The Time Traveler's process by jewelstaitefan

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The Time Traveler's process

POSTED BY: JEWELSTAITEFAN
UPDATED: Monday, October 12, 2009 15:48
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Sunday, August 30, 2009 9:58 PM

I recently saw The Time Traveler's Wife and enjoyed it as long as I ignored the time traveling parts - as I explained to somebody, the time traveling is the setting, not what the film is about, sorta like Titanic was the setting of the story, not the whole story, and somewhat like Somewhere in Time (I think, with Chris Reeves and Jane Alexander).

Then somebody reminded me of the time travel parts, and how it would not be possible in the way portrayed for this film. Because some of the astrodynamics were recently discussed in the Map of the Verse thread, I could point out the basic problems with moving in time with the physical body (conscious and sensory time travel is another matter, and already proven, so won't be discussed here).

The problem is the movement through space and time, and the movement of time is not a function or relationship with gravity.
Consider the Earth rotates once per day, about 24,900 miles per day, or about 3 miles per second. So if you moved one second in time, the Earth would have rotated until the mountain or skyscraper 3 miles away was now encapsulating you - fairly unsurvivable.
Also consider earth obrits the Sun once per year, about 6.28Au per year, or about 18.5 miles per second. So if you were on the leading edge of Earth (at sunrise) when you moved one second in time, you would arrive at a spot in space about 18.5 miles beneath the earth's surface. About 7 minutes would get you about the opposite side of earth, tho. Likewise, if you were on Earth's trailng edge (sunset), you would end up 18 miles above the earth's surface, also unviable without breathing gear, parachute, space suit perhaps.

Does that make sense? Or does anybody disagree?

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Monday, August 31, 2009 1:18 AM

ECGORDON

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity.

It may make sense, but since time travel is purely speculative you can twist the science around any way you like to make it work in a story or movie. I would say the gravitational force of the Earth would keep the traveler near the same point on the planet during travel.

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Monday, August 31, 2009 1:58 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Yup, makes total sense. That's why you have to suspend your disbelief.

I think it was Larry Niven who wrote a great little treatise on this subject some years ago, pointing out lots of this stuff and more. The Earth is rotating, it's moving in its orbit around the sun, which is moving in ITS orbit around the center of the galaxy, which is moving within the greater local cluster, which is moving within the greater universe, etc. All told, we're talking matters of tens of thousands of miles per hour, so when you're time traveling, you need to be exact down to the nanosecond. In other words, it's not just a point in TIME, but also a point in time and SPACE. You need more than an x, y, and z coordinate to mark a place in space, you also need a t coordinate for time, as in, you need to travel to HERE, and you need to be there THEN.

But if I really start thinking about it, I have a problem with ghosts walking through walls yet standing on the ground, too.

Mike

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Monday, August 31, 2009 6:09 AM

BYTEMITE

The leading theory I'm aware of is that they're incorporeal echoes of a person's soul locked in the unending torment of their own death, and that, as an unexisting phastasm and the product of the residue they left in their life on the human superconscious, they are not constrained by physics. Kind of like seeing a waking dream or something.

However, they tend to forget all that, because they don't have brains. Whoops!

My ass is so haunted. Anyway.

This is interesting, and I definitely agree with needing x, y, x and t down to nanoseconds, because say even that you're going to try to travel exactly one orbital period (to the nanosecond) into the future. Aren't there variations in the earth's orbit that could also end up with you being miles off target?

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Monday, August 31, 2009 7:47 AM

KWICKO

Don't get me wrong, Byte - I have no problem with the idea of ghosts or hauntings (I even have the t-shirt: "When I Die, I'm Going to Haunt the Fuck Out of You People."

), just with the way they're commonly portrayed in movies. I've had my own, ermmm... odd experiences with people who are no longer corporeal, so I can't just say it's all bunk and toss it aside.

Mike

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Monday, August 31, 2009 7:58 AM

BYTEMITE

I'm mostly just saying I agree, why walk when you can float?

I can't say I'm really a believer in the paranormal. But no offense to anyone who does. I was just making a ghost joke.

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Monday, August 31, 2009 2:06 PM

TRAVELER

Well look at "Quantum Leap". That certainly put a new twist to time travel. So give the writers of science fiction some license or they will have to spend pages of techno talk that will drag out the story and make it dull.

http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler

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Monday, August 31, 2009 11:49 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Yup, makes total sense. That's why you have to suspend your disbelief.

I think it was Larry Niven who wrote a great little treatise on this subject some years ago, pointing out lots of this stuff and more. The Earth is rotating, it's moving in its orbit around the sun, which is moving in ITS orbit around the center of the galaxy, which is moving within the greater local cluster, which is moving within the greater universe, etc. All told, we're talking matters of tens of thousands of miles per hour, so when you're time traveling, you need to be exact down to the nanosecond. In other words, it's not just a point in TIME, but also a point in time and SPACE. You need more than an x, y, and z coordinate to mark a place in space, you also need a t coordinate for time, as in, you need to travel to HERE, and you need to be there THEN.

But if I really start thinking about it, I have a problem with ghosts walking through walls yet standing on the ground, too.

Mike

I hope I'm not ill, but Kwicko has said what I was going to follow up with, so I effectively agree with him. Don't shoot me.

I have no problem with time travel in space, using wormholes or tears in the space fabric (not using black holes ala Star Trek - an entire planet can be crushed to the size of a pinhead, but whole spaceships pass through unscathed?).

For Earth, at sunrise one is at the same point in space that the opposite side of Earth will be in about 7 minutes, or 4-5 minutes for upper latitudes. So co-existing in the same point but different times could allow or cause the time travel, I can go with that. But in Time Traveler's Wife, it could be controlled by the traveller, and span decades - which also was in Heroes. That I can't account for.

I've tried using the Earths gravitaion to hold the traveler to Earth's surface, but that means the traveler is spinning around all those revolutions during the travel - and according to Einstein, would age that much whether going forward or backward during each travel. I have not been able to accommodate that, either.

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Sunday, October 4, 2009 9:21 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:

But if I really start thinking about it, I have a problem with ghosts walking through walls yet standing on the ground, too.

Mike

I had meant to point out the obvious answer here.
The ghost presents the appearance they wish to present. If they want to present to you, it does them no good to hide in the earth, although they can. They can hover, float, go through walls, floors, earth, whatever. Instead of hovering 1 foot off the floor, or one foot below the floor, they can hover zero inches off the floor when they interact with you.
Get it? or can only conservatives understand logic?

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Tuesday, October 6, 2009 8:00 AM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:

But if I really start thinking about it, I have a problem with ghosts walking through walls yet standing on the ground, too.

Mike

I had meant to point out the obvious answer here.
The ghost presents the appearance they wish to present. If they want to present to you, it does them no good to hide in the earth, although they can. They can hover, float, go through walls, floors, earth, whatever. Instead of hovering 1 foot off the floor, or one foot below the floor, they can hover zero inches off the floor when they interact with you.
Get it? or can only conservatives understand logic?

Heh - maybe someday you'll explain to me all the "logic" to be found in that stupid bible all you conservatives cream all over...

I think my issues with conservatives involve them being resolutely UNABLE to grasp simple logic or mere facts. As Reagan said, "Facts are stupid things." As are conservatives!

Look it up - you'll find that the more educated the voter, the higher their IQ, the more liberal they tend to be.

Mike

The percentage you're paying is too high-priced
While you're living beyond all your means;
And the man in the suit has just bought a new car
From the profit he's made on your dreams

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Tuesday, October 6, 2009 10:40 AM

TWO

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

In 1974, Frank J. Tipler designed (but did not build) a time machine. Tipler's PhD dissertation in physics, "Causality Violation in General Relativity," was about that machine. You can read more at

http://books.google.de/books?id=39KQY1FnSfkC&q=Frank+Tipler+#v=snippet
&q=Frank%20Tipler%201974&f=false

The book that explores the confused notions about time traveling in Science Fiction is "Time machines: time travel in physics, metaphysics, and science fiction, Second Edition" by Paul J. Nahin. I learned two things: Time travel is possible. Time travel is impossible the way it is done on TV, movies, novels, and short stories. Oh, I forgot a third thing -- nobody has seen a wormhole so that might be problem if your time traveling depends on wormholes in spacetime.

If you build Tipler's time machine, you don't have to worry about the nonexistence of wormholes or materializing inside a mountain in your H.G.Wells time machine because you have much bigger problems. You'll need to find a star that no one is using. Then you'll need to build a star ship to travel there. Then you need to squeeze the star into a cylinder. Then rotate that cylinder to half the speed of light. Are you seeing the difficulties here? This Tipler time machine ain't H.G. Wells' Time Machine built in the garden shed. The good part is that Tipler's machine would work, unless Einstein completely screwed-up general relativity theory and how likely is that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipler_cylinder
http://www.geocities.com/theophysics/tipler-rotating-cylinders.pdf

A big quote from Tipler's paper because it reads so very cool if you are unafraid of the Greek alphabet:
"In 1936 van Stockum solved the Einstein equations Gμν = -8πTμν for the gravitational field of a rapidly rotating infinite cylinder. It is shown that such a field violates causality, in the sense that it allows a closed timelike line to connect any two events in spacetime. This suggests that a finite rotating cylinder would also act as a time machine.

Since the work of Hawking and Penrose, it has become accepted that classical general relativity predicts some sort of pathological behavior. However, the exact nature of the pathology is under intense debate at present, primarily because solutions to the field equations can be found which exhibit virtually any type of bizarre behavior. It is thus of utmost importance to know what types of pathologies might be expected to occur in actual physical situations. One of these pathologies is causality violation, and in this paper I shall argue that if we make the assumptions concerning the behavior of matter and manifold usual in general relativity, then it should be possible in principle to set up an experiment in which this particular pathology could be observed....

…In short, general relativity suggests that if we construct a sufficiently large rotating cylinder, we create a time machine."

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is at
www.fileden.com/files/2008/8/13/2048723/Serenity-190pages.pdf

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Tuesday, October 6, 2009 9:46 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:

Look it up - you'll find that the more educated the voter, the higher their IQ, the more liberal they tend to be.

The higher the IQ, the greater their ability to look up the facts and determine that your claim is patently false. Those kwickofacts are for irrational liberal consumption only.

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Wednesday, October 7, 2009 4:19 AM

TWO

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

The traveling in The Time Traveler's Wife is pure magic. It is silly to scientifically explain what happens in that movie or in a Harry Potter movie. When numbers and logic get mentioned, I know we're not talking magic anymore. And it isn't physics, either. We're talking pure nonsense, all dressed up in let's pretend reasoning. Apologies for the snooty tone -- I'm arrogant. It is the anonymity of the Internet that made me this way.

Changing subjects, I am assuming that KWICKO and JEWELSTAITEFAN are both inside the USA. If that is the case, the two are arguing about agnosticism versus fundamentalism. It is all in their gut feelings, not in their brains. Both pretend to be rational

--
"Advanced capitalism is inherently agnostic. It looks particularly flaccid when its paucity of belief runs up against an excess of the stuff -- not only abroad, but domestically too, in the form of various homegrown fundamentalisms. Modern market societies tend to be secular, relativist, pragmatic, and materialistic, qualities that undermine the metaphysical values on which political authority in part depends. And yet capitalism cannot easily dispense with those metaphysical values, even though it has difficulty taking them seriously. (As President Dwight Eisenhower once announced, channeling Groucho Marx, “Our government makes no sense unless it is founded on a deeply felt religious belief -- and I don’t care what it is.”) Religious faith in this view is both vital and vacuous. God is ritually invoked on American political platforms, but it would not do to raise him in a committee meeting of the World Bank. In the United States, ideologues of the religious Right, aware of the market’s tendency to oust metaphysics, sought to put those values back in place. Thus does postmodern relativism breed a redneck fundamentalism; those who believe very little rub shoulders with those ready to believe almost anything." There is more at http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=2488

One more paragraph that describes what living within the Alliance would be like. Remember Book's dying words, telling Mal to believe in something, doesn't matter what? "In the face of the social devastation wreaked by economic liberalism, some besieged groups can feel secure only by clinging to an exclusivist identity or unbending doctrine. And in fact, advanced capitalism has little alternative to offer them. The kind of automated, built-in consent it seeks from its citizens does not depend all that much on what they believe. As long as they get out of bed, roll into work, consume, pay their taxes, and refrain from beating up police officers, what goes on in their heads and hearts is mostly secondary. Advanced capitalism is not the kind of regime that exacts much spiritual commitment from its subjects. Indeed, zeal is more to be feared than encouraged. That is an advantage in “normal” times, since demanding too much belief from men and women can easily backfire. But it is much less a benefit in times of political tumult."

If KWICKO and JEWELSTAITEFAN are NOT inside the USA, I have no idea what they are feuding about. They will have to let us know where they live. All I can tell for sure is that they both have opinions and nothing else in their member profiles: "No items were posted by this user." "No Information available On Subject." "No blog entries available." It is No, No, and more No for them.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/showprofile.asp?un=jewelstaitefan
http://www.fireflyfans.net/showprofile.asp?un=Kwicko

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is at
www.fileden.com/files/2008/8/13/2048723/Serenity-190pages.pdf

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Wednesday, October 7, 2009 8:02 AM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:

Look it up - you'll find that the more educated the voter, the higher their IQ, the more liberal they tend to be.

The higher the IQ, the greater their ability to look up the facts and determine that your claim is patently false.

Is that a RapFact™?

I guess I'll never have to worry about you looking up any of your so-called "facts" then, eh? I don't think you've got the IQ for it.

Tell me - those states where there's an active push to do away with science in science classes and replace it with "intelligent design" - are those states typically "red" or "blue" states?

Now, if you'd like to continue this discussion, maybe we should take it to RWED, where it belongs.

Mike

The percentage you're paying is too high-priced
While you're living beyond all your means;
And the man in the suit has just bought a new car
From the profit he's made on your dreams

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Sunday, October 11, 2009 10:56 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Quote:
Originally posted by two:
The traveling in The Time Traveler's Wife is pure magic.

If KWICKO and JEWELSTAITEFAN are NOT inside the USA, I have no idea what they are feuding about. They will have to let us know where they live. All I can tell for sure is that they both have opinions and nothing else in their member profiles: "No items were posted by this user." "No Information available On Subject." "No blog entries available." It is No, No, and more No for them.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/showprofile.asp?un=jewelstaitefan
http://www.fireflyfans.net/showprofile.asp?un=Kwicko

I've never been sure which planet kwicko has been on.

If you are frem's sockpuppet, I live wherever Asarian, or AuRaptor, or Kirkules, or Hero live, or somebody else.
For the rest of you living in the real world, I live in WI and work in MI, which are both in the USA.

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Monday, October 12, 2009 3:48 PM

REGINAROADIE

Yeah, that sounds about right. I figured the power of a star would be needed more than plutonium or a bolt of lightning or Mr. Fusion (although the notion that we can use cold fusion to not only solve the energy crisis but also to get rid of waste always fascinated me) to create enough power to rip a hole through the space-time continuum.

But in the case of THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE, they play pretty fast and loose with the rules of time travel, even though it's been established that said rules are purely speculative. When in the opening minutes you have the adult version of Henry comforting his child version seconds after discovering his abilities and seeing his mother die in a horrible car accident, you know that this film hasn't seen all the famous time travel movies that we base our rules of time travel on. So arguing the scientific inaccuracies of the movie is an experiment in futility. Besides, at least with magic or something non-scientific you don't run the risk of getting your science wrong, which is something that's constantly changing. Quantum physicists have a new theory that says that the act of time traveling causes an alternate reality to come into existence. Thus while you could travel into the past, you could never get back to your own time because of said act. Kurtzman and Orci based the new STAR TREK film on that theory.

As for the film itself, I had a bit of an obsession with the film when it came out. And I liked that the film was equal parts SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE as it was SOMEWHERE IN TIME. That it dealt with the reality of what living your life bouncing around in time would be like. And I loved the various paradoxes throughout the film. How Henry was able to tell his Mom about Clare on the subway while she thought he was just some stranger. How the first kiss Clare had with him was the result of a future fight between the two of them and he did it to fulfill his own selfish need. And then how after his vasectomy, she cheats on and gets knocked up by a younger version of him. It's those kind of moments that I really latched onto. Those were the same moments that made TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES worth watching. Plus, Ron Livingston is in the movie as well. And he's one of those actors that no matter what he's in he's always one of the best parts.

Also, not only was it Eric Bana's second time travel film of the summer, but also Stephen Tobolowsky's third chrono-impaired love story (one of which was GROUNDHOG DAY).

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