Realistic time travel

Great_Gig_In_The_Sky · 5 months

My main problem with time travel is: if matter can't be created or destroyed, how can you essentially remove yourself from a closed system, and inject yourself into another closed system which already contains the matter of which you are comprised?

felixfarraday · 5 months

That's why you need a Time And Relative Distance In Space machine, so that you end up in the right spot.

mrmoncriefman · 5 months

To make things even more realistic, you need take not just the Earth's revolution around the Sun into account, but our solar system revolving around our galaxy and our galaxy revolving around the center of the universe and the many other various forces applied to them.

wigglemytoes · 5 months

relevant

joshland · 5 months

Yes, that's not all. The earth is spinning, it's orbiting the sun, the sun as a solar system is orbitting the galactic axis - at .3 C, and the Galaxy is spinning around or maybe just rocketing outward at something like .5 to .75 C. Ergo, if you would go back in time even 1 second, you're dealing with hundreds of thousands of kilometers. I don't even know how you would plot the course of the planet, nor accurately measure where the plant was historically to make any sort of jump at all.

Even trying to understand the math involved makes me want to kill kittens.

MrTemple · 5 months

To Google: Relativity, frame of reference, fallacy of absolute motion

Beakerbite · 5 months

Realistically, any time machine would also be a space faring craft. You would likely need/want to get out into an empty region of space in order to make the trip. Than fly to your desired destination.

Of course this all a ton of sci-fi slathered all over it.

Klexicon · 5 months

Actually, wouldn't that be the opposite of realistic time travel? When we shoot rockets to Pluto we take into account its future position, we don't just launch it to where it is now. Why would time travel be any different? (Assuming we could do it)

RNRSaturday · 5 months

It seems like if you could invent time travel, you would also figure this out.

wtfwhytheface · 5 months

Realistic time travel? Isn't that some kind of oxymoran?

nakedapedude · 5 months

Time travel into the future (relative to slower moving observers) = proven fact, time travel into the past = unknown but probably impossibru.

sweYoda · 5 months

That's why you make a spacetime machine.

praestigiare · 5 months

There is literally no such thing as staying perfectly still in the universe. This is one of the things the theory of relativity tells us. There is no privileged reference frame. That being the case, this comic makes no sense. Time travel must be relative to some inertial reference, and assuming you are already willing to accept time travel for the purposes of a story, accepting that it remains bound to the inertial reference frame of earth is not a big leap.

itscoldinminnesota · 5 months

Besides all your scientific reasons, we know time travel isn't possible else we'd have people warping in and out of here constantly, we've never seen someone come back from the future... or maybe it was once possible and someone went back and made it not possible?

PvtToonz · 5 months

In this case, you would be sent to the spot that the time machine is in whatever time you're traveling to. In Back to the Future, however, this would apply.

mytza007 · 5 months

I don't know about you guys, but I can already time travel... only forward though :(

Kalyptro · 5 months

DUDE I HAVE THOUGHT THIS SO MANY TIMES. THANK YOU.

Skinny_Santa · 5 months

So assuming the logic in this comic is true (I know nothing about physics or relativity) would that mean we could only time travel to specific points in time based on our departure window? I guess what I'm really asking is how often is the Earth in the same location in space?

randomness_delight · 5 months

Did he travel forward in time or back?

pib319 · 5 months

ive always wondered why no one else thought of this before

phleet · 5 months

More strange and wonderful art by Sheharzad Arshad/NocturnalDevil can be found here http://www.behance.net/sheharzad

He stopped making the hilarious morbid stuff, but it's all archived there.

Destiny1987 · 5 months

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZknFhQftrug

milescowperthwaite · 5 months

This has always been my problem with time-travel theories. 1 millisecond one way or the other--you return either in the upper atmosphere or deep in the magma.

SpitN · 5 months

Would be more realistic if he were naked, or not there.

Pete_Venkman · 5 months

There was a time travel show called Seven Days that addressed this directly. The time machine would always rematerialise in space, and the pilot would have to steer and reenter Earth's atmosphere every time he "backstepped".

Kind of a fun show if you haven't seen it. The nitty-gritty of how the Chronosphere worked was a big part of the plot drives, so they didn't gloss over it. Even addressed things like paradoxes. Sometimes with a bit of technobabble, but at least they didn't just pretend it wasn't there. Worth a watch if you're into a bit of science-action.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_(TV_series)

y2kartike · 5 months

Well DUH that's why you have to get upto 88 miles per hour first!

zanotam · 5 months

I always liked to think that when going back in time you'd be dragged around by the Earth's fat-ass gravity well.

xKJx25 · 5 months

nice, I never even thought about that.

Aethelstan · 5 months

How fast do galaxies move?

brbrbrad · 5 months

So what he actually invented was a machine for launching items into space.

...and he demonstrated why the US and USSR started with dogs and chimps.

user112358 · 5 months

Also, the galaxy would have rotated. Also, space is expanding. Go on...

knighmare · 5 months

Thats the exact thing that keeps bugging me about back to the future, its instant time travel yet the delorian travels with the planet, at least with the film the time machine (the good one) the machine travels slow enough to account for it as he can see changes around him, its not instant

makenzie71 · 5 months

What? No repost police here? haha

I actually have conversations with my friends on a regular basis about the logistical nightmare in time travel.

cauchy37 · 5 months

The fallacy of that picture is that it accepts heliocentric theory, while this is not true. Your displacement in space would require from you knowledge of the central point around which entire universe spins.

You also have to take into consideration the expansion of the universe, galaxy spin, sun's movement inside the galaxy itself and many more things that we forget about.

So my guess is that if you went back in time and did not adjust position displacement, you would be so far away from earth, that you wouldn't even be able to see solar system, at least not more than we can see stars on our sky.

Believes_in_Gosh · 5 months

VWORP VWORP VWORP

saucermoron · 5 months

You could just like make one that compesates for the offset.

Dashing_Pony · 5 months

So wait, we are just going to say that if someone was smart enough to make a time machine they would not account for the Earths movement? Or am I stupid and completely missing the joke here?

Horatio_CAmpAIgN · 5 months

It would seem that he has...

( •_•)

( •_•)>⌐■-■

(⌐■_■)

run out of time

YEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

foolsmagools · 5 months

this is an actual concern...

Fyrepepper · 5 months

Mind Blown.

Kristenated · 5 months

For a second, yes I thought I did time travel since this is a repost from Truewarrior.

usedtowork · 5 months

I don't know how realistic it is to think the calibre of scientist who could develop a working time machine would also fail to take things like this into account

xuanzue · 5 months

upvote for clever

funny

MODERATORS

funny

MODERATORS

you'll need to login or register to do that

create a new account

login