Mobile phone spotted in photo of 1928 brings time travel questions | Hacker News Reader

Mobile phone spotted in photo of 1928 brings time travel questions

news.com.au

17 pointskeyle35 comments

What's more likely: an old woman traveled back in time to 1928 and used a cell phone that didn't require cell towers, or said old woman is just holding something random up to her ear?

This story is funny in a lot of ways but my favorite is how people keep noting that there were no cell towers. As if traveling back in time is a bit unlikely - but with a CELL PHONE! - that's just crazy.

Cell/mobile phone is just a term based on our frame of reference. For the sake of argument, if it is a time traveler, the device could be transmitting to someone from the future for all we know.

Ok, so we have a mysterious device that looks a little bit like a cell/mobile phone. Except we know it's not a mobile phone, because there are no towers. But it could be something else that is transmitting to someone from the future, it just looks a bit like a phone. Maybe it evolved from the phones we have today and it's more convenient than using a discreet in-ear device. Maybe it has a hi-res multi-touch screen.

But then I guess if we're entertaining the idea that it's some kind of mystery future technology, maybe we should open our minds to the possibility that it's not transmitting anything to anyone, maybe it has some other purpose that we don't understand yet.

So what we have is footage of someone holding an unknown object near the side of their face. All we really know is that it's some kind of unimaginable technology.

Or maybe it's something completely mundane that they had in their hand.

This is so stupid that I will not dignify it by enumerating the myriad other possible explanations that are far more probable.

Well, that was certainly a convincing argument.

From the video of the guy explaining his discovery:

"It is not an AM/FM radio because obviously it is 1928."

Huh? You're the one suggesting she's a time traveler talking on a mobile phone...

It can't be AM/FM because FM did not exist in 1928.

And AM radios were much larger, not to mention AM was only just getting started.

That's my point, he's saying it can't be an AM/FM radio but it might be a mobile phone.

Don't ba absurd. He didn't rule out the possibility of a time traveller with an AM/FM radio, just that it's not a 1928 era radio. Let's keep this grounded in reality. ;)

Could be an ear trumpet, or a crystal radio which does not require batteries to receive AM and power a small speaker or headphone... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_radio

It's 1928, radio was far from widespread, and crystal radios were much larger than that.

Something slightly less improbable: aliens. She was an alien with advanced alien technology that resembled modern cell phones.

Seriously if people have time travel you'd think by then Steve Jobs would have shrunk the iPhone to fit directly into our brains.

My guess? One of these - http://www.hearingaidmuseum.com/gallery/Carbon/index-carbon....

So the "time traveler" is talking to themselves?

Why not?

If every person who seemed to be talking to themselves were time travellers, you'd think we'd know.

Mere words cannot describe the odds at which I would bet against this.

I think it's an early walkie-talkie.

Just a decade after this footage, several inventors were starting commercial production of portable two-way radios, and soon after they were widely used during the war. A decade earlier Tesla had built and operated a two-way wireless radio station with trans-atlantic range, which the US Marines destroyed thinking it might be used by German spies. Tesla himself was still alive and working when this film was shot, and he would have been motivated to create a secret, portable and concealable version of his radio.

I suspect that the bulk of the figure in the film is covering a backpack device and antenna under a large coat. That would make this rare and valuable footage and evidence of an early prototype, but nothing outrageous for the time.

It looks to me like a woman with arthritis covering her face from the (large) film camera across the street. That might be why she turns to look at the last frame, as well -- curiosity combined with fear.

It certainly looks odd, but if there's one time traveller, then why is there only one? Why aren't we up to our ears in time travellers?

There was a great short story a few years ago in, I think, "Analog", that dealt with that. It told the story of the first time traveller. He went to visit Shakespeare, who they had decided would be able to deal with the shock of meeting a time travel.

The Bard dealt with it well, being completely unimpressed. In fact, he seemed familiar with the notion of time travelers. The time traveler was confused, asking how this could be since he was the first. "You weren't the first to arrive" Shakespeare told him. Turns out Shakespeare had been visited a lot--although he said it was nothing like the hassle Jesus had (one of the early ones had thought it would be neat to introduce them).

And then a bunch of time travelers from various future newspapers arrive, in order to try to interview the first time traveler.

Google as I might, I can't find your story, but it sounds interesting! I don't suppose you recall the Author, Title, or Date? Anything at all to go on?

I went through some of my Analogs from the time frame that is my best guess as to when I read it, and didn't find it. I'll do a more thorough check this weekend.

We probably are up to our ears. There's just only one careless time traveller.

Oh look, I found another time traveller!

http://cache1.asset-cache.net/xc/2634356.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAs...

Oh wait, it's just someone using an ear trumpet. You know, the only effective means of dealing with quite common hearing loss before the age of electronic hearing aids.

Never mind!

I'm sure that blurry thing you can't make out in the video is almost assuredly a mobile phone wielded by a time traveler though.

"I travel all the way back to 1928 and I STILL can't get a signal!"

I love stuff like this. :) http://boingboing.net/2010/04/16/time-traveler-caught-1.html

Link to the youtube video with the actual footage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6a4T2tJaSU

That's a very odd hold for a mobile phone. It's more likely to be a lady holding a small purse, frozen in a moment of awkwardness by a camera.

Someone from the future is going to hold a phone up to their ear and make a voice call? Absurd.

Lots of cell towers back then?

Everyone had a miniaturized femtocell? ;-)

And who would she call?

Or a well known time-travelling movie is being rereleased and needs some PR.

Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.

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