Date: Mon, 02 May 2005 17:11:13 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: MIT Time Travel Convention
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 04:02 PM 5/2/05 -0400, ECField wrote:
>http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/space/timetravelerconventionplannedforsaturda
ymay7;_ylt=AkySUoMEPVykSX_M8pgfO28iANEA;_ylu=X3oDMTBhaHVjZDBmBHNlYwNsbjE3MDA-

Interesting stunt, but the lack of imagination about the details is
startling in an MIT student.  I hope it was due to the reporter...though
that's a problem as well I guess.

For instance, why give coordinates in lat-lon only?  That just tells you
where on the planet to be, but you also need to know where the planet is
too.  The Earth is moving around the Sun and the Sun is moving around the
galaxy at millions of miles per hour, and the galaxy is moving as well.
Just setting the wayback machine to the proper time will leave you hanging
in interstellar space somewhere...perhaps that's where all the time
travelers are?

There could also be many other reasons for a lack of attendance than all
time travelers anywhen deciding not to show up or time travel being
impossible.  How about a time police force that disallows this,
retroactivly removing any such incursions before they happen?  How about a
limitation on time travel that says you can't go back farther than the
invention of the time machine (physics actually seems to back that one up
some)?  How about some sort of energy restriction that says you can't go
back less than some larger-than-recorded-history distance?  Now if they'd
held the convention in the Jurassic...

I'm sure anyone who's read time travel stories can add more to this list
from the books they've read if not from their own imaginations.  Personally
I think that travel into the past is impossible.  Travel into the future
I've been doing my whole life, and relativity says you can speed that up
with enough energy correctly applied.

Still, as an excuse to have a big party, it's not a bad one. :-)

-- Mike B.
--
World ends today at 9:30 pm!  Film at 11:00...