TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

A NOTE FOR READERS

EPIGRAPH

INTRODUCTION

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS BY NEW TIME TRAVELERS

REPAIR GUIDE

OH.

HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE

1

How to Tell What Time Period You’re Stranded In: A Handy Flowchart

2

A Special Note If You Are Stranded Between 200,000 BCE and 50,000 BCE and You Are Thinking, “The Humans Here Are Crazy and I Am Definitely Doomed Forever”

3

The Five Fundamental Technologies You Need For Your Civilization

3.1 Spoken Language

3.2 Written Language

3.3 Non-Sucky Numbers

3.4 The Scientific Method

3.5 Calorie Surplus

4

Units of Measurement Are Arbitrary, but Here’s How You Can Reinvent the Standard Ones Used in This Book from Scratch

5

Now We Are Become Farmers, the Devourers of Worlds

6

What Will Other Humans Be Eating If I’m Stranded After They’ve Evolved but Before Agriculture and Selective Breeding Are a Thing, and How Can I Tell If It’s Poisonous, Because I Bet These Ancient Humans Are Eating Some Really Stupid Stuff?

7

Putting Down Roots: Useful Plants for the Stranded Time Traveler

8

The Birds and the Bees: Useful Animals for the Stranded Time Traveler

9

Basic Nutrition: What to Eat So You Won’t Die for At Least a While Longer

10

Common Human Complaints That Can Be Solved by Technology

10.1 “I’m Thirsty”

10.2 “I’m Hungry”

10.3 “I’m Sick”

10.4 “The Natural Resources I See Around Me Suck; I Want Better Ones”

10.5 “I’m Lazy; I Want a Machine to Do Work for Me”

10.6 “No, I Mean I’m So Lazy I Just Want to Flip a Switch and Have Machines Work As If by Magic”

10.7 “It’s Late and I’m Cold, and I’d Like to Know How Late and How Cold It Is”

10.8 “I Want People to Think I’m Attractive”

10.9 “I Would Like to Have Some Cool Sex”

10.10 “I Want Things That Won’t Catch on Fire”

10.11 “There’s Nothing to Read”

10.12 “It Sucks Here and I Want to Go Literally Anywhere Else”

10.13 “I Want Everyone to Think I’m Smart”

11

Chemistry: What Are Things, and How Do I Make Things?

12

Major Schools of Philosophy Summed Up in a Few Quippy Sentences About High-Fives

13

The Basics of Visual Art, Including Some Styles You Can Steal

14

Heal Some Body: Medicine and How to Invent It

15

Basic First (And in Your Case, Only) Aid

16

How to Invent Music, and Musical Instruments, and Music Theory, and Also We Included Some Really Great Songs for You to Plagiarize Too

17

Computers: How to Turn Mental Labor into Physical Labor, So Then You Don’t Have to Think So Hard but Can Instead Just Turn a Crank or Whatever

CONCLUSION

Things Should Now Be Pretty Comfortable for You, and You’re Welcome

APPENDICES

A • Technology Tree

B • The Periodic Table

C • Useful Chemicals, How to Make Them, and How They Can Definitely Kill You

D • Logical Argument Forms

E • Trigonometry Tables, Included Because You’ll Need Them When You Invent Sundials, but They’ll Also Be Useful If You Ever Decide to Invent Trigonometry

F • Some Universal Constants That Took Humanity a While to Figure Out, and Which You Can Now Name After Yourself

G • Frequencies for Various Notes, So You Can Play Those Cool Songs We Included

H • A Bunch of Cool Gears and Other Fundamental Mechanisms

I • Here’s Where Some Useful Human Parts Are and What They Do

AFTERWORD

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ENDNOTES

INDEX

ABOUT THE AUTHOR