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It would be nice if photons from the past could be captured to take pictures of millennia ago.
by TaurenHunter 2y ago
It would be nice if photons from the past could be captured to take pictures of millennia ago.
- empath75 2y agoAll photons you see are "from the past". Photons moving backwards in time would let you see _the future_.
- short_sells_poo 2y agoI hope this is a sarcastic post about telescopes :)
- sunrunner 2y agoI'd personally appreciate it very much if photons from the future could be captured to take pictures from week and years ahead. Could be used to help with those awkward tasks like choosing the correct lottery numbers, choosing the correct stocks, choosing the horse that's definitely going to win, etc.
- MassPikeMike 2y agoIf you can't get photons from the future, just get a hold of some thiotimoline, a compound invented by SF master Isaac Asimov that dissolves slightly before it is added to water. After first describing it in a spoof chemistry paper, he returned to it several times, exploring its different applications and the new scientific field it created, "chronochemistry". The best IMHO is "Thiotimoline and the Space Age" from 1960. You can read it on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/MerrilEdTheYearsBestSF05/Merril_ed%20-%20The%20Year%27s%20Best%20SF%2006/page/n175/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/MerrilEdTheYearsBestSF05/Merril_...
- user3939382 2y agoIf you could use a wormhole to travel 50 million light years away from earth instantly, then look back at earth with a sufficiently powerful microscope, I believe you could observe the dinosaurs.
- some_furry 2y ago50 million light years would not get you light from 65+ million years ago.
- elliotec 2y agoImagine seeing the exact point in time the asteroid hit!
- rapnie 2y agoThere is this sci-fi book about this, but I forgot name/author. In the book a wormhole end can be positioned anywhere in space and time history. The tech starts as an ITER-like project and then becomes available in mainstream products, and all the dirty secrets of mankind come to light.
- bsenftner 2y agoThat is Arthur C Clark's last novel "The Light of Other Days", and it even has an Elon Musk like no ethics billionaire as one of the plot driving main characters.
- gpderetta 2y agoAsimov has written a somewhat similar novel called "The Dead Past". In fact from the description I thought parent was referring to this story.
- rapnie 2y agoThank you! Yes, that is the one. I actually found it on my bookshelf just now, but in searching for "that book with the wormholes" several times before I never thought to check this one. Great sci-fi story.
- NikkiA 2y agoThe photons would be so spread out that you'd need a telescope with a primary optic bigger than anything else in the universe. And even then, you'd struggle to capture enough to have any meaningful information.
- furstenheim 2y agoIt "can" be done. Some photons leaving the earth a thousand years ago. Bouncing off a mirror in some distant planet and allowing us to see two thousand years into the past
- slicktux 2y agoJust imagine of all the plants that have absorbed photons…the memories would be corrupted…though photons do dispersed isotropically…