• mr_account@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    I would have a Lovecraftian statue carved out of some sturdy, semi-rare material that can stand the test of time, and bury it in Antarctica tens of thousands of years before homosapiens evolved. Then in present day I would wait…

    • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      5 days ago

      We can do better than that if we want to abuse a time machine to forge Lovecraftian horror!

      I would use my time machine to steal Neil Armstrong’s corpse from his funeral and then dump it right at the landing site of Apollo 11. First thing Neil sees when he hops onto the lunar surface? His own aged corpse.

          • Saledovil@sh.itjust.works
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            5 days ago

            Atoms don’t age. They don’t mature, and they don’t change with time. Unstable isotopes decay at random, but the decay probability never changes.

            So you can legally date carbon that’s 0 years old, if you find any. Most carbon will be much older than you.

        • Zagorath@quokk.au
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          5 days ago

          I’d get my stone from far in the future, then bury it in the past, so if they date it they’ll be like…“this is from 10 million years after today, that doesn’t make any sense.”

          • RamenJunkie@midwest.social
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            4 days ago

            Maximum confusion!

            Plis, you could start a new conspiracy. Instead of “The Earth is only 6000 years old”, you can be all “The Earth is actually MUCH older, what is science hiding???”

            • mr_account@lemmy.world
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              4 days ago

              iirc carbon dating wouldn’t really work since that’s for organic material specifically. But instead of the age of the statue being the main point of concern, I can do you one better. If you make it out of some kind of alloy that doesn’t occur in nature, it would further indicate that something has far more advanced knowledge than the era would ever permit. Also, I’m pretty sure that because of nuclear testing putting specific elements into the atmosphere, a lot of materials carry some form of these trace elements, which would indicate knowledge of atomic weapons! (though idk if this would still be a thing or not after thousands of years of the statue being exposed to the elements)