this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
758 points (98.6% liked)

Memes

48482 readers
2678 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
(page 2) 44 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] WeirdAlex03@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 day ago

Should have watched Tom Scott

[–] danekrae@lemmy.world 37 points 1 day ago (6 children)

This blew my mind. All those movies!

So, Back to the Future's a bunch of bullshit?!

[–] TheFogan@programming.dev 41 points 1 day ago (3 children)

It's possible to assume that the professor did the math.

But yeah any time machine would also basically have to have space travel built in to compensate.

They knew that when they wrote Dr Who (IE the time travel machine is called a TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space).

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] potoo22@programming.dev 17 points 1 day ago

There's a ton of issues with time travel. That could be one, but most fictional time-travel devices can be said to accommodate for the difference in distance. It would just be boring to explain on-screen.

[–] Carvex@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago

floating astronaut with pistol always has been

[–] faintwhenfree@lemmus.org 7 points 1 day ago

That's why doctor who works, its very clear about the fact that TARDIS travels in spacetime, it can do only time, only space or both space and time and they can get away with time traveling and still staying on earth

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It could be explained as a time and space machine but just saying time machine is easier.

That's how ive always thought of these things in my head.

[–] fushuan@lemm.ee 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

but imagine if you could set it to the same time but different distance, it would allow you to teleport, that might be too strong.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Sounds like a good tech concept for a story

[–] malle_yeno@pawb.social 9 points 1 day ago

It should be illegal to remind people (me, particularly) about Steins;Gate while they're at work

I can't be fucking crying on the clock, dawg

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Wow, I never thought about that.

[–] ksigley@lemm.ee 7 points 1 day ago

Math is hard.

It's even cooler if you remember we send something to the moon even with all this variables and no calculators humans were able to know where the moon would be

Of course the moon is relatively close but still

[–] RabbitBBQ@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's just another problem with the mechanics of the snap at the end of Avengers: Endgame

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 4 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Magic exists in that universe though and they're using some of the most powerful objects in the universe. So like if it's granting a wish, you just wish that everyone comes back to earth or whatever. It's not even really a suspension of disbelief. It feels more silly to think that genius scientists using wish granting artifacts wouldn't remember to account for the movement of the earth through space.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] peteypete420@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 day ago

Oooohh. Thanks for the tip, just added that into my time travelling port o pottie's destination algorithms. Gotta respect the earth be moving and shit.

[–] Jimius@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Also, the earth will never be in the same place twice. So it's not even like you can only jump increments of a solar year.

[–] lucullus@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And its not like there even is a same place. Position is relative, but to what in this case? Doesn't even make sense

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (3 children)

well it's likely the big bang has a central point, no?

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

Imagine the universe as the surface of a balloon. The Big Bang Theory stipulates that at one point, the balloon was extremely small, like a single point. But now that the balloon is bigger, you can't find a particular spot on the balloon where that point was, because everywhere was that point. No matter where you are in the universe, if you turned back time and shrunk the balloon back down, you would be at the point of the Big Bang. Nowhere is closer or farther away from it.

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 1 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

would not the fact that blue shifted galaxies being rare, mean that in general all galaxies are red shifted from the perspective of all galaxies, thus they are expanding away from a point on a similar vector, and thus have a central point?

And a balloon does have a vector of direction: the mouth piece

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] limer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago

No central point there

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Faydaikin@beehaw.org 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

See, that's a problem they always skip in time-travel movies.

[–] Codeviper828@lemmus.org 4 points 1 day ago

At least in Doctor Who, the T.A.R.D.I.S. can't teleport through space as well as through time, solving that problem. But most time machines don't

[–] witty_username@feddit.nl 7 points 1 day ago

Heyy this property features in the accidental time machine by Joe Haldeman

[–] callouscomic@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Also ghosts likely wouldn't be affected by a gravitational pull, so the concept doesn't make sense and there'd just be a trail of ghosts in space.

[–] four@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 day ago

Can't they just float and follow the Earth? Or would it be too fast? What's the terminal velocity of a ghost?

[–] peteypete420@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What is this comment in response to?

[–] Contemporarium@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago

Glad I’m not the only one confused. Who’s talmbout ghosts

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 1 points 1 day ago

I also think about this a lot.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

I always wondered about this

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›