Cell Phone in Charlie Chaplin film?

[BrettT]

What the hell is it?

 

[updog]

I can't believe the guy is serious about time travelling.


I don't know what that is, but as being discussed in the comments of that video, it's probably just some sort of hearing aid. Sure looks like a phone though

 

[D.Vial]

Don't know, but Chaplin is NOT a time traveller.

 

[BrettT]

The only image of an old hearing aid I've been able to find is this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ardent_hearing_aid.JPG

 

[Randyisgod15]

I saw that yesterday and thought it was pretty interesting. Time-traveling theories always make my head spin, mainly because of the "altering history unbeknownst to the world around it" thing. Like I was talking to my best friend but at that moment someone who was time traveling killed his mother before he was born so he never existed, and all of a sudden I'm doing dishes instead and have no recollection of him ever existing. Of course there's the alternate realities theory and....OH MY HEAD GAHHHHHHH!

 

[Uladyne]

In 2010 we're so used to mobile phones being a part of our culture that whenever we see someone with a hand to the side of their face while talking we immediately assume it's they're talking on the phone. So yes, right now in 2010 it definitely looks like she's on a cell phone.

In 1928, however, it probably looked like something entirely different. Occam's Razor should be employed here, and that definitely cuts out the time traveler theory.

Plus, how the fuck would a cell phone work in 1928 without cell towers? There would have to be a massive cover up to hide those. If it were a time traveler trying to be discreet about using a futuristic device, it seems like using it while walking down a street in L.A. in broad daylight would be a bad idea. The time traveler notion would then logically lead us to believe it's a special speaking device that communicates across time, and if that were the case, I'm sure the technology used to make it work would not be fashioned in the model of a standard mobile phone.

I'm not saying that I know what's going on, just that we can be pretty sure she'd not using a mobile phone.

Looks like a case for Michael Shermer.

 

[SocialNumb]

I'm pretty sure they didn't have broadcast towers for cell phones back then so the phone wouldn't work anyways. (Am I wrong?) Probably a crazy lady having conversation with her hand. Who the hell knows.

Edit: ^he beat me to it. That was my first thought.

 

[TheDriller]

I saw that yesterday and thought it was pretty interesting. Time-traveling theories always make my head spin, mainly because of the "altering history unbeknownst to the world around it" thing. Like I was talking to my best friend but at that moment someone who was time traveling killed his mother before he was born so he never existed, and all of a sudden I'm doing dishes instead and have no recollection of him ever existing. Of course there's the alternate realities theory and....OH MY HEAD GAHHHHHHH!

You're looking at it the wrong way.

You've got to consider that you speaking to your friend is an "event" and that the lead-up to that event already includes every single failed attempt to assassinate his mother.

Consider the fillowing:

There is a little boy named Mike, when he is 12 years old his mother is knocked down by a car and killed. Mike spends his life researching time-travel in the hope of going back to the scene of the accident and saving his mother from death. so when he is around 35 he perfects a time machine and goes back to the day of the accident. he rushes across the city to the place (and time) that she died. as he rounds a corner he shouts "Mom!", his mother is crossing the street, she turns to look at him. While she is distracted a car drives right into her and she dies. Mike, like an idiot, failed to comprehend that his "intervention" was already included in the timeline that lead up to his mothers death.
He can't change the past because the "present" already includes all attempts to chance the past.

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

You're looking at it the wrong way.

You've got to consider that you speaking to your friend is an "event" and that the lead-up to that event already includes every single failed attempt to assassinate his mother.

Consider the fillowing:

There is a little boy named Mike, when he is 12 years old his mother is knocked down by a car and killed. Mike spends his life researching time-travel in the hope of going back to the scene of the accident and saving his mother from death. so when he is around 35 he perfects a time machine and goes back to the day of the accident. he rushes across the city to the place (and time) that she died. as he rounds a corner he shouts "Mom!", his mother is crossing the street, she turns to look at him. While she is distracted a car drives right into her and she dies. Mike, like an idiot, failed to comprehend that his "intervention" was already included in the timeline that lead up to his mothers death.
He can't change the past because the "present" already includes all attempts to chance the past.

Nicely put, it's hard to put into words but that's exactly what I think as well!

 

[egan.]

This is like seeing the virgin mary in burnt toast.

 

[Rhys Llewellyn]

That is kinda bizarre.

Even stranger through a bit of Google searching reveals no definitive answer.

Of course time travel has to be ruled out right away. That's just retarded

I liked how he said "of course, it's not a AM/FM receiver, afterall, it's 1928".

Phones existed back then, and so did wireless radio... I wonder if this was just some fluke of insight and it was deliberately done to mess with us? Like, perhaps the Hover Board in Back To The Future. Although a bit of a crap analogy, I think you can see what I'm getting at...

If it were a laptop or something, then that would be much harder to explain.

The phone would've incorporated walkie talkie style technology which was just around the corner anyway. Not a micro-processor in sight.

 

[Notuern]

Who is listening on the other end?

Myth busted. :Smug:

 

[Terminus]

Who is listening on the other end?

Myth busted. :Smug:

Jimmy McMillan is telling her the rent is too damn high

 

[schust]

I'm pretty sure they didn't have broadcast towers for cell phones back then so the phone wouldn't work anyways. (Am I wrong?) Probably a crazy lady having conversation with her hand. Who the hell knows.

Edit: ^he beat me to it. That was my first thought.

yea, see this is the crux of the whole thing. assuming it's a phone that's similar to now - which it looks like - it would need a tower. that's not to say that it couldn't be some kind of futuristic phone that doesn't need that - but then it probably wouldn't be some stupid thing you hold. i'm guessing the phones of the future will be like star trek where they tap some small pin on their shirt and communicate.

plus - i'm not sure i like the idea of people time traveling. sounds very dangerous for humanity. we (humans) would fuck everything up as we know it, i'm sure of it.

 

[Rhys Llewellyn]

For anyone entertaining the idea of time travel...

Okay, it is theoretically possible, BUT it is only theoretically possible to travel back to the time where the machine was invented in the first place! If it were invented back then, then I'd say, she's holding an iPhone. Very primitive technology compared to a time travel machine.

I am very intrigued by this though. Surely someone has an answer, somewhere.

 

[Uladyne]

Uh Oh...

"An ear trumpet dating from the mid to late 19th century" according to this page:

http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?s=strangenews&c=news&l=&pic=ear-trumpet-1-101028-02.jpg&cap=An+ear+trumpet+dating+from+the+mid+to+late+19th+century.+Credit%3A+Central+Institute+for+the+Deaf-Max+A.+Goldstein+Historic+Devices+for+Hearing+Collection&titl

Still doesn't look like she was holding one of these, but a door has been opened to the mundane.


EDIT: I found the picture above after following a link from the first thing that popped up after googling "cell phone charlie chaplin".

 

[Rhys Llewellyn]

Uh Oh...

"An ear trumpet dating from the mid to late 19th century" according to this page:

http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?s=strangenews&c=news&l=&pic=ear-trumpet-1-101028-02.jpg&cap=An+ear+trumpet+dating+from+the+mid+to+late+19th+century.+Credit%3A+Central+Institute+for+the+Deaf-Max+A.+Goldstein+Historic+Devices+for+Hearing+Collection&titl

Still doesn't look like she was holding one of these, but a door has been opened to the mundane.


EDIT: I found the picture above after following a link from the first thing that popped up after googling "cell phone charlie chaplin".

But that begs the question...

Why is she bothering holding it up why she's walking along?

No one is talking to her.

 

[Uladyne]

People who wear hearing aids today usually keep them on when people aren't talking to them. It also may be a good idea to make sure you can hear well when you're out in public, especially on a somewhat crowded sidewalk.

There's also this:

from http://hearing.siemens.com/sg/10-about-us/01-our-history/milestones.jsp?year=1924

I'm not saying she's definitely holding a hearing aid. I'm not sure that she's holding anything at all, really, but a hearing aid would be about 1,0000x more likely than a mobile phone, if she is in fact holding something.


EDIT: Nevermind, that second device doesn't look hand held after closer inspection.

 

[D.Vial]

Who is listening on the other end?

Myth busted. :Smug:

Probably Marty Mcfly.

 

[JeffTD]

If Chaplin really WAS a time traveller, or someone back then had travelled back in time, they would've warned him that the moustache he was sporting wouldn't look so cool come 1945.