time and give myself winning lottery numbers.

Most importantly, I would use it to benefit humanity. I would stop Hitler from slaughtering millions of Jewish people during the Holocaust and warn innocent civilians before the September 11 attacks. I would also travel to the future to capture videos of how climate change will affect the planet, then return to the present day and show people the videos so they can understand how serious it is.

But as the saying goes “with great power comes great responsibility”. To make sure this powerful machine does not fall into the wrong hands, or tempt me to meddle with time according to my desires, I think it’s best for me not to have a time machine.

To start, I would go back in time to find my grandparents, pretend I’m conducting a survey for the government, and ask for their family background. Then I would repeat this process for everyone in my family until I record my entire family tree.

Next, I would like to witness every significant historical event. The Second World War? Sure! The Boston Tea Party? Definitely! The extinction of the dinosaurs? I have time for that! Although, I might have to skip some events if the machine isn’t tea-proof or nuke-proof.

Afterward, I would head to the future to see how different the world is. I want to see the fashion trends of tomorrow, how technology develops, and how humans evolve. I would also sneak into a restaurant and try future cuisine! Since I probably would not have any future money with me, I would probably have to outrun robot police.

I would be a responsible time traveller and not ask for too much. But I suppose I could tell my 8-year-old self to spend their pocket money on bitcoin. Nobody would mind that, right?

Have you ever dreamed of meeting deceased family members or bringing them back to life?

Over the past two years, the ruthless coronavirus pandemic has taken many lives, including the life of my great-grandmother in 2019. She was 93 at the time and passed away just one day after being infected with Covid-19. It was so sudden that we didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye.

I often look at the photos we took together, which are filled with pleasant memories of my great-grandmother and the time we spent together. It took a long time for me to accept the fact that she is gone.

So, if I had a time machine, I would travel back in time to before Covid-19. I would fit my great-grandmother into the time machine and press the “return” button to bring her back to the present.

I would take her to get a vaccine so she would be protected and would not have to suffer from this illness. I hope I could save her and that we could create joyous and fond memories once again.

I would travel back to 2019, when the pandemic was just about to start, and erase this catastrophe. I would bring current newspapers with me that talk about the detrimental impact of this crisis, such as the numbers of the many people who have died. Those newspapers would prove that I come from the future and I could convince people in the past who do not believe me. I would also upload some videos from 2022 to the internet and encourage everyone to get vaccinated early.

I hope I could change history, save people’s lives and make the present day world go back to normal, so we would not have to deal with Omicron and everyone would be able to travel without quarantine.

As much as I would like to go back in time and change the things I did not do well, I would definitely go to the future and explore innovations from the new world. From flying cars to space tourism, anything is possible with the rapid advancement of science and technology. I would like to see what inventions we have come up with and how they have changed the way we live.

Smartphones were introduced to the world only around a decade ago, but they have forever changed the way we live. Therefore, I think it would be exciting to learn what the future holds. I also think the way we learn and work has also changed drastically owing to technology and the pandemic, including with the advent of AI and the metaverse. It would be interesting to know how things change in the future too.

I would also like to see what human beings have done to combat climate change and global warming, since it is such a hot issue nowadays (literally).