• Question: If you could go back in time, what would you change?

    Asked by enchanted to Kate, Kieren, Nicola, Rowena, Roy on 10 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Rowena Fletcher-Wood

      Rowena Fletcher-Wood answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      Only little things. I would tell myself to stop trying to read Philip Pullman books to “prove” to my friends I really didn’t like him – they would never believe me.

      I would give up watching television earlier – I could have experienced that amazing sense of freedom years earlier.

      I would tell myself sometimes it is okay to have a revision break, and it is definitely okay to pass an exam without suffering for it.

      And I would know where to look for the missing glasses/book/gadget.

      If I could time travel, I wouldn’t want to change the world, but there is a LOT I would love to go and see: Humphrey Davies’ science lectures, the Eureka moment in the bath (did it REALLY happen that way?), Priestly’s evolution of oxygen. I would like to meet Einstein and Boltzmann and Thomas Hardy the writer. I would like to watch the first barrel descent of the Niagra Falls. I would like to join the Everest expedition.

    • Photo: Kieren Bradley

      Kieren Bradley answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      I don’t think I would be brave enough to change anything, I feel I should attempt to save lives such as warning people of the Holocaust or Vesuvius erupting, but who knows what might happen instead.

      What would be good is to somehow change history so that the Romans didn’t lose their empire and the dark ages were prevented. Admittedly we’d all have to learn Latin, but we could be hundreds of years more scientifically advanced and we may be doing this webchat on another planet.

    • Photo: Kate Nicholson

      Kate Nicholson answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      That’s a really tough question because I always live by the rule of do nothing you will regret.
      I would learn the word no sooner, because too many people are happy to take advantage of generosity especially with time, without giving in return.
      Not getting married would have been a good one to change – it would have saved me a fortune in wedding party and divorce lawyers!
      I wouldn’t like to mess with the space time continuum any more than necessary – it can get messy. Just look at the back to the future movies.

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