Time travel and Earth's movement around the sun..

Something that's been puzzling me for some time about supposed Time travel is if you created a portable time machine, and say travelled 20 years into the future... When you arrived at the time point would you end up in space? Would the Earth not be in the same position as when you started?

Surely you would have to pinpoint the exact time when the Earth's orbit matches the same point if you know what I mean?

reply to post by MrKipling


I would assume you would still arrive back on earth in 20 years since you're leaving inside our atmosphere. Of course I'm no scientist, but that is a good question.

reply to post by MrKipling


Hashtronaut, love it =)

But yeah what you say is totally correct, if you wanted to make a really good time machine, it would also have to be a able to travel through space as well.

reply to post by MrKipling


I guess it depends on the type of time machine. For instance if your time machine uses speed as a method of time travel then yeah you'd probably need some sort spacial positioning system. If the time machine used some sort of future-past tethering system like the ring in stargate then you wouldn't. Then there are time machines that don't travel through time with you but open a rift that allow you acces your interdimesional time line for the purpose of allowing you consciousness to travel back to your younger body.

You would need to find some way to anchor yourself to the planets gravity well. If you could manage that you could travel to any temporal point regardless of the planets orbital location.

Time traveling is like asking if -4 can become +4

without first passing through -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3

It cant be done because -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3 dont exist.

In other words. Space and time "between" present time and future time don't exist.

Just ask a timelord i'm sure they'll know.

I've also considered the spacial ramifications of time travel. Using the physical time machine concept I never could figure out how an object could transverse time and stay in the same location since not just the Earth moves but the entire solar system so you would arrive at your temporal destination but you'd be drifting in space. Though I did consider something that may correct a time travelers spacial position: Gravity. Gravity is theorized to affect time itself so gravity could keep a time travelers spacial location fixed. Just a theory

Trying to "pop" out of existence and reappear years farther down the road, would have horrifying implications. For example, every 24 hours the Earth marks one full spin on the Earth's Axis. Every year Marks a full revolution around the sun. As if this wasn't enough hassle trying to plot a physical position to return to, our solar system is hurtling through space at 483,000 mi/hr (792,000 km/hr). At those speeds it would take 18 seconds to travel the entire span of the united states. If that doesn't cut it for making a insanely precise calculation, our Galaxy flies through the universe at a whopping 1.3 million mi/hr (2.1 million km/hr)! This means simply that an hour from the time you read this you will be millions of miles away from where you are in space right now. So back to time travel. Unless the device you invented had the capability of anchoring itself to Earth as it went backwards or forwards through time, you would find yourself billions and billions of miles from Earth just by skipping ahead one year. You would need to know the EXACT location that you would be manifesting to, the time(date and time), the spacial coordinates. Otherwise you would be manifesting into either open space, or stuck into solid matter. Really the only logical explanation of any time traveling device would be that it is attached to the Earth and puts the person into that machine at another time, rather than having to pick a safe physical coordinate of space to occupy when you got to your destination.

a reply to: MrKipling

T.A.R.D.I.S = Time and Relative dimension in space.

There are way too many factors to take into account;
Earth rotates on it's axis.
Earth rotates around the sun.
Sun moves in our spiral galaxy.
Galaxy is a part of a supercluster.
Universe is expanding.
TIME IS RELATIVE.


I had an idea about a science fiction story years ago where the pyramids etc were somehow like beacons that attracted time machines as the earth moved through the universe. Can't remember the details but yeah.