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"Travelling back in time".
  psydude
 
02:11pm 05/11/2009  
  Let's play make pretend!

There's a intergalactic civilization about 30,000 light years away [henceforth known as Z]. They went "intergalactic" because their sun was about to go Red Giant, thus making the entire area uninhabitable.

The Red Giant that destroyed this ancient race's home planet was observed today, at some observatory. This event happened Z years ago in our time, but we're only just now seeing it, due to light speed.

Well, fortunately, we can travel faster than light. So, we hop in our space ship, and take off towards the Red Giant to check it out.

As we approach the Red Giant, it will begin to dim and collapse much faster than it is actually happening.
Why?

Imagine "light" as being a line of painting coming towards you. As you stand still, the paintings will hit you at a set speed, and then you'll get to see the next one. If you move forward, you'll get to see the next picture sooner, but for less time. If you move backward slower than the picture's speed, they'll appear to slow down. If you move backward at the speed of the pictures, they'll appear to not move at all. However, if you go backwards fast enough, you'll begin seeing the images you already saw (assuming you didn't rip them apart, idiot).

Back to the Red Giant. As we move toward it, it will dim faster. By the time we get there, everything in that galaxy would have aged Z years, even if we were in space for mere seconds of our time.

Now for the fun part. Since there's nothing left at our destination, we turn around and go home.
But, as we look at Terra, we see no civilized people. If we can see humans, they're simple cave-men, and no buildings could possibly exist.

This is because from our current location, we're seeing Terra Z years BEFORE we left. But, if we go back, time on the planet will appear to speed up, and Z years of human progress would happen in barely a moment aboard our ship.

By the time we reach home, it will appear as if we have never "time travelled" in the first place, even though we just saw two planets go through Z years in our instant.

And keep in mind, this is both consistant and conservative. If we were to travel with our ass hanging out towards our destination, we'd see Terra slowly go "back in time", and likewise when we come back, the red giant will appear to inflate and grow younger.

I am not a professional on the subject. This article assumes that FTL is possible by all means. I use "Terra" to distinguish our earth from others.		  
     

(bite me!)
 
no subject
  saint_kyra
 
03:54pm 02/11/2009  
 
I love the Afro I love the Afro
Bwaha. So, you wanted to see my afro, Dayna?



I kind of like it personally. It's different- really short.

It's a pincurling technique- I bound my hair around a bobby, then leave it overnight.		  
     

(7 bite marks | bite me!)
 
  bladeville
 
 

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