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You are missing the point. Once you are free of space time there is no gravity holding you to the surface of the planet, therefore staying on the surface of the
by lkrubner 8y ago
You are missing the point. Once you are free of space time there is no gravity holding you to the surface of the planet, therefore staying on the surface of the planet requires a propulsion system and tremendous navigational skills. “Stay where you are” is only easy when you have the help of gravity, and it’s alwsys an illusion. At no point do you ever stay where you are.
- perilunar 8y agoNo I’m not. Wells’ time machine is never “free of time and space”. It was built and then remains in place (more or less) for hundreds of millenia. In the book the traveller describes watching the world around him change rapidly as the machine accelerates through time. It doesn’t disappear and reappear like the TARDIS.
- lkrubner 8y agoDo you seriously not realize that the planet is moving? Do you honestly not get that?
- perilunar 8y agoOf course I realise the planet is moving. The Time Machine is also moving, and in such a way that it retains its exact relative position to the planet. Amazingly it does this without any means of propulsion, relying instead on contact forces (weight, friction) generated by the gravitational attraction between the Machine and the planet. Seriously, the point is that the Time Machine does not leave our space-time and appear in another. It simply exists through time, like a building or a rock or a pyramid. It is a four dimensional object where the Traveller can move along one of its dimensions. Anyway, enough arguing about a fictional (and probably impossible) machine. Read the introduction to The Time Machine if you are interested in how H. G. Wells explained it: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35