Why can't you use the time machine?

jharry3 said:

So if time travel is possible, which I am not smart enough to even begin to discuss, the inventors still have to cope with the fact that the sun is going though space at something like 220km/sec (~136 miles/sec) and its not in a straight line, Its both orbiting the center of  our galaxy and our galaxy is moving through space orbiting some other massive galaxy, probably Andromeda, plus everything in the universe is moving somewhere, expanding universe they say. So where we 100 years ago in space? And where was the spot you were standing in relation to the earth spinning on its wobbly axis? And if you travel there in a straight , 4 dimensional line (x,y,z,t)a (x,y,z,t)b , suppose you pass through a supernova?

This is basically what I was suggesting earlier.  If your time machine was a straight 'teleportion' you wouldn't need to contend with passing through a supernova, but getting the correct x,y,z for a given t value would be nearly impossible.

However, when you travel back in time if you suddenly appear, you are adding mass to the system and violating Conservation of Mass, correct?

Well, if a time machine is ever invented, humans would absolutely use it to go back in time and make themselves richer. So then others would go further back in time. And so on and so forth. Enought that I'm quite positive that if a time machine ever exists, it would exist from the earliest moment in time.

Since there are no time machines you know of now, you can be pretty dang sure there will never be a time machine you know of.

However!

I think we are trending toward an increasingly virtual world. And in a 100% virtual world, time travel and teleportation are easy. Imagine we are all just consciousnesses playing around in a world built on a giant computer. Want to go back in time? No problem. Want to be somewhere else? Easy. The only rules would be the arbitrary rules of whoever built the virtual world. 

In reply to ProDarwin :

Sorry, I didn't read your entries before I forged ahead and typed what I typed. 

Interestingly enough a quick search of "time travel and conservation of mass" reveals this is a long and hotly debated subject with most of the smart people agreeing that this simple fact, that mass must be conserved, is enough to show that time travel is impossible. 

   And if your body mass needs to be converted to energy and back to mass you are talking like 9.7x10^17 joules (E=mC^2) for a 200 lb cyborg.    So that lighting show in the beginning of the Terminator wasn't big enough by a long way.

We are all traveling through time. Right now, this afternoon I seem to be moving awfully slowly through it. If I could move in space a few miles to the West (home), I could probably speed up my perceived passage through time by 2x or more.

So, when you die does time stop? If you have a soul with no mass that is released from your body are you free in time? "So it goes."

In actuality we have time machines. 

Our vehicles.  just think how much time it took people to ride a covered wagon from Missouri to Oregon in 1850?  Months. 

Now its a two day drive or 4-5 hour flight.   

The kitchen dishwasher is a time machine.  When I first got married in 1979 it took my wife and I probably 1/2 hour to wash, dry and put away dishes, pots, pans, utensils.  Just two of us.  Now I can fill up the dishwasher in 3 minutes and walk away. 

My computer at work can do a structural analysis in about 30 seconds.  When I first got into the structural engineering business that same analysis would have taken probably 10 hours.   I can fine tune stuff with multiple runs to save money in fabrication costs.  And the computer runs cost hardly anything.  30 years ago a typical analysis like one I am doing today would have cost $5000 in 1980's money and I would not have its results until tomorrow.  Computer time was expensive back when it was slow as a 1970 semi-auto VW (0-60 in 23 sec so you don't have to look it up)

How many of us use this saved time wisely or at least productively?  We know the answer.

Money, power, fame, all that sounds great.  You guys enjoy that.

I'm going back to pick up some trex eggs.  Wait til everyone sees what I bring to play in the dog park.  

*mass panic and screaming*

"And he knows 'Fetch' and 'Roll over' and.......where'd everybody go?"

*mind-numbing, earth shattering roar*

"Such a good boy!  Let's go home!"

*BOOM....BOOM....BOOM....BOOM.....*

I think I’d be good at time travel.  I’m nosy enough to learn what I want but lazy/apathetic enough that I probably wouldn’t change anything.

since its Monterey Historics weekend....

1969 Road and Track classifieds.......Ferrari GTO , $4999

Hell just going back to last year and spening a few grand on cryptocurrency and then selling it off a few months ago...

travellering said:

In reply to stuart in mn :

Oe you screw up setting the dials and wind up right on top of the Big Bang...

That would be pretty sweet, actually, for the scientific knowledge.

I mean, yeah, you couldn't share it with anyone, because you'd be dead very soon.  On the other hand, I'm also one of those weirdos who thinks if'd be awesome to be on a Mars mission, even knowing that it's a one way trip, and the likelihood is high that I wouldn't even make it that far.  (I looked into it when they did a call.  They want people with good eyesight, and who aren't six-foot forty, so I'm out right off the bat)

ProDarwin said:

jharry3 said:

So if time travel is possible, which I am not smart enough to even begin to discuss, the inventors still have to cope with the fact that the sun is going though space at something like 220km/sec (~136 miles/sec) and its not in a straight line, Its both orbiting the center of  our galaxy and our galaxy is moving through space orbiting some other massive galaxy, probably Andromeda, plus everything in the universe is moving somewhere, expanding universe they say. So where we 100 years ago in space? And where was the spot you were standing in relation to the earth spinning on its wobbly axis? And if you travel there in a straight , 4 dimensional line (x,y,z,t)a (x,y,z,t)b , suppose you pass through a supernova?

This is basically what I was suggesting earlier.  If your time machine was a straight 'teleportion' you wouldn't need to contend with passing through a supernova, but getting the correct x,y,z for a given t value would be nearly impossible.

However, when you travel back in time if you suddenly appear, you are adding mass to the system and violating Conservation of Mass, correct?

Not if you are using time displacement equipment like in The Terminator, where an equal mass is exchanged.

As for your location... similar to circles being easy to define using polar geometry, you just need to define your position from an Earth-based frame of reference.   Simple!

("How does it work?" "Modern technology, William!")

The_Jed said:

I often get lost in a daydream at work visualizing traveling back in time. Not my physical, present self zipping through spacetime, just my consciousness. As I envision it, my current consciousness would zip back into my younger, past self. I'd probably shoot for age 6 or so. It would be an interesting experiment to see if I could prevent some bad things from happening and bring about some good ones within my own timeline. Other than having pain-free joints, it would probably suck to be a 39-year-old Jackass stuck inside the body of a six-year-old. Kind of a Quantum Leap ripoff except I wouldn't be displacing anyone else's mind, just my own.

 

LOL

 

 

So, X-Men style time travel. 

I think when I was a six year old, I already was a 39 year old jackass...

Knurled. said:

The_Jed said:

I often get lost in a daydream at work visualizing traveling back in time. Not my physical, present self zipping through spacetime, just my consciousness. As I envision it, my current consciousness would zip back into my younger, past self. I'd probably shoot for age 6 or so. It would be an interesting experiment to see if I could prevent some bad things from happening and bring about some good ones within my own timeline. Other than having pain-free joints, it would probably suck to be a 39-year-old Jackass stuck inside the body of a six-year-old. Kind of a Quantum Leap ripoff except I wouldn't be displacing anyone else's mind, just my own.

 

LOL

 

 

So, X-Men style time travel. 

 

I think when I was a six year old, I already was a 39 year old jackass...

Honestly, I haven't seen that one, whichever one that is. I watched one of the early ones and part of a sequel but I didn't really dig it so, other than Logan, I haven't watched many of the X-Men movies. 

I guess I should give them another shot since I dig that particular concept of time travel! :)

In reply to The_Jed :

Days of Future Past, and Deadpool 2. 

Although DP2 played very fast and loose with it in the end credits scenes, but since it's a Deadpool movie, it doesn't take things like "continuity" too seriously.  He acquires Cable's time travel device, goes back to "Wolverine Origins" and shoots X23/Deadpool (a character that only exists as marketing devices in the DP universe), then he goes back and shoots Ryan Reynolds (yes, his own actor) before he has a chance to make Green Lantern.

Knurled. said:

As for your location... similar to circles being easy to define using polar geometry, you just need to define your position from an Earth-based frame of reference.   Simple!

Its easy to say that, but present day time machine doesn't have any reference point for past earth (unless there was a machine there to 'recieve' the traveler).  The only possible reference point would the present day position of the machine and there is no way to pinpoint where the earth would have T time ago even using relative coordinates.

Also, best execution of movie time travel is 12 Monkeys.

Why not just pick a spot between say the moon and mars? I think about time travel in a way that we will have to already have advanced enough space capabilities that with a moderate AI and proper sensors a space ship would be able to protect itself as a time machine. Although I also think if "we" ever time travel IN REAL LIFE it will be through a wormhole, which would be rather unpredictable. 

Hell a rocket ship, with enough power/fuel would become its own time machine the further it gets from earth and then returning, but that would be going into the distant future not the past. 

After tasting dinosaur and fishing for ocean beasts, I would park in Egypt and go back 100 years at a time just to witness the construction of history.

ProDarwin said:

Knurled. said:

As for your location... similar to circles being easy to define using polar geometry, you just need to define your position from an Earth-based frame of reference.   Simple!

Its easy to say that, but present day time machine doesn't have any reference point for past earth (unless there was a machine there to 'recieve' the traveler).  The only possible reference point would the present day position of the machine and there is no way to pinpoint where the earth would have T time ago even using relative coordinates.

 

Also, best execution of movie time travel is 12 Monkeys.

If "simple" wasn't a clue, it was a joke

If you like time travel movies, and like the idea of screwing up while trying to fix things, one should watch Primer.  I'd like to re watch it again sometime.  It's somewhat of a difficult movie to follow in that, being a low budget movie, it's VERY dialogue driven, but the dialogue tends to be fast paced, full of technobabble, and lacking in direct exposition.  Definitely a movie for pausing and rewiding frequently, which in a way fits the subject matter perfectly.

Anyway, two scientists accidentally discover a way to travel back in time by creating a device where time moves backwards for everything inside it.  It moves at 1:1 speed, though, so to go back a day, you have to be in the device for a day.  You also cannot go back before the device was created, but if you can carry the device inside itself...  well, it gets confusing.

ProDarwin said:

Also, best execution of movie time travel is 12 Monkeys.

The best use of time travel is The Time Machine. Because he goes forwards in time.