If you could travel in a time machine, what year would you visit?
Voice 1: The English writer H.G. Wells wrote many books based on actual and imaginary scientific concepts. In 1895, he wrote a novel called 'The Time Machine'. It's about a scientist who builds a vehicle in which he can travel forwards into the future and backwards into the past. Wells was the first popular writer to use the idea of a time travel machine as the central storyline of a novel: since his original, it has been a popular addition to many books and movies.
Voice 2: In the 1985 Hollywood blockbuster 'Back to the Future', the time machine is a modified sports car built by the eccentric genius Doc Brown. Teenager Marty McFly climbs into the seat, presses all the right buttons and is whisked back in time to the year 1955, where he meets his future parents as high school kids. When Marty's future mum falls in love with her future son, things get a bit complicated.
Voice 1: One of the longest-running television programmes in the world is the British sci-fi adventure series 'Doctor Who'. The Doctor's first adventure was broadcast way back in 1963. The time-travelling doctor zooms backwards and forwards in time in the 'Tardis'. It looks like an innocent phone-box on the outside, but inside it’s a highly-developed time machine that can transport its occupant to any point in time and space.
Voice 2: We asked two students, Jon and Louise, where they would go if they had one chance to travel in a time machine.
Jon: I'd definitely travel into the future, but the problem would be how far into the future would be best. Going a hundred years into the future would be amazing. I’m a definite geek, and I’d love to experience the technology they’d have in 2117. It would be tempting to go five hundred years forward, or even go for it and press the thousand year button. But my worry about that would be that human beings might not be around then. We might have done something stupid and wiped ourselves out. I think with a hundred years, I would still recognise bits of the present time, and that would help me appreciate 2117 more. The culture, tech and social norms a hundred years from now will all be a bit different from what they are today, but humans should still be hanging on by then. There’d be a lot to learn.
Louise: I would travel back in time to 1940s and 50s Hollywood to meet my hero, the greatest star the movies have ever known, John Wayne! He is a legend, an icon and a great movie star. He began his acting career in 1926, playing bit parts. It wasn't long before Wayne was given a part in a cowboy film called 'The Big Trail', and in 1939, he starred in the classic Western 'Stage Coach'. This was the film that made Wayne a star. He played many different parts, but John Wayne will always be known as the greatest cowboy star Hollywood ever produced. They don't make film stars like him these days. Just watch his brilliant 1956 movie 'The Searchers' and you will see what I mean. There’s no question if I could use a time machine I’d go back to witness John Wayne in his prime.