• stebo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    46 minutes ago

    Position isn’t absolute so if this happens this means you knowingly made the time machine memorize position relative to the sun rather than the earth.

  • OddButNotReally@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    I remember reading about this concept as a kid in a short story Neal Shusterman wrote called Same Time, Next Year. Blew my mind

  • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    If space is always expanding, I’d really like to know if a time traveler would experience issues existing in a universe where the space between atoms is different from the one they left.

    • HurlingDurling@lemm.ee
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      4 hours ago

      I was under the impression that gravity was a constant force keeping the atoms closer together

      • stebo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        33 minutes ago

        More importantly it’s the electromagnetic force that keeps atoms together. Gravity only keeps planets and stars together and also solar systems and galaxies, but in ordinary objects it’s totally negligible.

      • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        Space itself is constantly expanding. Theories of the Big Rip predict the space between atomic particles could become vast enough to rip them apart.

        • abraker95@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          The big rip concept comes into play when the expansion rate starts to become faster than the forces holding molecules and atoms together. As far as current cosmic expansion goes, it only applies to space between galaxies. The current expansion rate is so weak it’s not enough to overcome forces that hold galaxies together.

  • nucleative@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    I know we’re in a meme community but this did get me thinking… Not only is the Earth spinning but it’s also in an orbit around the Sun which is also orbiting around the center of the Milky Way which is moving through space relative to other galaxies and so on.

    Do we have enough information to calculate a position in space in the future for Earth without a fixed reference other than current point?

    • mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      59 minutes ago

      That’s what einstein said. There is no fixed reference frame, but only relative ones. Every “inertial”(meaning, motion without any external force) frame of reference is equally valid as any other inertial frame movibg with respect to it.

      But for sure we can tell earth’s orbit is not inertial since circular motion occur, which is due to enternal force of gravity.

    • ssnoer@feddit.dk
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      1 hour ago

      There is not central point in the universe, and no way to calculate a position. Everything is relatove

    • comrade19@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      I don’t think we have a relative fixed point to go off unless you choose the centre of the big bang. It’s all relative to other things around us which are also moving lol

    • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
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      6 hours ago

      This is why Doctor Who has a time and space machine. Also because the BBC didn’t have the effects budget to show him flying around.

      • JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        We also get a few glances of the coordinate system that the time machines use in doctor who. It appears to have enough digits for a date/time as well as an X/Y/Z grid coordinate.

    • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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      18 minutes ago

      Magic exists in that universe though and they’re using some of the most powerful objects in the universe. So like if it’s granting a wish, you just wish that everyone comes back to earth or whatever. It’s not even really a suspension of disbelief. It feels more silly to think that genius scientists using wish granting artifacts wouldn’t remember to account for the movement of the earth through space.

  • Malle_Yeno@pawb.social
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    8 hours ago

    It should be illegal to remind people (me, particularly) about Steins;Gate while they’re at work

    I can’t be fucking crying on the clock, dawg

  • BlueFootedPetey@sh.itjust.works
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    8 hours ago

    Oooohh. Thanks for the tip, just added that into my time travelling port o pottie’s destination algorithms. Gotta respect the earth be moving and shit.

    • TheFogan@programming.dev
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      12 hours ago

      It’s possible to assume that the professor did the math.

      But yeah any time machine would also basically have to have space travel built in to compensate.

      They knew that when they wrote Dr Who (IE the time travel machine is called a TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space).

    • potoo22@programming.dev
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      11 hours ago

      There’s a ton of issues with time travel. That could be one, but most fictional time-travel devices can be said to accommodate for the difference in distance. It would just be boring to explain on-screen.

    • faintwhenfree@lemmus.org
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      12 hours ago

      That’s why doctor who works, its very clear about the fact that TARDIS travels in spacetime, it can do only time, only space or both space and time and they can get away with time traveling and still staying on earth

    • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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      12 hours ago

      It could be explained as a time and space machine but just saying time machine is easier.

      That’s how ive always thought of these things in my head.

  • Jimius@lemmy.ml
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    9 hours ago

    Also, the earth will never be in the same place twice. So it’s not even like you can only jump increments of a solar year.

    • lucullus@discuss.tchncs.de
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      8 hours ago

      And its not like there even is a same place. Position is relative, but to what in this case? Doesn’t even make sense

        • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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          6 minutes ago

          Imagine the universe as the surface of a balloon. The Big Bang Theory stipulates that at one point, the balloon was extremely small, like a single point. But now that the balloon is bigger, you can’t find a particular spot on the balloon where that point was, because everywhere was that point. No matter where you are in the universe, if you turned back time and shrunk the balloon back down, you would be at the point of the Big Bang. Nowhere is closer or farther away from it.

  • callouscomic@lemm.ee
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    9 hours ago

    Also ghosts likely wouldn’t be affected by a gravitational pull, so the concept doesn’t make sense and there’d just be a trail of ghosts in space.

    • Codeviper828@lemmus.org
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      9 hours ago

      At least in Doctor Who, the T.A.R.D.I.S. can’t teleport through space as well as through time, solving that problem. But most time machines don’t