Time TripDateline: 06/20/99 |
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Last year, Uncle Harry offered us a trip back in time. Using his Temporal Transporter (TempTer for short), we were able travel into the past to meet the historical figure that intrigued us most.
Now Uncle Harry is back, and his TempTer has undergone a few changes!
Here's how it works: The time machine stays here in the present, and all its features are operated via a remote you keep with you. It sends you back in time, transporting you as it does so to any location in the world. While you're in the past, TempTer translates everything you hear into your native tongue and everything you say into the language others can understand. It then brings you home when your time is up. When you return to the present, it will be only one minute later than when you left.
What's new? Harry has been able to extend the time you can spend in the past from a brief four hours to a full fourteen days. As before, you can use the remote control to return before your two weeks are up. And Harry has also added a cloaking device that lets you remain unseen -- but not unheard -- as long as you stay relatively still. However, the cloaking device can only be activated once during your trip, and although it can remain on indefinitely (even for your entire stay), once deactivated it cannot be turned on again.
TempTer is still somewhat limited -- it can send you no further into the past than the year 499, and no later than 1699. It can't send you into the future. And it is still so expensive to operate that you can only make one trip. Therefore, once you're in the past, you cannot use TempTer to transport you somewhere else in the past, or to another time; it can only bring you home again. However, while you're in the past you can travel anywhere you like -- as long as you use the modes of transport available in that time.
Keeping all this in mind, what would you do with a fortnight in history? Would you spend some time in a castle, learning what it was like to live day in and day out inside its massive walls? Does traveling with an army intrigue you? Would you witness a battle -- or participate? Perhaps you'd like to set sail with a Viking expedition, or hop aboard a Venetian trader. Or would you appeal to a master artist in the hopes that he will teach you some of what he knows?
Would you use the cloaking device to be "a fly on the wall" and uncover the truth of a perplexing mystery?
Whatever you choose to do, I hope you'll share your travel plans with us. Take our Time Trip Survey and let us know what you would do on an adventure vacation in history.
The URL for this feature is:
http://historymedren.about.com/library/weekly/aa062099.htm
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Do you know other students or history buffs who would enjoy this survey? Why not share this URL with them? |
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