Topic: Time Travel and Meeting Yourself in the Future

[JackFrost]

One of the things I think gets left out most when discussing time travel situations is the fact that the planet itself is moving through space and time - both in its own orbit and on the arm of the milky way which incorporates it.

So any proper time travel coordinates would have to be able to research or predict where the planet had been/would be and move the machine accordingly. Otherwise you travel back 50 years, the planet is probably somewhere else and there you are floating in a vacuum or are being dragged into a black hole or something...

[laama]

Probably less good idea to see what I am in future.

[Methiah]

So any proper time travel coordinates would have to be able to research or predict where the planet had been/would be and move the machine accordingly. Otherwise you travel back 50 years, the planet is probably somewhere else and there you are floating in a vacuum or are being dragged into a black hole or something...

Coordinates relative to what? You are thinking in absolute terms. If a time travel device was ever constructed you would probably only be able to return to the point in time and space that it was initially constructed.

[frankcapri]

...but the machine would be able to travel along any point in the time line.  Why the date of construction limitation?

One of the things I think gets left out most when discussing time travel situations is the fact that the planet itself is moving through space and time - both in its own orbit and on the arm of the milky way which incorporates it.

So any proper time travel coordinates would have to be able to research or predict where the planet had been/would be and move the machine accordingly. Otherwise you travel back 50 years, the planet is probably somewhere else and there you are floating in a vacuum or are being dragged into a black hole or something...

I hadn't really thought of that.  Time travel is complicated 

[Methiah]

Because I'm thinking that the device would have to provide a link itself between "points" in spacetime but there is not an absolute coordinate system or time frame. So it might be limited from wherever and whenever the device has existed to get past that.

[frankcapri]

Ahh.  I get it.  I hadn't thought of that either. 

That would probably be the safest way to avoid Jack's problem, but I want
to imagine that it's possible that the best time machine would also be a spaceship and flying car. 

A vacuum would probably be the best place to show up in any given time period seeing that
it's less likely the machine will appear in the same place as something (or someone) else.

[smokester]

Fictionally speaking, not only can a time travel device pinpoint the exact coordinates to materialise, but it can also check no one is looking when you do.

[Robin-Graves]

One of the things I think gets left out most when discussing time travel situations is the fact that the planet itself is moving through space and time - both in its own orbit and on the arm of the milky way which incorporates it.

So any proper time travel coordinates would have to be able to research or predict where the planet had been/would be and move the machine accordingly. Otherwise you travel back 50 years, the planet is probably somewhere else and there you are floating in a vacuum or are being dragged into a black hole or something...

Thank you Frosty for that logical entry,,
 I myself had though of that, and how the surprised look on te time travelers face would look when h/she finds themselves in the vacuum of space lol.
Its almost the same principle as teleportation. No one has taken the movement of the target object through time and space.

Id like to go back in time and warn myself about some things n my "future",,,See if I cant save myself some grief.

[Skadi]

but I want
to imagine that it's possible that the best time machine would also be a spaceship and flying car. 

you just want a giant cool toy

would it have custom flames detailed on it?

[dweez]

Hellz yeah!

[Skadi]

Hellz yeah!

^ Mine would be a ?57 butter yellow Ford pickup 


The machine from the movie Contact is pretty cool. But, I still think things would get jacked, and be dangerous if we had to rely on machines. We might get to the discovery quicker utilizing them.. But I still think finding a way without using them, would be better.

Movie Gadget Friday: The Machine from Contact



For the last Movie Gadget Friday Josie Fraser checked out the Wall-Screen from Fahrenheit 451, for this week's installment she looks at the Machine from Contact:
Directed by Robert "Forest Gump" Zemeckis, and based on the novel by Carl Sagan, Contact was released in 1997. Jodie Foster plays her usual non-conformist, independent and free-spirited character, this time occupied as a radio astronomer obsessed with finding proof of alien life. With the help of 27 massive radio telescopes in Socorro, New Mexico (the aptly named Very Large Array), she discovers a broadcast from deep space. The seriousness of the film rackets up a notch as we go into Capital Letters.



The Message turns out to be a spec manual for an enormous and expensive Machine. Unfortunately the instructions for the Machines use, it?s purpose, and the consequences of actually using it, are entirely vague outside of the technical detail. Still, the billions needed for the mysterious alien project turn up and a couple of the machines are built. Personally, I have problems just getting to IKEA and back with Storage Solutions that actually fit in the car.



The machine turns out to be an intergalactic transportation device, consisting of three distinctive parts: a central sphere composed of giant whirling metal rings; the actual vehicle, which is a small, single passenger sized pod; and a sky-scraper tall gantry for dropping the pod from a tremendous height through the moving rings.



In the film the rings are whirling for a reason  their acceleration creates a wormhole so that the pod can be dropped through to an otherwise impossibly distant point in space. Although I?m sure Engadget readers can think of plenty of people they?d like to nominate for a free ride whether it actually worked or not.

[Skadi]

^ oh, and.. that machine was distance based, not really time ..but, it's cool anyway

I think my point is it was one of the better tought-out, and cooler examples that I've seen which illustrates a 'jump' in technology. 

[dweez]

Yeah, I loved Contact, even though I think Jodi Foster gets a little bit whiny in it...and Matthew McConnaghy (sp) as the religious element?  Um...<sarcasm>OK</sarcasm>.  It also did have a bit of a "time" element to it as the wormhole...

Spoiler (hover to show)

...not only transported her across galaxies, but her whole trip, to her being several hours, was almost instantaneous to the watching crowds.

[Skadi]

No, your right.. it did have a time element.. But.. it wasn't built specifically to time travel. If we're staying on subject, I'd veered off it to a certain extent... so I was self correcting

LOL @ spoiler. I bet any of us nerdy enough to be posting on this thread, have also seen Contact..but maybe not

..and yeah.. the character dyanamics were a little heavy handed. But, it still had some cool elements to it. The Machine, being one of them.

[dweez]

Hehe, I through the spoiler tags out just to be on the safe side.