Time Travel Questions.

From: Tesla Coil <tescoil@irtc.net>
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Date: Tue, Nov 13, 2001 9:57 PM
Message-ID: <3BF1DCCA.48A8DF95@irtc.net>

A scientist constructs a prototype time machine only
large enough to transport an small object. At 12:00,
the object is successfully sent fifteen minutes into
the future. Does it disappear? If so, at 12:15, does
the object reappear to the view of the scientist, or
advance in realtime to the unforeseeable 12:30?
---
A rocket is launched that wouldn't ordinarily reach
its destination for several years, but the craft is
equipped with rudimentary time travel capabilities,
and these are deployed to jump to the scheduled time
of arrival. Unbeknownst to the crew, the rocket's
trajectory would encounter a meteor storm that would
destroy the craft. Do they die, having accelerated
through events, or do they arrive safely, having
bypassed events?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: iDRMRSR <alex.i.thymia@depression.org>
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Date: Tue, Nov 13, 2001 10:10 PM

>>A scientist constructs a prototype time machine only
large enough to transport an small object. At 12:00,
the object is successfully sent fifteen minutes into
the future. Does it disappear? If so, at 12:15, does
the object reappear to the view of the scientist, or
advance in realtime to the unforeseeable 12:30?<<

This is where I must agree with Einstein. There can be no such thing as
time travel. In your example, you know bobdamn well no SubG would get
up before 12:00 just to run some silly fucking experiment.
---
>>A rocket is launched that wouldn't ordinarily reach
its destination for several years, but the craft is
equipped with rudimentary time travel capabilities,
and these are deployed to jump to the scheduled time
of arrival. Unbeknownst to the crew, the rocket's
trajectory would encounter a meteor storm that would
destroy the craft. Do they die, having accelerated
through events, or do they arrive safely, having
bypassed events?<<

Admit it, Tesla Coil, you have a LIFE don't you? And for that reason,
don't watch enough TV to actually GET all the answers to these
questions.

[*]
-----
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Time Travel Questions.
From: inigo@montoya.net (D. P. Roberts)

Seems to me that if time travel were possible, it would have already
happened from the future. Since it (apparently) hasn't, it won't.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Time Travel Questions.
From: nu-monet <nothing@succeeds.com>

First of all, you didn't specify a time/space machine,
so you need to figure the vector of the following
directions (to figure out where your small object is
going to be in fifteen minutes):

1) Earth's rotation.
2) Earth's orbit.
3) Solar system's orbit through Milky Way Galaxy.
4) Milky Way's movement in universe.

You will soon find out that 15 minutes in the future is
one hell of a long distance from where you are now, and
that object, unless it is *very* small, is going to, by
dint of its inertia, collide with your time machine at
a *very* high rate of speed. (It will be standing still,
your time machine is what will move into *it*.)

> ---
> A rocket is launched that wouldn't ordinarily reach
> its destination for several years, but the craft is
> equipped with rudimentary time travel capabilities,
> and these are deployed to jump to the scheduled time
> of arrival. Unbeknownst to the crew, the rocket's
> trajectory would encounter a meteor storm that would
> destroy the craft. Do they die, having accelerated
> through events, or do they arrive safely, having
> bypassed events?

Again, space is the factor. Since time and space are
two facets of the same thing (time/space), if you modify
time, you also modify space. Practically speaking, your
time machine is like saying you reduce one of the three
dimensions (l x w x h) of the distance you are travelling.

In a manner of speaking, you are thus travelling a shorter
distance. Now, this may or may not affect the other two
dimensions of the meteor storm, or for that matter, any
particulate matter between you and your destination,
ordinary space dust being just as destructive as a meteor.

So, for heaven's sake, be sure your deflectors are working,
along with your projected route sensors, AND TAKE THAT
GUM OUT OF YOUR MOUTH THIS INSTANT! Makes you look like
a cow! Geez, now where was I?

--
*
"No one is safe." -- nu-monet
*
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Time Travel Questions.
From: nu-monet <nothing@succeeds.com>

>
> Seems to me that if time travel were possible, it would
> have already happened from the future. Since it
> (apparently) hasn't, it won't.

Maybe they know better.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Dreamer <dreamer@dreamstrike.com>

In article <3BF1DCCA.48A8DF95@irtc.net>, Tesla Coil <tescoil@irtc.net>
wrote:

> A scientist constructs a prototype time machine only
> large enough to transport an small object. At 12:00,
> the object is successfully sent fifteen minutes into
> the future. Does it disappear? If so, at 12:15, does
> the object reappear to the view of the scientist, or
> advance in realtime to the unforeseeable 12:30?

It does neither. It appears many, many thousands of miles away fifteen
minutes later.

(People who write time travel stories always forget about the fact that
any given point on the surface of the earth is moving relative to
galactic rest at about half the speed of light.)

They live. Time travel in the sequence most probably intended by the
above description would delay the crew's arrival by the estimated
duration of the flight. Assuming a limited duration, small relative to
the duration of the voyage, of danger of intersection, they would not
encounter the meteors. (Assuming their destination was an object, as
opposed to a fixed point in space,they would also not reach their
destination: it would no longer be there, but somewhere else.)

St. Marc

--
Dreamer
Dreamstrike

http://www.dreamstrike.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Tesla Coil <tescoil@irtc.net>

On 13 Nov 2001, iDRMRSR wrote:
> In your example, you know bobdamn well no SubG would get
> up before 12:00 just to run some silly fucking experiment.

I'm not talking SubG's. I'm talking scientists who
can only do elementary time travel stuff.

> Admit it, Tesla Coil, you have a LIFE don't you? And
> for that reason, don't watch enough TV to actually GET
> all the answers to these questions.

Asmatterfact, BOTH of these questions RESULTED of pulp
magazine and badfilm sci-fi stories.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: nu-monet <nothing@succeeds.com>

Okay, let me throw some SF time/space whoppers at you:

1) Okay, we are in a time/spaceship. We test the engines
for a fraction of a second, just to see what happens. When
we look out the window--no stars--only a little white dot
that is the ENTIRE HONKING UNIVERSE *WAY* BACK THERE. Are
we boned or what? Have we at least disproved that the
universe curves back in on itself? What's for lunch?

2) Back where we were, having hit the "reset" button,
we try it again. Unfortunately we land IN BETWEEN SECONDS
WHERE THERE IS NO SPACE. Turns out that seconds are very
small, and the interval between them is very large. What's
for lunch?

3) Hit the "reset" button again. Turns out that time/space
is actually time/space/dimension/quantum signature. So here
we are in another universe, where ordinary rules of time and
space are relative only to itself. Our new universe may be
tiny, but we would be proportional in every way to it, so we
don't know. Or it might take 10,000 years in our old universe
for a single second to pass in our new one. Or it might be
an exact parallel to our old universe, but we have no way of
perceiving its reality at all, it is a blank, our minds can't
deal with it. We go hopelessly insane. What's for lunch?

--
*
"No one is safe." -- nu-monet
*
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: sockfumes@freeGrunt.com (meat balloon)

they should have used the time hose, then they wouldn't have to worry
about the theoretical outcomes of employing impossible to realize
technologies, because everybody knows if you don't worry about how
things turn out, then you don't HAVE to worry about how things turn
out. And they serve cookies and show Terry Thomas movies on board.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "duke0uke" <osama@bin.laden.org>

Tesla Coil wrote in message <3BF1DCCA.48A8DF95@irtc.net>...
>A scientist constructs a prototype time machine only
>large enough to transport an small object. At 12:00,
>the object is successfully sent fifteen minutes into
>the future. Does it disappear? If so, at 12:15, does
>the object reappear to the view of the scientist, or
>advance in realtime to the unforeseeable 12:30?

The object becomes famous between 12:00 and 12:15,
then disappears.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: bobdiddley@aol.com (Bobdiddley)

>Seems to me that if time travel were possible, it would have already
>happened from the future. Since it (apparently) hasn't, it won't.
>

This is ignoring the obvious fact that most common UFO's and Sasquatches are
actually time travellers, which is why 'scientists' have never located Sask
remains.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: mshotz@aol.comnospam (James T. Rex King of the Monsters)

The first time ttravellers from the future came here last year. After reading
the posts on this News Group, and hearing William Shanter sing on the Priceline
commmercials, they quickly returned to their own time, distroyed their time
machine and banned time travel for all future generations
MSHOTZ: The Post Post Modern Man

"God made man, but a monkey supplied the glue!"

"Jocko-Homo" DEVO
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: inigo@montoya.net (D. P. Roberts)
Newsgroups: alt.slack

>they should have used the time hose, then they wouldn't have to worry

Well dammit, we have enough to worry about without our scientists
playing with hose. It's why they're scientists, for Pete's sake.
They didn't get enough affection when they were kids and had to play
with their mom's hose and panties and such. Why do you think they
wear those long white lab coats?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Paul E. Jamison" <pauljmsn@infi.net>

>
> (People who write time travel stories always forget about the fact that
> any given point on the surface of the earth is moving relative to
> galactic rest at about half the speed of light.)
>

Use to be that a Yankee comic book publisher would reprint "2000-AD"-ish
Brit comics. Not just Judge Dwedd, but lotsa stuff.

Anyway, the particular comic I'm thinking of was "Strontium Dogs" about
a Mutant bounty hunter. One of the neat-o weapons he had to take care of
baddies was a time-displacement thingy that would project the victim about
fifteen minutes or so into the future. The kicker was that it didn't move
the
perps in space. So, since the Earth had moved in the time period involved,

the perps ended up reappearing where the Earth had been fifteen minutes
earlier; in other words, they ended up floating in space.

But you're right, skiffy writers in general forget the movement of the
Earth.

Paul E. Jamison

"There's more pressure on a vet to get it right.
People say 'It was God's will' when Granny dies,
but they get *angry* when they lose a cow."
- Terry Pratchett

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Original file name: Time Travel Questions. - converted on Thursday, 20 December 2001, 03:30