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Science: Time: Travel
Chicken and egg producing time machine   (+1, -1)  [vote for, against]

One of my neighbours has some eggs.

Now surely it's possible to leave one of the eggs to hatch, wait 18 - 20 weeks (when it can start laying eggs) then zap it backwards in time by say 22 weeks and it can lay its own egg...in this fashion an infinite quantity of eggs can be acquired.

Admittedly the time machine is the tricky bit, but this Ferenghi asynchronous wormhole I got at Ikea...insert Flap A into Slot B...or was it the other way around? I forget.
-- not_morrison_rm, Nov 18 2016

http://www.dailymai...cup-cling-wrap.html [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 18 2016]

Is this how your contraption will be powered? https://www.youtube...watch?v=Z8yW5cyXXRc
[Cuit_au_Four, Nov 19 2016]

how does this zap mechanism work exactly?
-- po, Nov 18 2016


// Ferenghi asynchronous wormhole //

They're rubbish, really poor quality. You can get Cardassian ones at John Lewis - yes, they're more expensive, but they're smaller, more reliable, and the customer service is much better.
-- 8th of 7, Nov 18 2016


"Push klein bottle spout through side and glue flaps down over bottle body; be sure to leave a hole in the 4th dimension by which to push said spout..."
-- RayfordSteele, Nov 18 2016


"... locate free end of small Möbius strip (C2) ..."
-- 8th of 7, Nov 18 2016


Chicken leans back, lights a smoke and says;
"Well, I guess that settles that doesn't it?"

...

On a completely unrelated note students hatch chicks from eggs taken out of their shells. [link]
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 18 2016


Since fish lay eggs, clearly eggs came before chickens. I don't even understand the problem.
-- theircompetitor, Nov 18 2016


[nrm] If you start off with one egg, you'll keep getting one egg. If you want a dozen eggs, you'll need to run the machine a dozen times.

If, on the other however, you start with two eggs, you'll get an exponentially increasing number - a dozen runs will give you 4096 eggs, which is much more than 12.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 18 2016


// 4096 eggs, which is much more than 12 //

That's a lot of omelettes. Is this the new math?
-- whatrock, Nov 18 2016


8,192 (1+12=13)
-- FlyingToaster, Nov 18 2016


You may have a point there, [FT].

Regarding the commentary on [2fries]'s link, why do Japanese commentators always sound as if they're describing some great military triumph?

Also (and again regarding [2fries]'s link), what happens if you take a dozen shell-less fertilized eggs and allow the yolks to merge before they develop? Do you get one massive chick, or 12 normal ones, or a random collection of bodyparts?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 18 2016


// allow the yolks to merge //

Multiple standard chickens, because (a) the DNA of each embryo was defined at fertilization, and (b) because the yolk is just a nutrient store; you wouldn't be fusing the embryos. You'd have to add a teratogen to get the "multiple bits" thing. By the second day of incubation, any cells that have undergone reversion mutations give rise to revertant colonies like rats leaving a sinking ship; then the ship sinks. Ethyl methane sulfonate is an alkylating agent and a potent mutagen. It creates a virus so lethal the subject was dead before he left the table. A repressor protein that blocks the operating cells wouldn't obstruct replication, but it does give rise to an error in replication so that the newly formed DNA strand carries a mutation and you've got a virus again.

So there.

// why do Japanese commentators always sound as if they're describing some great military triumph? //

Frustrated ambition. If you look in the commentary box, they're all sitting there in green flying overalls with a katana on their belt, and a hachimaki round their head.
-- 8th of 7, Nov 18 2016


//Multiple standard chickens, because...// Ah, but, [8th], that would be bollocks. I seem to be fighting a one-man war against bollocks lately.

If you mixed several yolks, you could potentially cause the multiple germinal discs (the bits that are going to become the chick) to fuse, or partially fuse, or something. So you might end up with a sort of Siamese chicken, or perhaps just a random collection of organs and limbs wrapped up in feathers.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 18 2016


[8th] ? You know those files on me - the incept date, the longevity, those things. You saw them?
-- normzone, Nov 18 2016


The energy to travel would probably pay for the eggs.
-- wjt, Nov 19 2016


// I seem to be fighting a one-man war against bollocks lately.//

I just imagined a placard reading "one-bollock men against war". I'm not sure why. Maybe it's one of those "things could be worse" thoughts.

On a distant campus, someone begins writing a paper on The Value-Ambivalent Semiotics of the Vernacular Testicle.
-- pertinax, Nov 19 2016


// "one-bollock men against war" //

Which is odd, because Adolf H. of that ilk, a notorious aggressor, was so equipped (allegedly).

// the incept date, the longevity, those things. You saw them? //

Oh yeah. Too bad you won't live ... but then again, who does ... ?
-- 8th of 7, Nov 19 2016


Having seen 2fries link, I have to say it's a poultry effect.

I was actually thinking of one chicken repeatedly returning to the past, which should do the trick.

It goes back, lays its own egg, call it egg zero, and after whatever period of time becomes chicken 2, which can then sent back with mama chicken to get the exponential wossername.

Partly it's the most elegant solution but mostly I'm too tight-fisted to buy one more extra egg.

That wormhole doesn't power itself y'know....hmmm...<at this point the author goes forward in time, brings the wormhole from the future, puts it into the current wormhole. Entire universe collapses, but instantly re-inflates so no one notices>
-- not_morrison_rm, Nov 19 2016


// Entire universe collapses, but instantly re-inflates so no one notices //

Oh for Heaven's sake, not again ... leave it ALONE, it's not big and it's not clever.

Oh. Actually, it's pretty clever, and about as big as it gets. But just .. don't do it again.

Honestly, like little kids sometimes ... < wanders off,mumbling>
-- 8th of 7, Nov 19 2016


// I seem to be fighting a one-man war against bollocks lately.//

Maybe a function of where your head frequents?

Sorry that was too inviting...
-- RayfordSteele, Nov 19 2016


sp. "aggressor". Unless the missing dangly 'g' somehow referred to the missing gonad.

ad+gradior, you see, means "I stride towards", and then the 'd' of the preposition is assimilated, in true borg-like fashion, to match the following consonant, while the non-initial vowel is weakened to 'e'.

You're welcome.
-- pertinax, Nov 21 2016


Sp. fixed.

<scratches [pert] off Xmas card list>
-- 8th of 7, Nov 21 2016



random, halfbakery