This is why you have to calibrate your time machine to track the relative gravity well.
space
Submitted 4 weeks ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/86abe0cd-40b1-4774-aa20-7ad85918eb5b.webp
Comments
Draegur@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Hyphlosion@donphan.social 4 weeks ago
Use a space time machine. Problem solved.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
You need to add dimensions and relativity.
CaptnNMorgan@reddthat.com 4 weeks ago
I think gravity is the solution to this problem. The time machine just has to be able to lock on to the earths gravitational force from across time
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Can you detect rotational velocity using gravity?
Atomic@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Earth rotates at about 460m/s around it’s own axis.
and I’ll sure scientists have access to a more precise number than that.
we dont have to detect what we can calculate
pyql@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I honestly think this would not happen because you would be time-travelling in the Earth’s frame of reference
Zerush@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
There is no space reference in time traveling only a time reference, the time traveler don’t change his start point, but the Earth and the whole solarsystem do. If you travel 6 month to the future, you are still in the point where you started, but the Earth will be on the other site of the Sun. A time machine must be a spaceship, otherwise you won’t survive. That is the error of almost all movies about time travel since H.G.Wells.
grandkaiser@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
If you travel 6 month to the future, you are still in the point where you started, but the Earth will be on the other site of the Sun.
Why would you remain spatially locked to the sun? The solar system is moving around the milky way. The Milky way is traveling at around 370 miles per second if we use the universe as a frame of reference. A point is both a place and a moment. Everything is moving relative to everything else. Time travel is also space travel.
Philharmonic3@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
This is a huge assumption. Why is it necessary that time would not have a space reference? I’d actually say that based on relativistic physics there probably is a space reference because the dimensions are linked. I think it’s possible that the momentum of the current movement could remain constant and thus stick the time traveling device to the earth. Coming to a complete referential stop in space would require beyond immense energy and be inefficient if one only wants to travel in time
PsychedSy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
Kinda depends, doesn’t it? A travel that let’s you see glimpses of reality/earth implies you’re making smaller skips that may keep you somewhat held in place. Being able to establish a vector through time may also imply control of vectors in space.
Also, six months would likely take us farther than the other side of the sun. If we’re completely de-referenced we might be able to find a universal reference frame or some wild shit.
Being human sucks.
ZeffSyde@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Perhaps designated Time Travel zones that are kept clear year round and only allow jumps of exactly one year?
0x0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
Ooh, but what if the time machine came from Mars and uses that as its frame of reference?
tetris11@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
Yeah, or if the time machine is genuinely a teleporter, then the invetor should at least know how to correct for drift.
emuspawn@orbiting.observer 4 weeks ago
I mean, it’s the space-time continuum, it’s connected! As the documentary Stargate SG-1 shows, we’re well acquainted with spatial and chronological drift over interstellar distances.
bastion@feddit.nl 4 weeks ago
Nah. Location is relative.
reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
the question is, what’s your frame of reference? if it’s the earth you’re good. if it’s the sun, you could presumably move forward any integer number of years because earth would be in the same place in its orbit relative to the sun (but try to move forward by a year and a day and you may have a bit of a chilling discovery about orbital mechanics). however, the position of our solar system (which, you’ll remember, includes the earth, the sun, me and presumably also you) is not static relative to the rest of the universe so if that’s your frame of reference then you’ll have to move in space and time instantaneously in order to move forward in time but seem stable in space to an observer whose frame of reference is the earth.
bastion@feddit.nl 4 weeks ago
The other particles and patterns of information that I’m most entangled with, temporally and atemporally.
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
We dont just live it, we are part of it.
SuperSaiyanSwag@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
This meme format having a redemption arc is my favorite. It wasn’t super sexist, but it was just unnecessarily sexist.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 4 weeks ago
Rescue peepo from the nazis next.
yokonzo@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
So either we would have to invent teleportation along with time travel/ have some sort of "magnet pad’ that must exist and not break at all times on earth, or its the time machine type where it just fast forwards everything around you until somehow you’re in a mall
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Since space and time are intertwined, we must travel both to achieve the desired goal
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
I should hope that if we had time travel landing pads, we’d have a pretty good log of maintenance times in the future.
The tough part to figure out, though, is that the more a pad is used, the more maintenance it requires, which in turn modifies the logs.
yokonzo@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Maybe this is why Stephen Hawkings time travellor party never worked out lol
D61@hexbear.net 4 weeks ago
I have yet to stumble across a sci-fi short story about space travelers finding an entire civilization’s worth of dead bodies floating round in space only to realize that they were all time travelers who only got part of the time traveling math correct. They figured out how to get through time but couldn’t figure out how to get through space, but since all their volunteers died, they never figured it out and just kept sending people to their doom.
ulterno@lemmy.kde.social 4 weeks ago
I feel like this could be a scene in Rick and Morty, with someone commenting, “Guess their Math was off”
reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
something an awful lot like this happens with interdimensional travel in Pratchett and Baxter’s ‘The Long Earth’. The basic plot driver is humans discovering a way to travel to the different timelines predicted by the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, and every once in a while as you’re bopping across dimensions from Earth to Earth you end up in a dimension or even a series of dimensions where, due to some sort of historical happenstance, Earthn’t.
tetris11@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
There is a sci-fi short story whose name escapes me of a spaceship using some new FTL drive, but has largely been untested due to an impending doom. The math is said to be solid, however.
Anyway the drive powers up, and the spaceship jumps, and… all the crew and passengers are left behind, choking in space.
D61@hexbear.net 4 weeks ago
Sounds like one of the asides from “The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy”.
MonkderDritte@feddit.de 4 weeks ago
Well, since no one bothered to create a savepoint, we can’t travel back in time anyway.
jherazob@beehaw.org 4 weeks ago
That’s why you need a T.A.R.D.I.S.
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
This. I like that Dr who actually has had this problem in universe. I don’t recall the episode, but he went to earth and ended up at the right time, but not the right place, since you know, earth is moving.
Even if you were to use the sun as a reference we orbit the sun (relative to the position of the sun) at some incredible speeds. Time of day factors in, since we’re rotating rather fast as well. So getting the right coordinates in space for a particular day, and a particular time in a particular year, for a specific place… Well, good luck.
Which isn’t to mention the fact that we’re in a galaxy, which is moving as well, so using a point of reference outside the solar system becomes insane to try and calculate; which is what you would have to do in order to enable travel outside of our solar system with something like a TARDIS.
gmtom@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Since relativity tells us there is no universal reference frame, then it having its reference tied to earth is perfectly valid.
Also sidenote: my favourite idea about time travel is that time travel is entirely possible, but will never be invented, because the timeline where its not invented is the only stable timeline. Because any timeline where it IS invented gets changed as soon as you use it, meaning the timeline changes over and over again every time time travel is invented repeatedly either infinitely or until someone accidentally creates a timeline where its never invented, only then does the timeline stop changing and we can actually experience it. So because we exist and can experience time, we can deduce that we will never invent time travel.
Turun@feddit.de 4 weeks ago
Rotational reference frames are out though! (Unless you want to deal with magic forces acting on your masses)
And since the earth rotates around itself and the sun, and the sun rotates around the center of the galaxy, you will always have to deal with a moving target.
Opafi@feddit.de 4 weeks ago
Since I stay on earth now when I’m moving forward in time why wouldn’t I stay on earth when I move backward through time?
voracitude@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
How much do you know about the “double slit” experiment and its subsequent variations? Because I think that’s a rabbithole you’ll enjoy. That first video is really just context; this next link is another video in that series, and this is the one that really pertains to the consequences of time travel: piped.video/watch?v=8ORLN_KwAgs
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
You migjt have better luck and accuracy using our galaxy’ black hole for reference marker dependinh on how much time you intend to traverse
Psythik@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Yeah I think we don’t have to worry about it for the same reason why you don’t have to worry about getting thrown backwards when jumping in a moving train.
voracitude@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Sure, but it’s a lot of fun to think about :D
1rre@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
There can be stable timelines with time travel - there’s actually 3 states:
-
Perpetual instability, where the timeline changes each time the time machine is used but never reaches the same state twice
-
Perpetual cyclic stability, where people’s actions in modifying the timeline lead to it eventually reaching the same state, eg. you go back in time to kill someone who becomes evil and oppresses you but the near death experience leads them capture you, so you can’t time travel any more, and to blame your people and start oppressing them, leading to the same actions
-
Stability without time travel, which is the default state but incredibly hard to get once time travel is invented as with nobody to stop time travel being invented it would probably get invented again, however parts of a cyclically stable timeline could have nobody having access to time travel, but any actions by time travellers to stop time travel would likely lead to the second rather than third option
-
Dalvoron@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
I like the idea that time machines are like phones in that you need a receiver to pick up the signal. A consequence is that you can only travel back to the time that the machine was turned on.
ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 4 weeks ago
Unrelatedly, you may enjoy Ted Chiang’s The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate, the short story.
The whole book is great if you like thought-provoking sci-fi premises I guess: www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/41160292
NominatedNemesis@reddthat.com 4 weeks ago
Wow, I did not expect to find a fellow Ted Chiang enjoyer. The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate is one of my favorite.
nailbar@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
Imagine building the first receiver, and immediately have 20 people spawn within the same space
Pantless_Paladin@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
More like 2 million inconsiderate time tourists comming to gawk at the first reciver…
Lolman228@kbin.social 4 weeks ago
Jokes on you, space doesn't exist
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
I suppose you’re going to tell me that the earth is flat too…
Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Guess this is why the TARDIS had to be a space ship as well.
lingh0e@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
The name TARDIS is literally the solution, “Time And Relative Dimension In Space”.
Etterra@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Time machines have been invented dozens of times since the 1800s; there’s s trail of them drifting through deep space.
morrowind@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
I feel like the scientists smart enough to invent time machines would have thought of that
AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Time machines don’t exist and (as far as we know) cannot exist. Therefore, we can say they work however we want. If you can travel back in time, surely you can do that while remaining close to an arbitrary point of reference.
dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Hence how the artist was able to choose that the time machine in this context rewinds time while conserving the universal position(?)… Relative to the center of the universe(??)… assuming eucledian space(???)
FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 4 weeks ago
Why would you time travel to a position relative to anything other than the earth?
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 4 weeks ago
Ooh, new science fiction idea. We built a time machine and can only use it to reach other star systems. But just those that have been or will be at the same “spot” as earth.
FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 4 weeks ago
With the reference point being a black whole at the center of the milky way from which it derives all it’s power, love it: get a draft to my desk before July 19th and we’ll talk remuneration.
Hazmatastic@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
This. It would have to be set as relative to something, why you would define that as any object not Earth or on Earth is a mystery to me
keepcarrot@hexbear.net 4 weeks ago
If I was writing a fiction and felt the need to address this, I would make it so where you wind up is based on the location of the time machine in the time you travel. But also I probably wouldn’t and just handwave it
CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
A time machine, at its very very core, is a literary device. You wouldn’t bring up this nuance unless it was important to the plot of the story.
It’s like warp drives. The point of warp or any FTL travel is to skip the boring parts. You only learn about warp drives when something goes wrong.
keepcarrot@hexbear.net 4 weeks ago
Teleporters as well.
I remember having access to one in an RPG (rogue trader, teleportarium), and almost every session was “why can’t we use the teleporter for this?”. Eventually we made a rule that we could only use it once per session, which meant functionally we saved it for emergencies or something really funny.
There is an enjoyment to solving problems in the engineering sense, but in an oppositional sense you dont really tell any stories other than about how you solved a puzzle you yourself invented
XxXxZzZz@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
[deleted]ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
What if I think of it as a pancake?
Actually it was my work in the field of pancake time that brought about widespread internet ridicule
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
Pizza is a better example. Particularly a NYC style.
The thing about time/space travel is that you can only really travel within your cosmic neighborhood, or “slice”. You can move linearly across the surface, but if you want to actual travel through time, you have to fold the slice.
Now, if you want to expand beyond your cosmic neighborhood, then you really gotta think more like a calzone.
nilclass@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
Is there a choice of toppings? Or do I have to think about a very specific pancake?
danc4498@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It’s my belief that Time Machines aren’t immune to the effects of gravity. When time changes, the machine goes to the space it would be at if it was affect gravity for the whole time.
xia@lemmy.sdf.org 4 weeks ago
I’d like to believe that mass (and then by extension the Earth) “defines” the spacetime around it as much as it distorts spacetime near it. I suspect this may even be the underlying cause for the observation of speed of light being constant in the presence of earth/solar/galactic movement.
davidgro@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
In most media time machines are also teleporters - many are explicitly so, with the destination space needing to be chosen at the same time as the destination time, but even when that’s not shown they still make the time traveller suddenly vanish and then just suddenly reappear elsewhen.
One movie I’ve seen with a more “realistic” time machine is Primer. It’s not at all a teleporter or portal. Very slight spoiler:
It sidesteps the whole issue that OP presents because the place where you exit the machine after traveling is just where the machine is when it’s turned on to begin with. You can’t time travel outside the machine, including to before it exists, and your path (in all four dimensions) is contiguous.
Ephera@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
Well, since this was posted in Science Memes, I’ll be so pedantic that science does not support the idea of travelling back in time.
It does support travelling forwards in time, at various speeds, but you’ll constantly be aware of where you are (even if one method involves travelling really fast and therefore may still leave you in empty space).
zifnab25@hexbear.net 4 weeks ago
It’s a shame we never invented a Space-Time machine
JoYo@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
did you travel millions of years into the past?
lugal@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
I once saw a short film where this was taken into account: they moved back in time a few hours and ended you a few miles away too
Wheaties@hexbear.net 4 weeks ago
think this was in Issaacc Assimovv’s Robot Visions
BmeBenji@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Someone should build a space machine so we can travel through space freely
beebarfbadger@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Ahummm, well actually, * adjusts monocle * time travel is not possible and since nobody has invented time machines yet, neither of these scenarios would happen in reality.