The Origin of the Self-Inventing Doodad
The Matt
Namely, I am trying to find the first example of what I call the
self-inventing doodad. This probably isn't the term used by fans of the
literature, but it's what I've always called it.
The self-inventing doodad (SID) is that curious creation of time travel: a
device or object that was never created. Rather, due to a loop in time it
simply is.
An easy example SID is the Skynet chip from the Terminator movies. That
chip which was so prominent in T2 was never invented. Why? Dyson, or
Cyberdyne, copied the design for the Skynet chip from the chip found in
the first T-800. Thus, even if you say Dyson or Cyberdyne created the
chip that led to Skynet, it was only because they copied one they will
create in the future[1]. Thus no one ever designed the chip.
Another example of an SID, I believe, is the triluminary from "Babylon 5".
If I recall, the first one (or all three?) was brought to Minbar by
Valen, who was Jeffrey Sinclair. Obviously, that first one was brought
from the future, and so even if any more were made on Minbar in the past,
the fact is it was never actually invented. That "first" design was based
on a device that was brought to the past from the future.
I'm sure there are more examples of this, and I was hoping the knowledge
of this group could help me find out what the first was.
Matt
[1] It'd be even better if the chip from the first T-800 happened to be
the first chip Cyberdyne ever made. Then, no one even manufactured it.
--
I am a theoretical chemist. Fear me! Please.
The Matt -- http://ucsub.colorado.edu/~thompsma/
Mike Schilling
"The Matt" <thom...@colorado.eud> wrote in message
news:pan.2003.06.27....@colorado.eud...
> I have a question that I bet the fine folks of RASW can help me with.
> Namely, I am trying to find the first example of what I call the
> self-inventing doodad. This probably isn't the term used by fans of the
> literature, but it's what I've always called it.
>
> The self-inventing doodad (SID) is that curious creation of time travel: a
> device or object that was never created. Rather, due to a loop in time it
> simply is.
>
The list of books that a ruler would find useful in RAH's "By His
Bootstraps" is another. No one ever composes the list. The protagonist
first sees it in an old notebook and copies it to a new one, which then ages
to become the old one.
Dorothy J Heydt
The Matt <thompsma@coloradoDOTedu> wrote:
>I have a question that I bet the fine folks of RASW can help me with.
>Namely, I am trying to find the first example of what I call the
>self-inventing doodad. This probably isn't the term used by fans of the
>literature, but it's what I've always called it.
>
>The self-inventing doodad (SID) is that curious creation of time travel: a
>device or object that was never created. Rather, due to a loop in time it
>simply is.
....
>
>I'm sure there are more examples of this, and I was hoping the knowledge
>of this group could help me find out what the first was.
I was going to nominate "As Never Was" by P. Schuyler Miller,
published in Astounding in 1944, but I notice "By His Bootstraps"
appeared in 1941. Still, "As Never Was" is a good example of the
SID that comprises the whole plot, rather than being simply an
element in the plot, as in e.g. Harrison's _The Technicolor Time
Machine._
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
Scott Fluhrer
"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
news:HH5B2...@kithrup.com...
> In article <pan.2003.06.27....@colorado.eud>,
> The Matt <thompsma@coloradoDOTedu> wrote:
> >I have a question that I bet the fine folks of RASW can help me with.
> >Namely, I am trying to find the first example of what I call the
> >self-inventing doodad. This probably isn't the term used by fans of the
> >literature, but it's what I've always called it.
> >
> >The self-inventing doodad (SID) is that curious creation of time travel:
a
> >device or object that was never created. Rather, due to a loop in time
it
> >simply is.
>
> ....
> >
> >I'm sure there are more examples of this, and I was hoping the knowledge
> >of this group could help me find out what the first was.
>
> I was going to nominate "As Never Was" by P. Schuyler Miller,
> published in Astounding in 1944, but I notice "By His Bootstraps"
> appeared in 1941.
translations doesn't qualify, as the hero copied it at one point in the
loop, and used the copy. I can't think of any other object which comes even
close. Now, the whole scenario is self-inventing, but that's not what the
OP asked for...
--
poncho
Mike Schilling
"Scott Fluhrer" <sflu...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:bdhp4d$d95$1...@slb3.atl.mindspring.net...
>
> > I was going to nominate "As Never Was" by P. Schuyler Miller,
> > published in Astounding in 1944, but I notice "By His Bootstraps"
> > appeared in 1941.
> Question: what was the self-inventing doodad in BHB? The notepad of
> translations doesn't qualify, as the hero copied it at one point in the
> loop, and used the copy.
The copy and the original were the same notepad, at different points in its
existence.
rex luscus
The SID is pretty much at the core of Asimov's "Eterity's end". In
this case the SID is not only the device producing the "paratime" but
the equations describing its workings. IIRC, the novel dates back to
the 50's, but I read it a long time ago.
David Silberstein
The Matt <thompsma@coloradoDOTedu> wrote:
>I have a question that I bet the fine folks of RASW can help me with.
>Namely, I am trying to find the first example of what I call the
>self-inventing doodad. This probably isn't the term used by fans of the
>literature, but it's what I've always called it.
>
>The self-inventing doodad (SID) is that curious creation of time travel: a
>device or object that was never created. Rather, due to a loop in time it
>simply is.
Not exactly a doodad, but: /The Anubis Gates/ by Tim Powers has
"The Twelve Hours of the Night", a poem by William Ashbless.
The poem is the autopragma. [1]
How about "Life on Earth"?
http://www.angryflower.com/goinaf.gif
[1] I just coined the word, or at least Google has no hits other
than in a SQL program.
lal_truckee
> In article <pan.2003.06.27....@colorado.eud>,
> The Matt <thompsma@coloradoDOTedu> wrote:
>
>
>>I have a question that I bet the fine folks of RASW can help me with.
>>Namely, I am trying to find the first example of what I call the
>>self-inventing doodad. This probably isn't the term used by fans of the
>>literature, but it's what I've always called it.
>>
>>The self-inventing doodad (SID) is that curious creation of time travel: a
>>device or object that was never created. Rather, due to a loop in time it
>>simply is.
>
>
> Not exactly a doodad, but: /The Anubis Gates/ by Tim Powers has
> "The Twelve Hours of the Night", a poem by William Ashbless.
> The poem is the autopragma. [1]
> [1] I just coined the word, or at least Google has no hits other
> than in a SQL program.
You don't have to invent a word; such things already have a name. They
are called a "jinn" IIRC by those who take this stuff seriously
something trapped in a time loop, having no origin.
The protagonist him/herself in _All You Zombies_ is a jinn.
David Tate
> Namely, I am trying to find the first example of what I call the
> self-inventing doodad. This probably isn't the term used by fans of the
> literature, but it's what I've always called it.
[...]
> I'm sure there are more examples of this, and I was hoping the knowledge
> of this group could help me find out what the first was.
I can't think of any that are earlier than the notepad/list in "By His
Bootstraps", but another cute recent example springs to mind.
In Ted Powers's THE ANUBIS GATES, (SPOILER WARNING)
there is a poem that plays a central role in the plot. I can't
remember the exact title; it's something like "The Twelve Hours of the
Night". The poem is ostensibly by the Romantic poet William Ashbless.
Our Hero, the time-traveller, knows the poem because he was a student
of Romantic poetry.
...but in the end, we discover that Our Hero *is* William Ashbless.
He 'composes' the poem from memory and publishes it, to be studied by
his later-but-younger self 150 years hence. Thus, the poem was never
actually composed by anyone -- it was written down for the first time
by someone who had memorized it from a later edition.
David Tate
Dorothy J Heydt
This reminds me of quite another story. I can remember neither
author, title, nor names of characters, but it was in Galaxy in
the 1950s. (Big help, eh? I can see the typeface....)
Art critic from the future comes back to study a famous painter
of the 20th century. He finds him to be a worthless drunken sot
who paints, all right, but nothing worth looking at.
Consternation ensues, narrated by the painter's, um, friend?
Acquaintance maybe. Anyway, the painter is killed, the time
machine destroyed, and the critic stranded. He's got to have
a fake identity, and he's got to make a living. So he takes the
deceased painter's name, and he paints. And he paints
masterpieces and becomes famous. And he keeps tearing his hair
over it because he's only copying from memory the paintings he
used to be an expert on, and he's causing paradoxes and this is
terrible. Narrator concludes,
"But the other day I asked him about some of the famous
paintings, and you know what? He can't remember them, or
only vaguely. Of course. Because he's the real {name of
painter} and there is no paradox. But if I told him that it
would destroy what little self-confidence the poor bastard has
got. 'Forget it,' I keep telling him. 'A buck's a buck.'"
Paul F. Dietz
> I have a question that I bet the fine folks of RASW can help me with.
> Namely, I am trying to find the first example of what I call the
> self-inventing doodad. This probably isn't the term used by fans of the
> literature, but it's what I've always called it.
>
> The self-inventing doodad (SID) is that curious creation of time travel: a
> device or object that was never created. Rather, due to a loop in time it
> simply is.
No one used it first, of course.
Paul
David Silberstein
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>
>This reminds me of quite another story. I can remember neither
>author, title, nor names of characters, but it was in Galaxy in
>the 1950s. (Big help, eh? I can see the typeface....)
>
>Art critic from the future comes back to study a famous painter
>of the 20th century. He finds him to be a worthless drunken sot
>who paints, all right, but nothing worth looking at.
>Consternation ensues, narrated by the painter's, um, friend?
>Acquaintance maybe. Anyway, the painter is killed, the time
>machine destroyed, and the critic stranded. He's got to have
>a fake identity, and he's got to make a living. So he takes the
>deceased painter's name, and he paints. And he paints
>masterpieces and becomes famous. And he keeps tearing his hair
>over it because he's only copying from memory the paintings he
>used to be an expert on, and he's causing paradoxes and this is
>terrible. Narrator concludes,
>
>"But the other day I asked him about some of the famous
>paintings, and you know what? He can't remember them, or
>only vaguely. Of course. Because he's the real {name of
>painter} and there is no paradox. But if I told him that it
>would destroy what little self-confidence the poor bastard has
>got. 'Forget it,' I keep telling him. 'A buck's a buck.'"
>
Hmm. This sounds *very* familiar... [Google] And well it should;
I sort of started the thread that time:
http://google.com/groups?selm=qJeM8.254$kW1.1...@newshog.newsread.com
http://google.com/groups?selm=9743b048.02060...@posting.google.com
Both of those say that the story is by William Tenn,
/The Discovery of Morniel Mathaway/
lal_truckee
> In article <HH5yr...@kithrup.com>,
> Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>
>>This reminds me of quite another story. I can remember neither
>>author, title, nor names of characters, but it was in Galaxy in
>>the 1950s. (Big help, eh? I can see the typeface....)
Description CLIPPED
>
>
> Hmm. This sounds *very* familiar... [Google] And well it should;
> I sort of started the thread that time:
>
> http://google.com/groups?selm=qJeM8.254$kW1.1...@newshog.newsread.com
> http://google.com/groups?selm=9743b048.02060...@posting.google.com
>
> Both of those say that the story is by William Tenn,
> /The Discovery of Morniel Mathaway
c.f. _The Door Into Summer_
In passing Heinlein sends the guy who becomes Leonardo back in time (on
the wrong continent, but surmises he has sufficient moxie to work his
way to Vinci, Europe; Heinlein doesn't follow up on the idea.
The Matt
-0500, it was said:
It was about an hour after I posted this that I thought of this answer.
Figured that someone else would too. :p
Thanks to the group for the info. I'd never actually read any of the lit
mentioned so now I have a summer reading list.
David Silberstein
lal_truckee <lal_t...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>c.f. _The Door Into Summer_
>In passing Heinlein sends the guy who becomes Leonardo back in time (on
>the wrong continent, but surmises he has sufficient moxie to work his
>way to Vinci, Europe; Heinlein doesn't follow up on the idea.
>
Not quite. The guy who invented the time machine mentions sends
someone with a *similar* name ("Leonard Vincent"), and the time
machine works by sending equal masses into both the past & future,
and the guy can't control which. So *maybe* this guy (also a
technical whiz) went to the past & *maybe* traveled from the New
World to Italy. But it's all just hypothetical.
Dorothy J Heydt
David Silberstein <davids_aat_k...@foilspam.invalid> wrote:
>
>Both of those say that the story is by William Tenn,
>/The Discovery of Morniel Mathaway/
Morniel Mathaway! That was the fellow's name!
Thanks.
Richard Horton
Heydt) wrote:
>Art critic from the future comes back to study a famous painter
>of the 20th century. He finds him to be a worthless drunken sot
>who paints, all right, but nothing worth looking at.
>Consternation ensues, narrated by the painter's, um, friend?
>Acquaintance maybe. Anyway, the painter is killed, the time
>machine destroyed, and the critic stranded. He's got to have
>a fake identity, and he's got to make a living. So he takes the
>deceased painter's name, and he paints. And he paints
>masterpieces and becomes famous. And he keeps tearing his hair
>over it because he's only copying from memory the paintings he
>used to be an expert on, and he's causing paradoxes and this is
>terrible. Narrator concludes,
>
>"But the other day I asked him about some of the famous
>paintings, and you know what? He can't remember them, or
>only vaguely. Of course. Because he's the real {name of
>painter} and there is no paradox. But if I told him that it
>would destroy what little self-confidence the poor bastard has
>got. 'Forget it,' I keep telling him. 'A buck's a buck.'"
William Tenn, "The Discovery of Morniel Mathaway". A good story.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.tangentonline.com)
David Tate
> The SID is pretty much at the core of Asimov's "Eterity's end". In
> this case the SID is not only the device producing the "paratime" but
> the equations describing its workings. IIRC, the novel dates back to
> the 50's, but I read it a long time ago.
For that matter, one can think of Asimov's "The Last Question" as
being pretty much the limiting case of a Self-Inventing Device...
David Tate
Robert Carnegie
>I have a question that I bet the fine folks of RASW can help me with.
>Namely, I am trying to find the first example of what I call the
>self-inventing doodad. This probably isn't the term used by fans of the
>literature, but it's what I've always called it.
>
>The self-inventing doodad (SID) is that curious creation of time travel: a
>device or object that was never created. Rather, due to a loop in time it
>simply is.
Imagine that a strange contraption of gleaming metal and
twinkling crystal appears one day in Herbert George Wells's
schoolroom, adorned with a square of slightly sticky yellow paper
bearing the words "From a Fan"...
Robert Carnegie at home, rja.ca...@excite.com at large
--
"AUTO SPARES (ROYSTON) would like to give our hearty
congratulation to Geoffrey Reid, on cocking up fifty years
with the company." - Royston Crow
how...@brazee.net
how...@brazee.net
On 27-Jun-2003, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> Art critic from the future comes back to study a famous painter
> of the 20th century. He finds him to be a worthless drunken sot
> who paints, all right, but nothing worth looking at.
> Consternation ensues, narrated by the painter's, um, friend?
> Acquaintance maybe. Anyway, the painter is killed, the time
> machine destroyed, and the critic stranded. He's got to have
> a fake identity, and he's got to make a living. So he takes the
> deceased painter's name, and he paints. And he paints
> masterpieces and becomes famous. And he keeps tearing his hair
> over it because he's only copying from memory the paintings he
> used to be an expert on, and he's causing paradoxes and this is
> terrible. Narrator concludes,
That's the same plot a _Behold the Man_. Also, there's a sub-story where a
traveler interrupts Coolridge.
Robert Carnegie
k.net>, how...@brazee.net writes
>Do you count people as doodads?
If their surname is McGuffin?
Jim Cambias
how...@brazee.net wrote:
>
> That's the same plot a _Behold the Man_. Also, there's a sub-story where a
> traveler interrupts Coolridge.
Calvin Coolridge? That's a neat explanation for why he never said much:
time travelers kept interrupting him. Poor guy couldn't get a world in
edgewise.
Cambrian
Michael Stemper
>I have a question that I bet the fine folks of RASW can help me with.
>Namely, I am trying to find the first example of what I call the
>self-inventing doodad. This probably isn't the term used by fans of the
>literature, but it's what I've always called it.
>
>The self-inventing doodad (SID) is that curious creation of time travel: a
>device or object that was never created. Rather, due to a loop in time it
>simply is.
In _The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You!_, Slippery Jim DeGriz is rescued
from Certain Doom [tm] because a magical box that enables him to escape
is sent back to him by his future self. The first thing that he does after
his successful escape is to send the magical box back. This gives the
observing scientist shit-fits, because he apparently believes in causality.
This isn't that old of an instance of what you've termed an SID, however.
The ISFDB shows a publication date of 1988 (although I thought that I'd
read it several years earlier).
If we stretch the interpretation of "device" to include people, we
can get back to 1960, with Robert A. Heinlein's "-- All You Zombies --".
Still not that early, though.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
If it's "tourist season", where do I get my license?
Fred Galvin
A classic "self-inventing doodad" (not the earliest by a long shot) is
the atomic generator in Lester del Rey's "...And It Comes Out Here"
(Galaxy, February 1951).
Craig Richardson
"Explain <that> to Mrs ... Dammit, not another one! Go away, you!"
doesn't look as good in Bartlett's as the way it's usually rendered.
--Craig
--
Managing the Devil Rays is something like competing on "Iron Chef",
and having Chairman Kaga reveal a huge ziggurat of lint.
Gary Huckabay, Baseball Prospectus Online, August 21, 2002
Robert Carnegie
>, Michael Stemper <mste...@siemens-emis.com> writes
ISFDB or /someone/ has a typo, they take corrections? My copy of
_...Wants You_ is "First published in Great Britain by Michael
Joseph 1978. (c) 1978 by Harry Harrison. Published by Sphere
Books Ltd 1979 [that's softcover]. Reprinted 1980 (twice), 1981."
It isn't even the first time DiGriz has encountered a jinn - consider
his previous adventure, which for some reason I can't lay my hand
on (okay, I forgot to put it back) - and it isn't actually a Certain
Doom exercise this go-around, but a reconnaissance mission.
He goes back in time to witness a space station vanishing: it gets
/eaten/ by a giant alien spaceship. Didn't expect that. So he goes
back in time again to the same location equipped with a
"spacewarp leech", a device which attaches itself to a spaceship,
hangs on through hyperspace jumps until it arrives at what
appears to be a destination, then reports back.
Dorothy J Heydt
>><thom...@colorado.eud> writes:
>>>I have a question that I bet the fine folks of RASW can help me with.
>>>Namely, I am trying to find the first example of what I call the
>>>self-inventing doodad. This probably isn't the term used by fans of the
>>>literature, but it's what I've always called it.
>>>
>>>The self-inventing doodad (SID) is that curious creation of time travel: a
>>>device or object that was never created. Rather, due to a loop in time it
>>>simply is.
Of all the ones mentioned so far, I think the book list in "By
His Bootstraps" is still the earliest.
Chris Kuan
> In _The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You!_, Slippery Jim DeGriz is rescued
> from Certain Doom [tm] because a magical box that enables him to escape
> is sent back to him by his future self.
A Dick short story (the name escapes me) uses a similar device (it's
actually multiple apparently useless objects), although we never see
him send the stuff back.
I saw this in a recent music video as well, where the protagonist
wakes up with a pocketful of junk, except the final "get-out" causes
him to be returned to point A in time.
--
Chris
lal_truckee
>>>In article <pan.2003.06.27....@colorado.eud>, The Matt
>>><thom...@colorado.eud> writes:
>>>>The self-inventing doodad (SID) is that curious creation of time travel: a
>>>>device or object that was never created. Rather, due to a loop in time it
>>>>simply is.
>
>
> Of all the ones mentioned so far, I think the book list in "By
> His Bootstraps" is still the earliest.
The book list in Bootstraps also has the benefit of explaining the
wear-and-tear issue most fictional jinn usage ignores. The jinn itself
undergoes continual wear, and thus changes during each cycle, revealing
the flaw in the concept of physical jinn.
In Bootstraps Heinlein actually has ONLY the knowledge be a jinn - the
notebook is re-created inside the loop ... better usage of a jinn.
Fred Galvin
> Of all the ones mentioned so far, I think the book list in "By
> His Bootstraps" is still the earliest.
I think that's the earliest one I've personally read, but the idea
seems to be quite a bit older. On p. 255 on _Time Machines_ (second
edition), Paul J. Nahin quotes a letter by fan Jim H. Nicholson in the
February 1931 Amazing Stories:
"Another thing that might corrupt the laws of nature would be to:
Travel into the future; find out how some ingenious invention of the
time worked; return to your right time; build a machine, or what ever
it may be, similar to the one you had recently learned the workings
of; and use it until the time you saw it arrive, and then if your past
self saw it as you did, he would take it and claim it to be an
invention of his (your) own, as you did. Then--who really _did_ invent
the consarn thing?"
All right, just an idea, not a story. But Nahin also tells of a novel
by H. S. Mackaye, _The Panchronicon_, Charles Scribner's Sons, New
York, 1904, in which (quoting Nahin, p. 402) ". . . we learn how
Shakespeare came to write his plays: A time-traveling fan from 1898
whispers the magic lines she has memorized (for her literary club
meetings) into his ear."
Jurgen Pletinckx
news:pan.2003.06.27....@colorado.eud...
| The self-inventing doodad (SID) is that curious creation of time travel: a
| device or object that was never created. Rather, due to a loop in time it
| simply is.
One example I haven't seen mentioned before comes from a short
story which I should think was written in the early sixties, author
and title unknown. I read it in translation (Dutch) about twenty years
ago.
A strange man puts a decent sum of gold (10 florins?) in account at
a banker (to 14th century Italy?). That money grows through the ages.
Today's incarnation of that account is unimaginable. A man goes to see
an accounting firm which is overseeing the fund, identifies himself somehow
as the owner of the fund, and tells them he wants to eliminate the fund
(creating havoc with world economy), and buy stupendous amounts of
energy. Which he needs to power his time-machine in order to go back
to C14.
You could make arguments for the doodad being the 10 florins, the fund
or the energy. But then, they are just different incarnations of the same
thing ...
Rings a bell with anyone?
--
Jurgen Pletinckx
Michael Stemper
>In _The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You!_, Slippery Jim DeGriz is rescued
>This isn't that old of an instance of what you've termed an SID, however.
>The ISFDB shows a publication date of 1988 (although I thought that I'd
>read it several years earlier).
I looked last night, and my copy says 1978 (or 1979, I didn't write it down)..
--
Michael F. Stemper
"Writing about jazz is like dancing about architecture" - Thelonious Monk
Mike Schilling
"Jurgen Pletinckx" <jurgen.p...@algonomics.com> wrote in message
news:3f017274$0$313$ba62...@reader0.news.skynet.be...
No, but there's a Kornbluth (IIRC) story that's similar. A very wealthy
man, heavily invested in a bull market, uses a time machine to find out when
the market will crash. He sells everything off the day before, which
(you're all way ahead of me, aren't you?) triggers the crash. The doodad is
the timing of the crash.
Dorothy J Heydt
Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>"Jurgen Pletinckx" <jurgen.p...@algonomics.com> wrote in message
>news:3f017274$0$313$ba62...@reader0.news.skynet.be...
>>
>> story which I should think was written in the early sixties, author
>> and title unknown. I read it in translation (Dutch) about twenty years
>> ago.
>>
>> A strange man puts a decent sum of gold (10 florins?) in account at
>> a banker (to 14th century Italy?). That money grows through the ages.
>>
>> Today's incarnation of that account is unimaginable. A man goes to see
>> an accounting firm which is overseeing the fund, identifies himself
>somehow
>> as the owner of the fund, and tells them he wants to eliminate the fund
>> (creating havoc with world economy), and buy stupendous amounts of
>> energy. Which he needs to power his time-machine in order to go back
>> to C14.
>>
>> You could make arguments for the doodad being the 10 florins, the fund
>> or the energy. But then, they are just different incarnations of the same
>> thing ...
>>
>> Rings a bell with anyone?
Yes, I remember that one.
"And six centuries of history have no more meaning than this?"
"Are you trying to tell me there have been other centuries with
more meaning?"
>
>No, but there's a Kornbluth (IIRC) story that's similar. A very wealthy
>man, heavily invested in a bull market, uses a time machine to find out when
>the market will crash. He sells everything off the day before, which
>(you're all way ahead of me, aren't you?) triggers the crash. The doodad is
>the timing of the crash.
I don't know that one.
David Tate
>
> I think that's the earliest one I've personally read, but the idea
> seems to be quite a bit older. On p. 255 on _Time Machines_ (second
> edition), Paul J. Nahin quotes a letter by fan Jim H. Nicholson in the
> February 1931 Amazing Stories:
>
> "Another thing that might corrupt the laws of nature would be to:
> Travel into the future; find out how some ingenious invention of the
> time worked; return to your right time; build a machine, or what ever
> it may be, similar to the one you had recently learned the workings
> of; and use it until the time you saw it arrive, and then if your past
> self saw it as you did, he would take it and claim it to be an
> invention of his (your) own, as you did. Then--who really _did_ invent
> the consarn thing?"
>
> All right, just an idea, not a story.
Heinlein used this one, too. This is how Daniel Boone Davis comes to
invent the Computer Aided Design system in _The Door Into Summer_.
David Tate
Fred Galvin
"Dominoes"
John Schilling
>The Matt <thom...@colorado.eud> wrote in message
>news:pan.2003.06.27....@colorado.eud...
>| The self-inventing doodad (SID) is that curious creation of time travel: a
>| device or object that was never created. Rather, due to a loop in time it
>| simply is.
>One example I haven't seen mentioned before comes from a short
>story which I should think was written in the early sixties, author
>and title unknown. I read it in translation (Dutch) about twenty years
>ago.
>A strange man puts a decent sum of gold (10 florins?) in account at
>a banker (to 14th century Italy?). That money grows through the ages.
More likely, of course, the bank simply pockets the money after a
couple generations. Or, if not the bank, the government. Abandoned
bank accounts last somewhat longer than the same sum of money abandoned
as cash on a streetcorner, but they are not required to and in fact do
not last indefinitely. For about the same reason as the cash on the
streetcorner.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Fred Galvin
> "Jurgen Pletinckx" <jurgen.p...@algonomics.com> writes:
>
> >One example I haven't seen mentioned before comes from a short
> >story which I should think was written in the early sixties, author
> >and title unknown. I read it in translation (Dutch) about twenty years
> >ago.
>
> >A strange man puts a decent sum of gold (10 florins?) in account at
> >a banker (to 14th century Italy?). That money grows through the ages.
>
> More likely, of course, the bank simply pockets the money after a
> couple generations. Or, if not the bank, the government.
> Abandoned bank accounts last somewhat longer than the same sum of
> money abandoned as cash on a streetcorner, but they are not required
> to and in fact do not last indefinitely. For about the same reason
> as the cash on the streetcorner.
A similar story without the time travel: Harry Stephen Keeler, "John
Jones' Dollar", The Black Cat, August, 1915. Jones opens an account
with $1 in 1921, in the name of his 40th descendant, passing to the
oldest child in each generation.
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
A thousand years later John Jones the 39th dies without issue, and the
Jones Dollar--by that time the whole solar system--is confiscated by
the government, resulting in a socialist utopia.
Default User
John Schilling wrote:
>
> "Jurgen Pletinckx" <jurgen.p...@algonomics.com> writes:
> >A strange man puts a decent sum of gold (10 florins?) in account at
> >a banker (to 14th century Italy?). That money grows through the ages.
>
> More likely, of course, the bank simply pockets the money after a
> couple generations. Or, if not the bank, the government. Abandoned
> bank accounts last somewhat longer than the same sum of money abandoned
> as cash on a streetcorner, but they are not required to and in fact do
> not last indefinitely. For about the same reason as the cash on the
> streetcorner.
That's not how the story went though, because the time traveller showed
up every now and then (posing as a descendant) with explicit investment
advice. He didn't just plunk it in a bank account and let it grow (ala
Futurama).
The end result was in modern times the traveller cashes out all the
investments so he'll have enough money to build the time machine and
start the process.
Brian Rodenborn
Mark Atwood
>
> The self-inventing doodad (SID) is that curious creation of time travel: a
> device or object that was never created. Rather, due to a loop in time it
> simply is.
>
Here's a more complex example.
The revolution in social/political affairs in the future of Bill & Ted.
--
Mark Atwood | When you do things right,
m...@pobox.com | people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Ross TenEyck
>John Schilling wrote:
>> More likely, of course, the bank simply pockets the money after a
>> couple generations. Or, if not the bank, the government. Abandoned
>> bank accounts last somewhat longer than the same sum of money abandoned
>> as cash on a streetcorner, but they are not required to and in fact do
>> not last indefinitely. For about the same reason as the cash on the
>> streetcorner.
>That's not how the story went though, because the time traveller showed
>up every now and then (posing as a descendant) with explicit investment
>advice. He didn't just plunk it in a bank account and let it grow (ala
>Futurama).
>The end result was in modern times the traveller cashes out all the
>investments so he'll have enough money to build the time machine and
>start the process.
Wasn't there another twist? If it's the story I'm thinking of,
the time traveller set up a trust fund, and would show up every
few decades to instruct the trustees in how to invest in the
next fifty-odd years.
Eventually, the trustees, not being complete idiots, start wondering
about who all these oddly similar-appearing people are who show up
a couple of times per century; so they hire a physicist to look into
the possibility of time travel. He eventually reports that it's
theoretically possible, but would require nearly the entire energy
output of the world.
The time traveler is, of course, the very same physicist; who worked
out a way of getting nearly all the energy output of the world in
order to do his experiment.
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Robert Carnegie
edu>, Fred Galvin <gal...@math.ukans.edu> writes
Another without time travel is the investment - detail forgotten -
made by the Captain in Tom Holt's _Flying Dutch_, at a time when
what was eventually to become pretty much the entire financial
system of Europe occupied one Italian banker's sock. As a result,
Vanderdecken basically owns the entire sock. But in that case
they cut a deal.
With time travel, of course, there's Douglas Adams's
_The Restaurant at the End of the Universe_, a catering business
set up to capitalise on the spectacle of the end of everything,
using time travel, impossibly difficult and impossibly expensive
and financed by banking a penny in your own time /after/ you
return from your meal, so that compound interest pays your share
of the huge cost of the thing. Which the book actually /says/ is
impossible /and/ crazy. (And what happens if you choke to death
on your pears Gallumbits...)
David Goldfarb
Jurgen Pletinckx <jurgen.p...@algonomics.com> wrote:
>One example I haven't seen mentioned before comes from a short
>story which I should think was written in the early sixties, author
>and title unknown. I read it in translation (Dutch) about twenty years
>ago.
>
>A strange man puts a decent sum of gold (10 florins?) in account at
>a banker (to 14th century Italy?). That money grows through the ages.
>
>Today's incarnation of that account is unimaginable. A man goes to see
>an accounting firm which is overseeing the fund, identifies himself somehow
>as the owner of the fund, and tells them he wants to eliminate the fund
>(creating havoc with world economy), and buy stupendous amounts of
>energy. Which he needs to power his time-machine in order to go back
>to C14.
Another point you haven't mentioned: the man appears every hundred
years or so, to give the bank investment advice. As time passes and
the wealth and power of the bank account grows, the distinction between
the man's advice taking advantage of events and *causing* those events
becomes blurry and eventually nonexistent. In some sense the jinn is
our timeline itself.
The story, by the way, is "Compounded Interest", by Mack Reynolds.
--
David Goldfarb <*>| "Speak softly, drive a Sherman tank
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | Laugh hard, it's a long way to the bank."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- TMBG
Default User
Ross TenEyck wrote:
>
> Default User <first...@company.com> writes:
> >John Schilling wrote:
>
> >> More likely, of course, the bank simply pockets the money after a
> >> couple generations. Or, if not the bank, the government. Abandoned
> >> bank accounts last somewhat longer than the same sum of money abandoned
> >> as cash on a streetcorner, but they are not required to and in fact do
> >> not last indefinitely. For about the same reason as the cash on the
> >> streetcorner.
>
> >That's not how the story went though, because the time traveller showed
> >up every now and then (posing as a descendant) with explicit investment
> >advice. He didn't just plunk it in a bank account and let it grow (ala
> >Futurama).
>
> >The end result was in modern times the traveller cashes out all the
> >investments so he'll have enough money to build the time machine and
> >start the process.
>
> Wasn't there another twist? If it's the story I'm thinking of,
> the time traveller set up a trust fund, and would show up every
> few decades to instruct the trustees in how to invest in the
> next fifty-odd years.
Right. The investments started in (I think) Renaissance Italy. The
initial investment was with gold coins (important later).
> Eventually, the trustees, not being complete idiots, start wondering
> about who all these oddly similar-appearing people are who show up
> a couple of times per century; so they hire a physicist to look into
> the possibility of time travel. He eventually reports that it's
> theoretically possible, but would require nearly the entire energy
> output of the world.
That sounds right. They pretty much knew something was up because the
trust had saved one of the gold coins used to start things rolling way
back where. It was an American Double Eagle.
> The time traveler is, of course, the very same physicist; who worked
> out a way of getting nearly all the energy output of the world in
> order to do his experiment.
Hmmm, could be. I don't recall that particular twist.
Brian Rodenborn
Michael Stemper
>In article <200306301701...@mickey.empros.com>, Michael Stemper <mste...@siemens-emis.com> writes
>>In article <pan.2003.06.27....@colorado.eud>, The Matt <thom...@colorado.eud> writes:
>>>The self-inventing doodad (SID) is that curious creation of time travel: a
>>>device or object that was never created. Rather, due to a loop in time it
>>>simply is.
>>
>>In _The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You!_, Slippery Jim DeGriz is rescued
>>from Certain Doom [tm] because a magical box that enables him to
>>escape
>>is sent back to him by his future self. The first thing that he does after
>>his successful escape is to send the magical box back. This gives the
>>observing scientist shit-fits, because he apparently believes in causality.
>It isn't even the first time DiGriz has encountered a jinn - consider
>his previous adventure, which for some reason I can't lay my hand
That would be _The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World_. I skimmed
it last night, and found:
1. Messages scattered all over the planet, telling him where to
find the villain, "He". Messages that DiGriz had sent back to
hiself later. Not SIDs, though.
2. When facing Certain Doom [tm], with the only possibility of
escape being a time helix, a box suddenly appears in mid-air,
with "Time Helix: Open With Care" crudely labelled on the side.
However, since the Time Helix stayed in place when it sent him
into the future, it's not a SID, either.
But, that was only a skimming. I still think that there's a SID in
there -- although the closing paragraphs imply that He was a SID.
[on Wants You!]
> and it isn't actually a Certain
>Doom exercise this go-around, but a reconnaissance mission.
You are quite correct.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
A bad day sailing is better than a good day at the office.
Michael Stemper
>John Schilling wrote:
>> "Jurgen Pletinckx" <jurgen.p...@algonomics.com> writes:
>
>> >A strange man puts a decent sum of gold (10 florins?) in account at
>> >a banker (to 14th century Italy?). That money grows through the ages.
>>
>> More likely, of course, the bank simply pockets the money after a
>> couple generations. Or, if not the bank, the government. Abandoned
>> bank accounts last somewhat longer than the same sum of money abandoned
>That's not how the story went though, because the time traveller showed
>up every now and then (posing as a descendant) with explicit investment
>advice.
If I recall correctly, the identification changed as time progressed (and
as the amount grew). The first post-deposit visit was to the original
banker, and visual recognition and a hand-shake were all that were
needed. When visiting the OB's son, the investor one half of a piece of
paper that had been torn in half, while the OB's son had the other half.
Jurgen Pletinckx
news:bduanu$7h4$1...@agate.berkeley.edu...
| Another point you haven't mentioned: the man appears every hundred
| years or so, to give the bank investment advice.
| As time passes and
| the wealth and power of the bank account grows, the distinction between
| the man's advice taking advantage of events and *causing* those events
| becomes blurry and eventually nonexistent.
Now this, I don't recall. Possibly because I was even younger and more callow
back then.
| The story, by the way, is "Compounded Interest", by Mack Reynolds.
Reynolds sounds about right. Thanks, everyone!
--
Jurgen Pletinckx
William December Starr
lal_truckee <lal_t...@yahoo.com> said:
>> Not exactly a doodad, but: /The Anubis Gates/ by Tim Powers has
>> "The Twelve Hours of the Night", a poem by William Ashbless.
>> The poem is the autopragma. [1]
>
> CLIP
>
>> [1] I just coined the word, or at least Google has no hits other
>> than in a SQL program.
>
> You don't have to invent a word; such things already have a
> name. They are called a "jinn" IIRC by those who take this stuff
> seriously something trapped in a time loop, having no origin.
Can we really say that the poem, unlike a physical object, was
"trapped" in the time loop that created it? Certainly it continued
to exist in the regular world of the late 20th century and beyond
even after the protagonist of the story traveled back in time with
a copy of it in his brain.
-- William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
David Petticrew
> If I recall, the first one (or all three?) was brought to Minbar by
> Valen, who was Jeffrey Sinclair. Obviously, that first one was brought
> from the future, and so even if any more were made on Minbar in the past,
> the fact is it was never actually invented. That "first" design was based
> on a device that was brought to the past from the future.
No, this isn't quite how it happened. The triluminary originated with
"The Great Machine" on Epslion 3, the planet Babylon 5 orbits. It is
then taken back in time by Sinclair to Minbar, where it eventually
comes into the possesion of Delenn. However, the Minbari never have
contact with the aliens that built the great machine (until the time
of Babylon 5) and therefore the ones who built the triluminary did not
base it on the one that went back in time. JMS has explicitly stated
that the triluminary is not a SID, check out JMS's comments on War
Eithout End, in the Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5.
Jerry Brown
wrote:
>I have a question that I bet the fine folks of RASW can help me with.
>Namely, I am trying to find the first example of what I call the
>self-inventing doodad. This probably isn't the term used by fans of the
>literature, but it's what I've always called it.
>
>The self-inventing doodad (SID) is that curious creation of time travel: a
>device or object that was never created. Rather, due to a loop in time it
>simply is.
>
>An easy example SID is the Skynet chip from the Terminator movies.
<snip>
>Another example of an SID, I believe, is the triluminary from "Babylon 5".
<snip>
>I'm sure there are more examples of this, and I was hoping the knowledge
>of this group could help me find out what the first was.
Kirk's glasses and 'transparent aluminum' in Star Trek IV.
'Johnny B Goode' in Back to the Future is a self-inventing song.
Jerry Brown
--
A cat may look at a king
(but probably won't bother)
Fred Galvin
The same idea cropped up in "The Comedy of Eras" by Henry Kuttner (as
Kelvin Kent), Thrilling Wonder Stories, September, 1940. Shakespeare
is in a slump, and a visitor from 1940 helps him out with ideas for
some of his famous plays.
Robert Carnegie
They do; unambiguously, I think.
IIRC, information-as-jinn (if you /will/ accept that) is seen in the
story in (Rot13.com) gur pbqr gb qvfnez gur obzo ng gur raq,
as well as in the messages of where to find He. The information
came from DiGriz in the future, but he only possessed the
information because he'd received it from his future self.
The whole situation just at the start of the book where DiGriz's
timeline vanishes piece by piece is rather unsatisfactory in terms
of physical science - but never mind.
>[on Wants You!]
>> and it isn't actually a Certain
>>Doom exercise this go-around, but a reconnaissance mission.
>
>You are quite correct.
Robert Carnegie at home, rja.ca...@excite.com at large
Mark Atwood
>
> 'Johnny B Goode' in Back to the Future is a self-inventing song.
That entire musical genre is self-inventing, in that story.