The Dead Past By Isaac Asimov

"Mike Stone" <mwstone DeleteThis @aol.com> wrote in news:5dk1suF34k4lcU1
@mid.individual.net:

> "Tom S" <tscalfjr DeleteThis @cox.net> wrote in message
> news:i2o873t8bqfom5fh2e0vq2l7luj1aoas7t@4ax.
> com...

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

> No.

Well, the pastward limit of the device did turn out to be a century
and a quarter in the past-- after that, thermal noise wiped out any
possible image from the neutrinos. The government had been claiming
data back to 3000 BC, but it had been lying to distract people from
the device's real potential.

Of course, it also made the chronoscope useless for looking at
Muhammad, Jesus, etc., that being the other obvious potentially
disruptive use. Even Joseph Smith was comfortably beyond its limits.
Though even the ability to verify recent events-- something the
protagonists did consider fairly closely-- would have nearly as much
impact as the death of privacy (and would shade over into it).

The inventor was interested mostly in
> ancient history, but it worked just as well
> for events one millisecond ago - the aspect
> the government cared about.

Mike