What Would You Do?

I got home today from a long day of jury duty (three week trial!!), office hours and then teaching a 3-hour-long night class. I was tired, and there were some frustrating things that happened today beyond that. So, as I was griping once I finally got home after 10pm, my husband said, "Tell me one good thing that happened today."

I had to think a bit.

But what I realized surprised me.

The good thing that happened today was reading my students' homework.

This is for a Math for Liberal Arts Class. We were discussing higher dimensional geometry - including time as the fourth dimension. One of their homework questions was:

"If a time machine were invented and you were allowed one round trip, would you travel to the past or the future? What would you do with this one chance, and why would you make that choice?"

I found some of the answers really intriguing. Here is a sampling:

1) I would go to the past and tell my self things not to do and then not do them.

2) I would go to the past, before this current recession, and put all my money in gold.

3) I would go to the past and prevent the Library of Alexandria from being destroyed; just think of where we could be now if we had not lost all that knowledge then.

4) I would go back and relive my good childhood memories.

5) I would go to the future to see my great-grandkids.

6) I would go to the future, about 200 years, and see what new technologies there were, especially in the health field.

7) I would go to the past and hear Jesus give the Sermon on the Mount.

8) I wouldn't travel in time to the past or the future, because I wouldn't want to mess anything up like can happen with the "butterfly effect."

So, now I leave you, reader, with the same question. If a time machine were invented, and you got to take one round trip to the past or the future, which direction would you go and what would you do?