Michael Crichton was one of my favorite authors. I loved reading his books and feeling not only vastly entertained but also educated. His movies... well... they don't do his books justice. I can't say they're bad because Jurassic Park is my favorite movie. It also happens to be one of my favorite books by him. The stories are pretty different though. Anyway, what merited these musings was an urge to watch Timeline last night. Now, "Timeline" was an awesome book. I remember reading it in high school at a volleyball game. I had reached the joust in the book and the crowds were going wild, as were the crowds at the volleyball game. It was like Crichton and life coming together. Seriously love that book. ...moving on... So, I watched Timeline last night and it made me wonder about the modern day immune system.
People spend so much time killing germs and sanitizing things. Sure that may be the healthier thing to do, but isn't it, inevitably, weakening our immune systems? For those of you that don't know the basic storyline of Timeline, it's about a company that is trying to master teleportation and discovers a wormhole in time instead. They end up sending people back to 14th century France, the day before a big battle. My question is, with modern day immune systems, wouldn't they just be obliterated by the diseases rampant in the 14th century... diseases that mankind has built up a tolerance for and then lost the tolerance because the disease has been eradicated. Just by having a weak immune system alone, a person who traveled that far back in time would be, at the very least, sick all the time. The same could be said for anyone that would travel to the future. They would bring with them all the germs and nonsense that they don't know will eventually be harmful. The image that is brought to mind is from Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World". Linda, though she is from the shiny, clean part of the world, has spent years with the "savages". The image I have is of Linda returning to the shiny world as a broken down and dirty beast. Would a time traveler really be welcomed? Because of things like that, my guess is no.
People spend so much time killing germs and sanitizing things. Sure that may be the healthier thing to do, but isn't it, inevitably, weakening our immune systems? For those of you that don't know the basic storyline of Timeline, it's about a company that is trying to master teleportation and discovers a wormhole in time instead. They end up sending people back to 14th century France, the day before a big battle. My question is, with modern day immune systems, wouldn't they just be obliterated by the diseases rampant in the 14th century... diseases that mankind has built up a tolerance for and then lost the tolerance because the disease has been eradicated. Just by having a weak immune system alone, a person who traveled that far back in time would be, at the very least, sick all the time. The same could be said for anyone that would travel to the future. They would bring with them all the germs and nonsense that they don't know will eventually be harmful. The image that is brought to mind is from Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World". Linda, though she is from the shiny, clean part of the world, has spent years with the "savages". The image I have is of Linda returning to the shiny world as a broken down and dirty beast. Would a time traveler really be welcomed? Because of things like that, my guess is no.
Besides, I'm convinced that time travel isn't actually possible, it would have to be interdimensional travel... I wrote a blog about it once. Read it!
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