This is not how general relativity works at all. If your coordinates are set to a spot on Earth (or some spot relative to Earth), you will appear at that same point. Spacetime exhibits something called diffeomorphism covariance which is a fancy way of saying you’d have to go out of your way in the dumbest way possible to get this outcome.
I was surprised when I read the OG time machine story by Jules Verne and this was a main plot point, and only later stories hand-waived it. You’d think it was something from later analysis of the idea. Almost like that Verne dude was clever.
Clark Ashton Smith wrote a similar short story where the inventor failed to take it into account. Upon realizing his mistake he decided to just wait for another planet to reach him, turning his time machine into a spaceship.
That’s actually a fascinating idea. All interstellar travel is based on the movements of the planets through space time. I bet it alternates between being technically faster and slower than FTL travel since you may have to wait for a time when your destination to pass into the planets past location.
Wow that’s a fun thought hole. Constraint certainly breeds creativity!
that’s why you build it like a spaceship 🤷 ez
Position isn’t absolute so if this happens this means you knowingly made the time machine memorize position relative to e.g. the sun rather than the earth.
incorrect, that is not what this means. They could have forgotten about the position setting all together. Also why the suns position? it is also moving and non absolute, just like earths. Makes no difference in this meme
All of space is moving, you need to fix a reference point, there’s nothing to stop you making it earth
They could have forgotten about the position setting all together.
You’re assuming that the time machine would just change the time and keep the position but there is no absolute reference frame, so the time machine should use some reference frame in which it keeps the position constant. It would then be common sense to have the time machine keep the position relative to the earth. Anything else would be pretty dumb, unless you want to use your time machine also for space travel to other planets.
why the suns position
That was just an example. It’s either the sun or the center of our galaxy, or some other reference point so if it wasn’t the earth then the sun is the next most logical option.
What you’re describing is a machine which moves both in time and space. A machine which only moves in time would result in this meme no matter how you twist it.
Tine machine probably moved in its own inertial reference frame. That will actually get you lost in space because the inertial frame does not orbit around, which involves rotation(rotation is intrinsically non-inertial, i.e accelerating). Time machine’s frame will be moving in a straight line if its inertial
One way to resolve this is to have some kind of multiverse theory where you don’t travel back in time to your universe, but to a narrow slection of parallel universes that are also shifted slightly so that it spits you out in an analogous location to your initial departure.
