Pen needs to be secure from 1855-1905, but recovered after that
Resources:
Depending on details, we may have some knowledge from the future
Other thoughts before diving in:
Pen types have evolved over time—wikipedia says the ballpoint was invented around 1888
A pen could dry out/break over 50 years; should probably keep it intact
What type of pen did Einstein use? Apparently a fountain pen; even the exact brands/models are known (Pelikan and Waterman). Pelican didn’t produce fountain pens until 1929; Waterman was founded in 1884 and produced pens from the beginning. So, bottom line: as of 1855, we’re hiding a pen from the future. No wonder outside forces are after it; this is an extremely valuable item!
Actual answers:
Good luck sending a pen back in time without using relativity! If Einstein doesn’t write those papers, then the pen won’t have been here in the first place, so no need to worry about it. The pen will end up in Einstein’s hand one way or another.
… ok, but doing things which are naively likely to result in time paradoxes is rather suicidal, so we should probably keep that pen safe. How about just put it in a box, bury it, then dig it back up in 50 years?
Hide pen on a remote island which will not be visited by anyone until the early 20th century. (The British will probably have some surveying expeditions around that time, can catch a ride and pick it up.)
Glue some big shiny jewels to the pen and contribute it to the Crown Jewels of England. Then steal it back later.
… Problem is that if I can get the pen out of someplace, then so can someone else. Need to exploit some asymmetry—make it easy for me to find at the appropriate time, but hard for other people to find at other times.
Launch the pen into space (inside a sufficiently-durable reentry vehicle) on a trajectory which will bring it back in 50 years.
Issue a large bond which pays off in 50 years to the bearer of the pen. Then give the pen to a bank as collateral for a loan. The loan can be invested (using future-knowledge) to more than cover the cost of the large bond, and the bank will be incentivized to keep their pen safe. (This assumes no secondary market in bearer-pens.)
Leave the pen on Antarctica, then catch a ride on the Discovery expedition (1901-1904)
Problem reduction: after 1884, Waterman will manufacture similar pens, so we can use the leprechaun strategy.
Go on the offensive: leave the pen in some readily accessible place, maybe even advertise its location in the newspaper, then shoot anyone who shows up to take it.
Same as 10, except use a fake pen rather than risk the real one.
Same as 10, except don’t bother actually ambushing people who show up. Just assume that opponents will see the obvious trap as an obvious trap, and thus will not bother trying to steal the (actually real) pen.
Combine 10/11/12 with the leprechaun strategy: place many fake pens, all with traps, and advertise all their locations. Do the same with the real one.
Ok, time to play on hard mode: make it so I myself won’t know where the pen is and/or can’t access it for 50 years (so the baddies can’t just e.g. torture the information out of me). Starting point: before travelling back in time, generate a pseudorandom number from a seed known to me using a computation which I will need 50 years to replicate. Use that random number to address an envelope containing the pen plus instructions and money for the recipient, then mail it after travelling back in time, all without looking at the address. Spend the next 50 years figuring out where the pen went, then go retrieve it.
Attach the pen to a very durable weather balloon with a radio transmitter, then let it blow around randomly in the upper atmosphere for 30 years. Can go retrieve it after Marconi invents radio.
Buy a replacement pen, and swap my replacement with the pen I thought was Einstein’s before my previous self goes back in time. Then use my previous self and his look-alike pen as a decoy.
Seal the pen carefully, then hide it in some booze which is to be aged for 50 years. The booze’ owner will presumably keep it secure for 50 years—after all, security is probably a central concern for the sort of people who can actually manage to age booze for 50 years.
Throw the pen someplace where it can only be retrieved by airplane.
Can I make a variant of the leprechaun strategy where the relevant information is effectively time-locked for 50 years? I could number a whole bunch of pens with the true pen numbered 0, and have a few different trusted people randomly permute the pen-numbers. Those people could then each compute some function of the permutation they used, where the function is hard enough to invert that it will take me ~50 years to figure out all the permutations used.
Put the pen in 50 envelopes, all nested, each containing instructions to wait one year then mail the envelope to a random person. The last envelope contains instructions to mail it back to me.
Give the pen to some extremely paranoid and possessive person who I know will die in exactly 50 years, but give it to them on the condition that they leave it to me in their will.
… actually, this makes 4 more viable: attach some big shiny gems to the pen, then give it away to some individual who will die in 50 years, on the condition that they will it back to me.
Similar strategy: attach some big shiny gems, then loan the pen to a museum or something for 50 years.
Plate the pen in gold. Pick a country which had net gold inflows for roughly the 50 year period (but net outflows toward the end), and exchange the gold-plated pen for currency. Hopefully it sits in the national vault for ~50 years, and then I can trade back for it.
Start a betting market. Place a large bet that my pen will be stolen within the next 50 years.
Main bottleneck so far is that I have few ways to couple to time: technical breakthroughs/exploration, leveraging the legal/financial system, and computational barriers. What else is there?
Could always use a timer—e.g. 27, 32
Astronomical events—e.g. 30, 31
Other historical events—e.g. 36-38
Leverage time travel some more—e.g. 33-35
If the evildoers want to steal the pen but not destroy it, could put it in a safe with a mechanical time-lock rigged to explode if it’s opened in the next 50 years.
Improvement on 19: choose a function for which serial computation of the inverse achieves large total-computational-resource savings over the best parallelizable algorithm, so opponents with large resources cannot invert it much faster than I can
Convince someone with lots of resources the pen is from the future and therefore very valuable. Give it to them; they’ll protect it since it’s worth a lot. After Waterman starts producing the same pen, they’ll realize it’s worthless and you can buy it back for cheap.
Put the pen in a buoyant container inside a nook in a rock adjacent to the ocean, so that it can only be accessed when an unusually high tide pushes up high enough, and such a high tide only occurs once every few decades.
Shoot the pen into a passing comet, which won’t come back for several decades.
Use the leprechaun trick, but write the true pen’s location/identifier on many pieces of paper, and lock them all in time-locked safes rigged to explode if tampered with. Ideally do all this without knowing the pen’s true location/identifier (similar to 19). Multiple copies ensure that the evildoers can’t just intentionally blow up one safe to destroy the information and prevent the pen from reaching Einstein—I’ll have plenty of backups.
Intentionally lose the pen. Then, use the time machine later to send myself a message about where it ended up.
Same as 33, but also encrypt the message. No sense taking chances about interception.
Destroy the pen, then later use the time machine again to send myself the pen from before it was destroyed.
Seal the pen in a (very) heat resistant container, and drop it into a volcano which will erupt in ~50 years.
Seal the pen in concrete in the foundation of a building which will be demolished in ~50 years.
Bury the pen in a time capsule which I know (from future knowledge) will not be dug up for 50 years.
Drop the pen in a sealed, buoyant, brightly-colored container into a crevice in a glacier which will flow into the sea in ~50 years.
Put the pen into a brightly-colored neutrally-buoyant vessel, and drop it into the ocean. The vessel should have a timer which, after 50 years, will drop some weights so it floats to the surface, and then make lots of noise and send out a radio signal.
Different subproblem: after 50 years have passed, how can I ensure that I retrieve the pen, rather than the baddies? Starting point: spend 50 years leveraging my future-knowledge to acquire lots and lots of money, then just out-resource the baddies.
For all of the pen-in-hard-to-access-location plans, can combine with leprechaun strategy: also hide many fake pens, so I know which one to retrieve and the baddies don’t.
Also, it helps if I manage to remain anonymous. In that case, I can further improve the leprechaun strategy by bringing in assistants to go retrieve some of the fake pens.
If I’m not anonymous, I can use look-alike assistants to retrieve fake pens.
Since I’m presumably spending 50 years acquiring ridiculous amounts of material wealth, I could always just pay off the baddies.
Rather than waiting until 1905, bring Einstein back to 1855 using the time machine. Maybe it will give him some inspiration ;)
I could superglue the pen to my hand, so nobody can take it, and reapply the glue regularly for 50 years.
… superglue wasn’t invented until 1942, so actually I’d have to make some first. On the plus side, presumably nobody will have any idea how to dissolve the stuff.
Hide the pen in the barrel of a historical gun in a museum which won’t be moved for ~50 years
Metastrategy: before actually doing any of the above, first run a mock test using a fake pen, publish the whole plan in the newspaper, and offer a reward to anyone who can break it. We call this: pen testing.
Constraints:
Pen needs to be secure from 1855-1905, but recovered after that
Resources:
Depending on details, we may have some knowledge from the future
Other thoughts before diving in:
Pen types have evolved over time—wikipedia says the ballpoint was invented around 1888
A pen could dry out/break over 50 years; should probably keep it intact
What type of pen did Einstein use? Apparently a fountain pen; even the exact brands/models are known (Pelikan and Waterman). Pelican didn’t produce fountain pens until 1929; Waterman was founded in 1884 and produced pens from the beginning. So, bottom line: as of 1855, we’re hiding a pen from the future. No wonder outside forces are after it; this is an extremely valuable item!
Actual answers:
Good luck sending a pen back in time without using relativity! If Einstein doesn’t write those papers, then the pen won’t have been here in the first place, so no need to worry about it. The pen will end up in Einstein’s hand one way or another.
… ok, but doing things which are naively likely to result in time paradoxes is rather suicidal, so we should probably keep that pen safe. How about just put it in a box, bury it, then dig it back up in 50 years?
Hide pen on a remote island which will not be visited by anyone until the early 20th century. (The British will probably have some surveying expeditions around that time, can catch a ride and pick it up.)
Glue some big shiny jewels to the pen and contribute it to the Crown Jewels of England. Then steal it back later.
… Problem is that if I can get the pen out of someplace, then so can someone else. Need to exploit some asymmetry—make it easy for me to find at the appropriate time, but hard for other people to find at other times.
Launch the pen into space (inside a sufficiently-durable reentry vehicle) on a trajectory which will bring it back in 50 years.
Issue a large bond which pays off in 50 years to the bearer of the pen. Then give the pen to a bank as collateral for a loan. The loan can be invested (using future-knowledge) to more than cover the cost of the large bond, and the bank will be incentivized to keep their pen safe. (This assumes no secondary market in bearer-pens.)
Leave the pen on Antarctica, then catch a ride on the Discovery expedition (1901-1904)
Problem reduction: after 1884, Waterman will manufacture similar pens, so we can use the leprechaun strategy.
Go on the offensive: leave the pen in some readily accessible place, maybe even advertise its location in the newspaper, then shoot anyone who shows up to take it.
Same as 10, except use a fake pen rather than risk the real one.
Same as 10, except don’t bother actually ambushing people who show up. Just assume that opponents will see the obvious trap as an obvious trap, and thus will not bother trying to steal the (actually real) pen.
Combine 10/11/12 with the leprechaun strategy: place many fake pens, all with traps, and advertise all their locations. Do the same with the real one.
Ok, time to play on hard mode: make it so I myself won’t know where the pen is and/or can’t access it for 50 years (so the baddies can’t just e.g. torture the information out of me). Starting point: before travelling back in time, generate a pseudorandom number from a seed known to me using a computation which I will need 50 years to replicate. Use that random number to address an envelope containing the pen plus instructions and money for the recipient, then mail it after travelling back in time, all without looking at the address. Spend the next 50 years figuring out where the pen went, then go retrieve it.
Attach the pen to a very durable weather balloon with a radio transmitter, then let it blow around randomly in the upper atmosphere for 30 years. Can go retrieve it after Marconi invents radio.
Buy a replacement pen, and swap my replacement with the pen I thought was Einstein’s before my previous self goes back in time. Then use my previous self and his look-alike pen as a decoy.
Seal the pen carefully, then hide it in some booze which is to be aged for 50 years. The booze’ owner will presumably keep it secure for 50 years—after all, security is probably a central concern for the sort of people who can actually manage to age booze for 50 years.
Throw the pen someplace where it can only be retrieved by airplane.
Can I make a variant of the leprechaun strategy where the relevant information is effectively time-locked for 50 years? I could number a whole bunch of pens with the true pen numbered 0, and have a few different trusted people randomly permute the pen-numbers. Those people could then each compute some function of the permutation they used, where the function is hard enough to invert that it will take me ~50 years to figure out all the permutations used.
Put the pen in 50 envelopes, all nested, each containing instructions to wait one year then mail the envelope to a random person. The last envelope contains instructions to mail it back to me.
Give the pen to some extremely paranoid and possessive person who I know will die in exactly 50 years, but give it to them on the condition that they leave it to me in their will.
… actually, this makes 4 more viable: attach some big shiny gems to the pen, then give it away to some individual who will die in 50 years, on the condition that they will it back to me.
Similar strategy: attach some big shiny gems, then loan the pen to a museum or something for 50 years.
Plate the pen in gold. Pick a country which had net gold inflows for roughly the 50 year period (but net outflows toward the end), and exchange the gold-plated pen for currency. Hopefully it sits in the national vault for ~50 years, and then I can trade back for it.
Start a betting market. Place a large bet that my pen will be stolen within the next 50 years.
Main bottleneck so far is that I have few ways to couple to time: technical breakthroughs/exploration, leveraging the legal/financial system, and computational barriers. What else is there?
Could always use a timer—e.g. 27, 32
Astronomical events—e.g. 30, 31
Other historical events—e.g. 36-38
Leverage time travel some more—e.g. 33-35
If the evildoers want to steal the pen but not destroy it, could put it in a safe with a mechanical time-lock rigged to explode if it’s opened in the next 50 years.
Improvement on 19: choose a function for which serial computation of the inverse achieves large total-computational-resource savings over the best parallelizable algorithm, so opponents with large resources cannot invert it much faster than I can
Convince someone with lots of resources the pen is from the future and therefore very valuable. Give it to them; they’ll protect it since it’s worth a lot. After Waterman starts producing the same pen, they’ll realize it’s worthless and you can buy it back for cheap.
Put the pen in a buoyant container inside a nook in a rock adjacent to the ocean, so that it can only be accessed when an unusually high tide pushes up high enough, and such a high tide only occurs once every few decades.
Shoot the pen into a passing comet, which won’t come back for several decades.
Use the leprechaun trick, but write the true pen’s location/identifier on many pieces of paper, and lock them all in time-locked safes rigged to explode if tampered with. Ideally do all this without knowing the pen’s true location/identifier (similar to 19). Multiple copies ensure that the evildoers can’t just intentionally blow up one safe to destroy the information and prevent the pen from reaching Einstein—I’ll have plenty of backups.
Intentionally lose the pen. Then, use the time machine later to send myself a message about where it ended up.
Same as 33, but also encrypt the message. No sense taking chances about interception.
Destroy the pen, then later use the time machine again to send myself the pen from before it was destroyed.
Seal the pen in a (very) heat resistant container, and drop it into a volcano which will erupt in ~50 years.
Seal the pen in concrete in the foundation of a building which will be demolished in ~50 years.
Bury the pen in a time capsule which I know (from future knowledge) will not be dug up for 50 years.
Drop the pen in a sealed, buoyant, brightly-colored container into a crevice in a glacier which will flow into the sea in ~50 years.
Put the pen into a brightly-colored neutrally-buoyant vessel, and drop it into the ocean. The vessel should have a timer which, after 50 years, will drop some weights so it floats to the surface, and then make lots of noise and send out a radio signal.
Different subproblem: after 50 years have passed, how can I ensure that I retrieve the pen, rather than the baddies? Starting point: spend 50 years leveraging my future-knowledge to acquire lots and lots of money, then just out-resource the baddies.
For all of the pen-in-hard-to-access-location plans, can combine with leprechaun strategy: also hide many fake pens, so I know which one to retrieve and the baddies don’t.
Also, it helps if I manage to remain anonymous. In that case, I can further improve the leprechaun strategy by bringing in assistants to go retrieve some of the fake pens.
If I’m not anonymous, I can use look-alike assistants to retrieve fake pens.
Since I’m presumably spending 50 years acquiring ridiculous amounts of material wealth, I could always just pay off the baddies.
Rather than waiting until 1905, bring Einstein back to 1855 using the time machine. Maybe it will give him some inspiration ;)
I could superglue the pen to my hand, so nobody can take it, and reapply the glue regularly for 50 years.
… superglue wasn’t invented until 1942, so actually I’d have to make some first. On the plus side, presumably nobody will have any idea how to dissolve the stuff.
Hide the pen in the barrel of a historical gun in a museum which won’t be moved for ~50 years
Metastrategy: before actually doing any of the above, first run a mock test using a fake pen, publish the whole plan in the newspaper, and offer a reward to anyone who can break it. We call this: pen testing.
I like the research on Einstein’s pen confirming the presence of time travel