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Its a cool story but Non-Physical Displacement is really stupid and I hate when TV Time Travelers roll out that trope. it just doesn't work. The Earth orbits t

Its a cool story but Non-Physical Displacement is really stupid and I hate when TV Time Travelers roll out that trope. it just doesn't work. The Earth orbits the Sun at 30Km/s, and we're just going along for that ride. In 24 hours the Earth moves, 406 Earth diameters though the Solar System. The Sun orbits the Galaxy's core at 220KM/s. Our Galaxy is FLYING towards the future site of the Elliptical Galaxy that will form from the merge of the Andromeda and Milky Way. TL;DR If you move though time, and ended up where you started. You moved though A LOT of space.

metalliqaz 11y ago
I've thought about this same issue a lot, especially while reading Crichton's Timeline. I decided to justify all of it in my head by making an assumption about the fictional time-travel technology. The assumption is that the function of the device is somehow tied to matter, either through the physical manifestation itself or through the distortion that matter has on spacetime. Either way, the mass of the earth would "drag" the path through time with it to about the same location from an earthling's perspective.
krapp 11y ago
You're technically correct (which is the best kind of correct) but a time machine that always sends the heroes hurtling into space is a very difficult thing to write a plot around. When Time Magazine asked Star Trek technical advisor Michael Okuda how the Heisenberg compensator on the transporters worked, he answered "it works very well, thank you." Rarely can a show afford to go much more beyond "it's a box that goes ding when there's stuff" levels of technical acumen before they just waste time with technobabble - especially with time travel which is more often than not about the period setting than anything else. So just assume there's an... Einstein-Rosen framijam (or whatever) tucked away somewhere that just takes care of it and repeat to yourself "it's just a show, I should really just relax."

metalliqaz 11y ago

I've thought about this same issue a lot, especially while reading Crichton's Timeline. I decided to justify all of it in my head by making an assumption about the fictional time-travel technology. The assumption is that the function of the device is somehow tied to matter, either through the physical manifestation itself or through the distortion that matter has on spacetime. Either way, the mass of the earth would "drag" the path through time with it to about the same location from an earthling's perspective.

krapp 11y ago

You're technically correct (which is the best kind of correct) but a time machine that always sends the heroes hurtling into space is a very difficult thing to write a plot around. When Time Magazine asked Star Trek technical advisor Michael Okuda how the Heisenberg compensator on the transporters worked, he answered "it works very well, thank you." Rarely can a show afford to go much more beyond "it's a box that goes ding when there's stuff" levels of technical acumen before they just waste time with technobabble - especially with time travel which is more often than not about the period setting than anything else. So just assume there's an... Einstein-Rosen framijam (or whatever) tucked away somewhere that just takes care of it and repeat to yourself "it's just a show, I should really just relax."