Time Travel

[Syphor]

Hello everyone, I was watching a show on television the other day talking about worm holes, or faster then light travel and different theories on real applications of possible time travel. My question is wouldn't any means of physically being in a differnt time frame be impossible because of space itself? For example if you assumed that the sun didn't move in space at all, if a time traveller on earth went back 6 months the earth itself would be in a different physical location in it's orbit. So even if worm holes were ever proven to exist wouldn't the SPACE part of Space-Time make physical movement impossible?

 

[MeteorWayne]

Moderator Note:

This poster is attempting to have a serious discussion, that so far belongs in Physics.

Another set of posts included pseudoscientific (well not even really that) material unrelated to serious Physics, They now reside in a separate discussion in The Unexplained, where they'll be right at home.

Please stick to serious discussion here in this thread.

Thanx

Meteor Wayne

 

[Kessy]

Well, Syphor, if you're trying to go to a specific place and time with a wormhole, you're going to need a very good navigational system. It's a challenge, but not impossible. Actually, that part of the technology is a lot more feasible then the actual wormhole - we can do that sort of navigation now. For example, we can launch a probe to Pluto, billions of miles away, with enough accuracy that it only needs pretty small course corrections en route. Of course, the easiest solution is to put your wormhole generator on a space ship, then you don't have to worry about hitting such a small target as the surface of a planet.

 

[Shpaget]

...

I think that OP meant that whenever you travel through time your starting point will shift with the entire Earth, solar system and Galaxy since they all move around.
So if a wormhole that connects two different times goes from point A today to the very same point A yesterday and somebody stepped through it, he would end up somewhere in deep space because this time yesterday the Earth was almost 20 million kilometers away from this point in space (speed of the solar system in the galaxy).

 

[Jerromy]

I agree with Kessy... the travel through time and space accordingly can easily be plotted for short range trips. (days within a solar system) Travel through time on a geometric course would merely have to be graphed to where the destination object was or will be located at the time the destination is desired. The difficult part would be the unknown factor of how fast our galaxy is moving through stationary space if there is such a certain base of "still" space. If it really is just a relative transition from here to there through a wormhole then look at the example of a trip to one year in the future with a destination of Earth. In a 3D sense you could remain in nearly the same location in our solar system, travel a year into the future, and Earth is back in the same general location. I think the most difficult obstacles would be conservation of energy (since physics seems not to like to lose energy, transmitting anything across time would require a swap of energy to maintain balance) and having an accurate enough destination course to avoid arriving in the middle of a mountain or at 20,000K altitude without a parachute! (would be much easier in a spaceship but still no fun to arrive in the path of an asteroid!)

 

[Syphor]

Yes, Shpaget thats what I was trying to get at. The moving of everything though stationary space. I'd think that you'd end up in the middle of nowhere.

Sorry if my question sounded odd, I've been thinknig about it for awhile so thought I'd ask on what kind of real world physical problem it would cause if it was possible but am a compelete novice to physics.

Thanks again.