The Hidden Problem with Time Travel
The Hidden Problem with Time Travel
I think people often miss something quite important about the possibility of time travel.
In most sci-fi stories, when someone travels through time, they stay in the same spot — moving forward or backward in time while remaining fixed in space. It’s a wonderful concept, but it overlooks a crucial fact: we’re not sitting still.
We aren’t anchored to one point on Earth, because the Earth itself isn’t anchored to any fixed point in the universe.
- The Earth and Moon orbit their shared center of gravity at about 2,300 miles per hour (3,700 km/h).
- Together, they orbit the Sun at around 67,000 miles per hour (107,000 km/h).
- The Sun (and the rest of our solar system) orbits the center of the Milky Way at roughly 514,000 miles per hour (828,000 km/h).
- And the Milky Way galaxy itself is moving through space — relative to the cosmic background — at about 1.3 million miles per hour (2.1 million km/h) as the universe continues to expand.
So the spot we’re standing on isn’t anywhere near stationary. If we were to jump forward or backward in time, the “place” where Earth once was would have moved dramatically. Depending on how far we went, we might reappear deep underground, inside the Earth’s mantle, or drifting alone in the void of space.
Just something to think about the next time you watch a time-travel story — or dream about making that trip yourself.
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