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Many a hungry time traveler has Googled ‘trilobites shellfish allergy’ only to find their carrier had no coverage in the Ordovician.

https://explainxkcd.com/2976/

  • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    There is no cosmic frame of reference. Earth is moving, the sun is moving, the galaxy is moving, but you can choose any frame of reference within that. It’d be really silly to use the suns frame of reference, you’d use Earth’s.

    • 14th_cylon@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      There is no cosmic frame of reference

      There is. Just because we can’t correctly find and use it with our knowledge doesn’t mean there isn’t.

      it’d be really silly

      What would be silly is thinking that earth is some magical center of the universe… We have abandoned this concept about 500 years ago.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model

      • TechieDamien@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        We disproved a cosmic frame of reference, or “ether” hypothesis using interferometry. It is well worth a read, I think you will enjoy it.

        • Malfeasant@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          Not exactly - what was proven is that there’s no way to distinguish between inertial frames of reference. There could be a universal frame of reference, which would most likely be the average velocity of all things in the universe. There’s not much point in making a distinction in most cases, because if you can’t detect it, it might as well not exist - but since we’re making up time travel, we might as well make up a universal frame of reference, it doesn’t break anything time travel hasn’t already broken…

      • masterofn001@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        It isn’t about how humans view their place in the cosmos.

        It’s about relativity.

        Space and time are inseparable. Hence the term space-time. You can thank Einstein for that.

        The comment you replied to states It’s also about frames of reference, probably one of the most crucial aspects of relaticity.

        Einstein has proven that time and space appear and are experienced differently for each and every observer. With the effects being significantly different depending on gravity, speed and distances.

        If you could reverse time travel then the space would conform to the time you travelled to.

        • 14th_cylon@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          If you could reverse time travel then the space would conform to the time you travelled to.

          Really? What else would conform to the past point in time? Would fabric in my clothes disintegrate and transforms to something else? Would I, because I, well, didn’t exist in that past? Then it wouldn’t really be time travel, would it?

          Or would the clothes stay, because they are mine and important for me and would I stay on earth, because that’s my baseline? Is universe somehow “me-centric”? Not really likely, is it?

          You need to abandon your idea of time travel as seeking in a video with rewind button.

          According to our current understanding of physics time travel is impossible, but we are talking about a word where it is clearly possible, so you can’t really constraint yourself with the limits as we know them now.

          • masterofn001@lemmy.ca
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            9 months ago

            I don’t exist in the future, yet, here I am, in the future, with all my clothes in tact.

            There is nothing in physics that actually says it’s impossible.

            Maybe your current understanding of physics says it’s impossible.

            Nothing about it is about me.

            IT’S ABOUT FRAMES OF FUCKING REFERENCE. Inertial frames of reference, relativistic frames of reference, etc.

            (This is relativity, if you think it’s about me, you obviously need to learn little more.)

            *Also, I’ve blocked this user.

            • 14th_cylon@lemm.ee
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              9 months ago

              *Also, I’ve blocked this user.

              Oh no, have you used the word relativity too many times and now you have no more arguments? :D