The biggest problem with time travel

[Cavaliere (moderator emeritus)]

"Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'."

 

Those Monty Python lyrics point out the biggest problem with time travel. Whether you're going forward or backward in time, the floor you were standing on won't be there when you re-appear. If I did the math right, in one second's time the Earth has rotated a quarter mile, Earth as a whole is nineteen miles further around the sun, 11.1 miles around galactic center, and over 11.5 miles from the center of the universe. That's how messed up you would be after just one second of time travel. Travel any significant amount of time and you're going to find yourself floating in outer space.

 

There's probably time travel stories already written that address this but I've never read one. Even Doctor Who, in which this is presumably automatically handled by the TARDIS, hasn't specifically mentioned it. Most stories, be it Back to the Future or Astro City, just presume that you'll appear in the same spot on Earth that you left but in a different time.

[doc photo]

Interesting info, Cav. Makes me think of the movie adaption of The Time Machine where the time traveler observes all the changes around the area where he is sitting while he remains immobile on the machine.  For the most part I dislike time travel stories because the writers usually ignore all the potential problems and dangers involved. An exception would be Ray Bradbury's terrific short story "A Sound of Thunder" - one minor misstep and everything in the future changed.

[ClarkKent_DC]

I always assumed that the mechanics that make time travel happen account for that problem, and that there's no specific need to bring it up, any more than, say, Back to the Future needed to explain how John DeLorean left General Motors to strike out on his own and create the car.

[Luke Blanchard]

In a Superman story published in the 80s Superman got rid of a destructive force by taking it through time without making the adjustments he usually makes to allow for Earth's movement through space.

[Cavaliere (moderator emeritus)]

Cool, Luke. Do you have any idea which issue that was. Given that decade, I'll wager a dollar John Byrne wrote the story.

[Luke Blanchard]

I've just given away the climax, but it was a Cary Bates/Curt Swan story in Superman #372.

[Cavaliere (moderator emeritus)]

I'll have to look for that. Thanks...and I owe you a dollar. ;-)

[Rich Lane]

The name TARDIS, Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, addresses the problem handily.

[JohnD]

Interesting. I suppose you could calculate your return just prior to your having left. Just have a seat and read a magazine while you wait for yourself to leave in the first place. Your observation would make for great comedy. Scientist one, back at the lab at MIT, gets a call from the time traveler: "I need money for the bus" Scientist: "Where are you?" Time Traveler: "Bombay, India"

[Richard Mantle]

Hmm.  'The Biggest Problem with Time Travel'!?.....

I'll come back and answer that...earlier.

[Ronald Morgan]

You go back through time one week and tell your past self the winning lottery numbers. Past you runs off to buy the ticket and gets hit by a car and ends up in the hospital. So you couldn't have gone back in time because you're still in the hospital now. But if you didn't go back through time you wouldn't be in the hospital, so you would go back through time. But if you did go back through time then you'd be in the hospital so you wouldn't go back through time.