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Vegeta
Skeptic Friend
United Kingdom
238 Posts |
 Posted - 03/27/2007 : 08:18:10
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Aside from all the other problems that is...
If I were to step into a time machine and go back to 1400 say, then the earth would be in a different place in its orbit, and also in a different part of the galaxy and the galaxy would be in a different part of the universe. I would likely end up in empty space and die.
Hence any time machines would inherently have to be located in space and anyone wishing to travel a long way in time would need faster than light propulsion to get back to earth.
This raises a whole can of worms in respect to where you are in the universe. Every part of the universe is moving relative to every other part.
What I'm trying to say is that we occupy a fixed position in space right now. In the future or past we occupy a different position. However we do not know where this position was or will be because there is no fixed reference point in space from which to project our course.
(e.g. we can predict where we will be in reference to the sun, but the sun is moving, we can predict where we will be in reference to the center of the galaxy, but the galaxy is moving and so on)
Moot, but it always bugged me.
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What are you looking at? Haven't you ever seen a pink shirt before?
"I was asked if I would do a similar sketch but focusing on the shortcomings of Islam rather than Christianity. I said, 'No, no I wouldn't. I may be an atheist but I'm not stupid.'" - Steward Lee |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 03/27/2007 : 10:02:02 [Permalink]
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Gregory Benford is one of the few authors to write about this, I cant remember which book though, anyway they had to send a tachyon message into the past by aiming it at where the Earth was.
For those who dont know GB is a science heavy sci-fi author, I reccomend him....after you read every Phillip K Dick short story that is. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/27/2007 : 21:33:35 [Permalink]
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Time travel is a thing very few authors can handle well. Most of the time they end up eating their logic shoe.
As for time travel itself...
Well, suppose you can send yourself back in time (or forward), isn't it a likely supposition that if you can suspend the rules of the universe to manipulate time, that you'd have an equal control over space? Its called "space-time" for a reason, ya know.
So making your space-time machine poop you out in a safe place seems like it should be no problem.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/27/2007 : 21:52:29 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Gregory Benford is one of the few authors to write about this, I cant remember which book though, anyway they had to send a tachyon message into the past by aiming it at where the Earth was.
For those who dont know GB is a science heavy sci-fi author, I reccomend him....after you read every Phillip K Dick short story that is.
Then that might explain why no time travelers from the future showed up at that Time Traveler Convention a few years ago. Poor bastards are out there now, asphyxiated and frozen in space.
Since they jumped back in time from a point on the future path of the earth through space, their corpses will no doubt become spectacular meteors one day, as the earth runs into them. Maybe at least one of them was wearing a future equivalent of a Timex watch, which will take the licking of reentry, keep on ticking, and be found someday. Of course, this won't prove anything, as the date of reentry will be the same date that the time traveler departed from...
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 03/27/2007 : 22:29:17 [Permalink]
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| Yes. And if you built a time machine and then tested it by going back in time 1 hour, wouldn't you run the risk of running into yourself inside the machine putting the finishing touches on it, or just getting into it? |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 03/28/2007 : 08:40:23 [Permalink]
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| You see, my take is that if you'd travel in time, the only safe way to do it would be travel back in such a way it would be impossible for you to interact with your environment. But then it wouldn't be traveling, just looking back into the real past - sort of like we can look into the distances we'll probably never truly reach, such as neighbour galaxies... |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 03/28/2007 : 09:37:39 [Permalink]
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The blue fairies who live in the moon prevent time travel with their thoughts.
As for fictional time travel, Im a fan of the multiverse idea. The one where if you go back you cant possibly alter the past because you are creating a new past in a new verse, so killing granddad isnt an issue. Second Law be damned. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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ejdalise
Skeptic Friend
USA
50 Posts |
Posted - 03/29/2007 : 18:54:55 [Permalink]
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Some authors got around the paradox thing by only allowing forward travel. If I remember correctly, the theory has no such limitations.
As far as the whole space-time issue, Asimov wrote a mystery/scifi story where a person comits murder using time travel to send an object precisely to the space ocupied by another person. At least that's what my faulty memory tells me. The other voices tell me to ignore it. But my self from the future tells me to ignore them.
ejd
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--- Disperser ---
Winning enemies and aggravating friends since 1953 |
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Wings
New Member
USA
6 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 16:12:04 [Permalink]
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Here's the thing I wonder.
If time travel exists, wouldn't the device have to completely and exactly reverse the presence and structure of every atom and bit of energy within the universe? Infact, since the universe is expanding, wouldn't it have to reverse the expansion of the universe as well?
Wouldn't that entail reversing entropy too? Or am I completely mistaken? |
| Edited by - Wings on 03/30/2007 16:12:46 |
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Vegeta
Skeptic Friend
United Kingdom
238 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2007 : 15:49:15 [Permalink]
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quote:
Gregory Benford is one of the few authors to write about this, I cant remember which book though, anyway they had to send a tachyon message into the past by aiming it at where the Earth was.
Looked into this, the book's called timescape. Managed to acquire an audio book of it and listened to it on my commute. Pretty good story. |
What are you looking at? Haven't you ever seen a pink shirt before?
"I was asked if I would do a similar sketch but focusing on the shortcomings of Islam rather than Christianity. I said, 'No, no I wouldn't. I may be an atheist but I'm not stupid.'" - Steward Lee |
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One thing I don't get about time travel...
