... time machine. Iranian Dr Who claims he invented a ...

It's a bloody horoscope machine.

We saw a palm-reading machine in an amusement arcade in the 1970s. I think my Dad and I had a go on it. We each got a small neatly pre-printed card with our fortune told on it, as well as the card numbers 28 and 29 - or something like that - they hadn't shuffled the deck, they apparently just came out in number order.

So, the West does already have this technology.

Fortune-telling is considered naughty in Christianity and in bible Judaism because I suppose you're supposed to get the future told to you by God's authorised prophet. Islam in the present time is a non-prophet religion and iN some Islamic thought God has already decided what the future will be, but I don't know if it is considered to be legitimately available. For that matter, weather forecasting comes to mind. Jesus said something about that and he seemed to think it was O.K. but doesn't tell you when the Second Coming is.

I have something similar that lets me see 7 years into the future. It's a pair of glasses which give me 2020 vision! :)

You' re just seeing future echos.

So we know that the time machine has "will have going to have happened" happened but it hasn't yet happened happened.

Error

Sounds like they might have made a sign error. Probably wiped the story once they realised they were looking 5 years back in time rather than 5 years forward.

Oh well. Good effort.

Only 5 years?

Surely if you cracked time travel you've not got a time limit, if you hadn't it is however a reasonable amount of time to make reasonable guesses about the future that sound plausible.

This subject always makes me think of this cartoon:

http://www.xkcd.com/716

Explains the blinding headaches and unexplained bumps on the head I keep getting!

Paycheck

Sounds like he did a Ben Affleck - built a time machine, then looked into the future, found that the future is a disaster as a result of the time machine itself, so then gave himself the tools to destroy the time machine, thereby saving humanity, but also giving himself a winning lottery ticket in the process.

that's the only logical explaination for why the news of the discovery so suddenly vanished, isn't it?

So the Persians have a time machine eh? Does it involve the Sands of Time by any chance?

Muslims have had a time machine for a long time, its called Islam. Wherever its brought it instantly transforms everyone back to the 6th century.

Israel has a time machine on the nucleair bomb of Iran though

Wel, a very bad one, it is predicting for more then two decades that Iran will have a nucleair bomb in the next 6 or 9 months or two year, it depends on who knows what, but the predictions keep coming, and the media keeps believing it. Ha Ha Ha Ha indeed.

Apparently all the news is NOT fit to print....

The story got pulled because every possible future they looked at ended with "We're screwed"...

Questions questions

If it works (why am I saying if ?) then they can quite easily speculate on the financial markets and within a short period buy the entire world

Also if they can only see 5 years into the future then they could view a output of time machine which is placed 5 years in the future thereby having a 10 year view (repeat process ad nauseum)

Alternatively they could look into the future and see how to build a better time machine.

Personally I am glad that I have typed less shite here than the Iranians managed with the original story

Shame on you El Reg.

Talk about propaganda.

Anyone reading that page can clearly see it's talking about a system which does stats analysis, and which according to the 'inventor' has shown itself to be 98% accurate in the predictions it makes.

I wonder if a British company used the term "time machine" to describe something that had actually nothing to do with travelling through time, whether this would have been reported in this way? Or maybe an American company... maybe I should go and look up how you all took the news that Apple were calling their backup solution "time machine"?

This article appears to have no other purpose than to allow people to take the piss out of Iran, which would be fair enough, but by making up the thing you're taking the piss of them about, all you're really doing is taking the piss out of your site and members.

Weather

This is Iran, where they banned weather forecasts on the TV, because only God can see the future. So it is the last place I would have expected a story like this to come from. Russia is full of silly-season stories like this, on the other hand.

The problem

<p>

with a time machine of the sort claimed here is that it takes so much work that by the time you get the info -- you're THERE.</p>

<p>

Tick Tock Hollyhock, etc.</p>

<p>

&nbsp;</p>