The Dead Past By Isaac Asimov

In this short story, a historian named Arnold Potterly wants to use the
chronoscope (which operates by recording the movements of neutrinos,
which travel in time) to see whether or not the Carthaginians really
threw babies into a furnace in times of crisis, but the Department of
Chronoscopy won't give him access. Therefore, he persuades Professor of
pseudo optics (which uses pseudo gravity fields to manipulate light)
Jonas Foster to research chonoscopy. Foster gets his uncle Ralph Nimmo
(a science writer) to obtain a book on neutrinics, and combines
neutrinics with pseudo optics to build a portable chronoscope in
Potterly's basement. When Potterly's wife wants to use it to view her
daughter (who had died in a fire many years before), Potterly realizes
that she might discover that he had caused the fire by failing to put
out a cigarette, and informs Department of Chronoscopy chief Thaddeus
Araman about the portable chronoscope. Araman then apprehends Foster
and tries to persuade him to stop his chronoscope activities. During
the discussions, Nimmo comes in to tell Foster to drop his chronoscope
activities. Araman then explains to all three that the government had
been suppressing the chronoscope for the past 50 years because people
could use it to spy on anyone they liked. There would be no more
privacy!!!!! Nimmo then explains that to get Foster off the hook, he
sent details of the portable chronoscope to a half dozen publicity
outlets, more than a day earlier. Those outlets would have spread the
news of portable chronoscopy to numerous physicists, who would tell
others. Nimmo predicts that within a week, 500 people would know how to
build portable chronoscopes. Realizing the impossibility of stopping
the portable chronoscope, Araman releases the three. I shudder at the
resulting loss of privacy!

I wonder how Nimmo sent the chronoscope details. If he used snail mail,
I believe that it might still be possible to stop those details from
spreading by intercepting those pieces of mail at the publicity outlets.
If Nimmo used e-mail, the situation is clearly hopeless.

The original inventor of the chronoscopy devised a way to stop and
record neutrinos. Could the method of stopping neutrinos be used to
shield people from being spied on by chronoscopes?

On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 13:13:01 -0700, Tim Bruening
<tsbrueni.DeleteThis@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:

>In this short story, a historian named Arnold Potterly wants to use the
>chronoscope (which operates by recording the movements of neutrinos,
>which travel in time) to see whether or not the Carthaginians really
>threw babies into a furnace in times of crisis, but the Department of
>Chronoscopy won't give him access. Therefore, he persuades Professor of
>pseudo optics (which uses pseudo gravity fields to manipulate light)
>Jonas Foster to research chonoscopy. Foster gets his uncle Ralph Nimmo
>(a science writer) to obtain a book on neutrinics, and combines
>neutrinics with pseudo optics to build a portable chronoscope in
>Potterly's basement. When Potterly's wife wants to use it to view her
>daughter (who had died in a fire many years before), Potterly realizes
>that she might discover that he had caused the fire by failing to put
>out a cigarette, and informs Department of Chronoscopy chief Thaddeus
>Araman about the portable chronoscope. Araman then apprehends Foster
>and tries to persuade him to stop his chronoscope activities. During
>the discussions, Nimmo comes in to tell Foster to drop his chronoscope
>activities. Araman then explains to all three that the government had
>been suppressing the chronoscope for the past 50 years because people
>could use it to spy on anyone they liked. There would be no more
>privacy!!!!! Nimmo then explains that to get Foster off the hook, he
>sent details of the portable chronoscope to a half dozen publicity
>outlets, more than a day earlier. Those outlets would have spread the
>news of portable chronoscopy to numerous physicists, who would tell
>others. Nimmo predicts that within a week, 500 people would know how to
>build portable chronoscopes. Realizing the impossibility of stopping
>the portable chronoscope, Araman releases the three. I shudder at the
>resulting loss of privacy!
>
>I wonder how Nimmo sent the chronoscope details. If he used snail mail,
>I believe that it might still be possible to stop those details from
>spreading by intercepting those pieces of mail at the publicity outlets.
>If Nimmo used e-mail, the situation is clearly hopeless.
>
When I re-read the story not long ago, I mentally assumed that he used
something like Usenet - posting it to some general interest science
groups where it could/would be rapidly dissimilated. E-mail would be
a possibility too.

>The original inventor of the chronoscopy devised a way to stop and
>record neutrinos. Could the method of stopping neutrinos be used to
>shield people from being spied on by chronoscopes?

Maybe, if the chronoscope actually stops the neutrino. The neutrino
records the events by passing through them. If the device stops the
neutrino and holds it until its information is drained then a shield
may be possible. If it only slows down the neutrino long enough to
copy its information, then releases it, I don't think a shield would
be possible.

Didn't the story also make the point that they could only view events
about fifty years or so in the past?

Tom S.