A thought experiment · 9500 BCE to 1914
Twenty things to take back in time, and the era where each does the most good
You can carry one object through time. Choose it, choose the era where it lands, and see how much good it does there. Then see how I ranked all twenty, and where three raters who never saw my scores disagreed with me.
Choose the one object you carry
Twenty objects, each small enough for a bag. You get one. Pick the one you think would change the most, then decide where in history to land it. Each landing is scored from 0 to 100; I call the score Delta.
- A box of BIC lightersFifty lighters · 1 kgFire in a flick. Every film’s first pick.
- Oral rehydration saltsTen sachets · about 205 gA pinch of salt, a pinch of sugar.
- WD-40One 400 ml can · 350 gYou’ve used it. You’ve never wondered what it is.
- A dozen reading glasses+1.0 to +3.5 · 250 gCheap, ugly, and about 1,500 years early.
- A kilo of goldOne barThe oldest cheat code.
- Ten sprouting potatoesA mix of colours and varieties · about 1 kgThe most boring thing in your kitchen.
- A rebuild-the-world paperbackSomething like Lewis Dartnell’s The Knowledge · 1 kgPaper. No battery. Written for exactly this.
- Neodymium magnetsSix N52 discs · 100 gThe party trick that beat the philosopher.
- A vial of ether100 ml and a cloth · 150 gPainless surgery, thirty-four years early.
- A baseplate compass40 gA needle that always points at the same thing.
- A child’s alphabet stamp set26 letters and a pigment ink pad · 200 gA toy, until you realise what it is.
- A broad-spectrum antibiotic courseOne ten-day course · 20 gA life. Maybe a king’s.
- A solar e-reader with offline Wikipedia250 g plus a panel · about 100 GBThe one everyone picks first.
- Vitamin C tablets100 × 1,000 mg · 150 gThe pill that wasn’t there.
- A Casio F-91WA digital watch under £20 · 21 gCheaper than lunch. Good enough for the Longitude Prize.
- A FoldscopeA paper microscope · about 8 gA laboratory you can fold into your pocket.
- A kilo of green coffee beans1 kg and a hand grinderWas the Enlightenment a caffeine side-effect?
- Water-purification tablets100 chlorine tablets · 60 gThe pump handle, in your pocket.
- An insecticide-treated bed net300 gRome already had mosquito nets. It didn’t know why they mattered.
- An aluminium slide rule30 cm · 120 gThe computer that never needs charging.
Where in history does it land?
Nine windows of history, each with its own problem. The score depends on how well the object fits the problem.
Same object, another era
0
How the score is made
This object in every era
Each bar is the Delta of landing in that window. Yours is outlined.
Your boarding pass
How I ranked all twenty
The ranking shows the best landing for every object, which gives away the answers. You can read it now, or after your first landing.
What the ranking shows
Six superlatives
Whose scores?
- 1. 🥔 Ten sprouting potatoes — Delta 90. 1314, A village near Ypres, Flanders (The High Middle Ages).
- 2. 🧂 Oral rehydration salts — Delta 85. 1831, Sunderland, England (Revolutions and Napoleon).
- 3. 🔤 A child’s alphabet stamp set — Delta 85. 1285, Bologna, Italy (The High Middle Ages).
- 4. 📏 An aluminium slide rule — Delta 81. 1600, Bohemia (The Scientific Revolution).
- 5. 👓 A dozen reading glasses — Delta 79. 240 BCE, Alexandria, Egypt (The Classical world).
- 6. 🍋 Vitamin C tablets — Delta 76. 1498, The Indian Ocean, aboard Vasco da Gama’s fleet (Plague and Renaissance).
- 7. 📖 A rebuild-the-world paperback — Delta 74. 1665, London, England (The Scientific Revolution).
- 8. 🧪 A vial of ether — Delta 73. 1812, Borodino, Russia (Revolutions and Napoleon).
- 9. 💧 Water-purification tablets — Delta 71. 1854, Broad Street, Soho, London (The Victorian machine age).
- 10. 🧭 A baseplate compass — Delta 70. 30 BCE, Puteoli, on the Bay of Naples (The Classical world).
- 11. 🔬 A Foldscope — Delta 68. 1020, Persia, in the circle of Ibn Sina (Caliphates and castles).
- 12. 🦟 An insecticide-treated bed net — Delta 62. 110, The Pontine Marshes, south of Rome (The Classical world).
- 13. ⌚ A Casio F-91W — Delta 60. 1707, HMS Association, off the Isles of Scilly (Enlightenment and sail).
- 14. 📱 A solar e-reader with offline Wikipedia — Delta 59. 1750, Paris, France (Enlightenment and sail).
- 15. 🛢️ WD-40 — Delta 51. 1862, The oil region of Pennsylvania (The Victorian machine age).
- 16. 💊 A broad-spectrum antibiotic course — Delta 46. 323 BCE, Babylon (The Classical world).
- 17. ☕ A kilo of green coffee beans — Delta 41. 1480, Venice (Plague and Renaissance).
- 18. 🧲 Neodymium magnets — Delta 40. 1600, London, England (The Scientific Revolution).
- 19. 🪙 A kilo of gold — Delta 36. 1450, Mainz, Germany (Plague and Renaissance).
- 20. 🔥 A box of BIC lighters — Delta 30. 1812, The Smolensk road, Russia (Revolutions and Napoleon).
How it was scored, and how far off it may be
Delta is a score from 0 to 100 for how much good an object does at its best landing. It combines four scores from 0 to 10, which I wrote: Need (30%), Copy (25%), Trust (20%) and Ripple (25%). I chose the weights too.