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From: throopw@rtp47.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: Why shouldn't time travel leave you in the same spot?
Message-ID: <146@rtp47.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Aug-85 12:16:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: rtp47.146
Posted: Fri Aug 16 12:16:22 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 05:28:07 EDT
References: <9793@ucbvax.ARPA> <323@looking.UUCP> <2243@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Organization: Data General, RTP, NC
Lines: 33

> From: steve@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Steve Holtsberg)
> I think you're dead wrong.  Time and space are two different dimensions.
> If you travel through time, you SHOULD end up in exactly the same spot
> you were in "before" you left.

Exactly so.  But most time-travel scenarios have you ending up in the
spot where the earth happens to be when you arive, not where the earth
was when you left.

(However, note that "time and space are two different dimensions" in
about the same way that "front-back and left-right are two different
dimensions".  That is, there is no unique direction or dimension that is
"most timelike".  There are simply more restrictions on interchanging
time-like and space-like "dimensions", but these restrictions do not
prevent this mixing totally.)

> Aside from the rotation of the Earth about its axis, the planet is in
> an inertial frame.
> Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473

No, it isn't.  It is accelerated (around the sun, around the galaxy, etc.)



There are plausible explainations of why a time-traveler "should" end up
in the "same" spot relative to the surface of the earth, and other
explainations as to why a time-traveler "should" end up in the same spot
relative to some inertial frame or other (and hence "out in space
somewhere"). Neither of these explainations are easy to follow, nor are
either of them very convincing.  Therefore, I expect time-travelers to
do whatever the scriptwriter finds convenient.
-- 
Wayne Throop at Data General, RTP, NC
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