where we're going we don't NEED beans
February 27, 2009 9:49 AM Subscribe
The Science Of Back to The Future
A post on the wonderful Overthinking It, a pop culture blog that delightfully does just what it sets out to do. Now that's how winning is done!
Previously
A post on the wonderful Overthinking It, a pop culture blog that delightfully does just what it sets out to do. Now that's how winning is done!
Previously
Next: Was that real manure?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:15 AM on February 27, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:15 AM on February 27, 2009 [1 favorite]
"Now that I think of it, one could always synthesize a worm-hole that encloses a timeless space, with its exterior coupled to the Earth's timeline. This is of course absurd: any object passing through it would be exposed temperatures approaching absolute zero and would hence instantly become incomparably cold."
Though I do seem to recall that the delorean was really, really cold after its time jumps... The wormhole hypothesis does seem far more plausible than the spatial orienteering required. Put the delorean in a frozen-time bubble, and set the bubble sailing in the appropriate direction, but still attached to the spatial position at which it was created, following the earth's frame of reference. Hope to all hell that no one has put up a brick wall in the intervening fifty years, and you're off to the races.
posted by kaibutsu at 10:28 AM on February 27, 2009
Though I do seem to recall that the delorean was really, really cold after its time jumps... The wormhole hypothesis does seem far more plausible than the spatial orienteering required. Put the delorean in a frozen-time bubble, and set the bubble sailing in the appropriate direction, but still attached to the spatial position at which it was created, following the earth's frame of reference. Hope to all hell that no one has put up a brick wall in the intervening fifty years, and you're off to the races.
posted by kaibutsu at 10:28 AM on February 27, 2009
"The homunculus piloting Rick Springfield cannot conceive of itself without mechanical aid. It uses its eyes, and the light reflected off a mirror, to evaluate itself in the eyes of Jessie's girl...whom it thinks he wishes he had!"
We can blame a homunculus for Rick Springfield's songs?
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:45 AM on February 27, 2009
We can blame a homunculus for Rick Springfield's songs?
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:45 AM on February 27, 2009
The people behind this should probably be curing diseases or something. But I'm glad they're not.
posted by Mr. Anthropomorphism at 10:45 AM on February 27, 2009
posted by Mr. Anthropomorphism at 10:45 AM on February 27, 2009
Good stuff here. But the shark still looks fake.
posted by hifiparasol at 10:46 AM on February 27, 2009 [3 favorites]
posted by hifiparasol at 10:46 AM on February 27, 2009 [3 favorites]
Isn't the "distance traveled" calculation missing the fact that the sun isn't a fixed point in space, as well? Isn't it also hurtling through the cosmos away from the point of the Big Bang, just like everything else?
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 10:50 AM on February 27, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 10:50 AM on February 27, 2009 [1 favorite]
Kidding aside, thanks for this; now I have a better way of expressing to my girlfriend the fact that even if the DeLorean did go back to 1955, Marty would be killed more or less instantly, as he rematerialized in the inky blackness of space, or in the middle of the great red spot, or in the middle of a mountain on Titan.
I'll make like a tree so the real science talk can begin.
posted by hifiparasol at 10:55 AM on February 27, 2009
I'll make like a tree so the real science talk can begin.
posted by hifiparasol at 10:55 AM on February 27, 2009
Marty McFly, wearing an outrageously 80s synthetic vest, wanders into the diner and takes a seat. Nervously, as the soda jerk approaches, he blurts out:
"Plate of beans!"
posted by dhartung at 11:05 AM on February 27, 2009
"Plate of beans!"
posted by dhartung at 11:05 AM on February 27, 2009
The argument over the motion of the Earth ignores the basic problem of Relativity, which is that there is no absolute frame of reference. Assuming that the return point sticks with the Earth in its orbital motion is no crazier than any other assumption, though its rotation might be a problem *cough*. Might be better to time travel from the ISS.
posted by localroger at 11:07 AM on February 27, 2009
posted by localroger at 11:07 AM on February 27, 2009
Dude, talk about overthinking it! To avoid all that you just have to reverse the polarities. Didn't they ever take a science class?
posted by milarepa at 11:07 AM on February 27, 2009
posted by milarepa at 11:07 AM on February 27, 2009
Oh, and doesn't the better life downtrodden Marty returns to suggest that that better life was lived up to that point by an UN-downtrodden Marty? If so, what happened to him? I've always suspected he ended up in downtrodden Marty's timeline, which would kind of be a bummer, what with the professor dead and the terrorists after him and his Dad suddenly a loser.
posted by localroger at 11:10 AM on February 27, 2009 [4 favorites]
posted by localroger at 11:10 AM on February 27, 2009 [4 favorites]
localroger: I think that question presupposes a multiple worlds theory, which BTTF rejects. According to their viewpoint, there is but a single, mutable timeline. Hence there is, and always will be, a single Marty.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:16 AM on February 27, 2009
posted by leotrotsky at 11:16 AM on February 27, 2009
We need to set him on the whole fixed/alterable timeline aspect of The Terminator.
posted by Artw at 11:21 AM on February 27, 2009
posted by Artw at 11:21 AM on February 27, 2009
Also if at any point writers stop giving a shit or just want nerds to stop bothering them timey wimey can be used as a sort of get-out-of-jail card.
posted by Artw at 11:23 AM on February 27, 2009
posted by Artw at 11:23 AM on February 27, 2009
I don't get why the computer can't correct for the spatial displacement. It knows everything it needs to do it. The only problem with this theory is that Doc Brown couldn't have built a computer in 1885 (OR COULD HE?). But he doesn't have to. He just has to pre-calculate the displacement himself for the single jump he needs to make to 1985 (or 2015, or whenevs). Once he gets there he can install a computer to do any other calculations he needs.
posted by DU at 11:34 AM on February 27, 2009
posted by DU at 11:34 AM on February 27, 2009
Gentlemen, please. My solution, hinted at by the article, is that the car's method of time travel involves moving into a hyper-dimensional state of some kind that nevertheless maintains the properties of matter--inertia, gravitation, etc. Notice that when it changes times it follows through on its direction and motion. One might even be able to test the relative space where the car should be in the intervening times between jumps and detect some subtle signature of where the ghostly DeLorean remains as it travels. So one simply needs to develop a state of being that would allow this transformation. I'd like to posit that I myself have achieved this apex of disconnection on occasion, and can prove my theory by blowing potsmoke in a cat's face.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:50 AM on February 27, 2009
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:50 AM on February 27, 2009
mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey: They arleady explained that in their boilerplate warning about their calaculations.
For all calculations pertaining to a period of time less than one hour, the Overthinking It™ writers reserve the right to disregard effects due to the nonperpendicular axial-tilt of the Earth relative to its plane of revolution, the precession of the Earth about its axis, the gradual decay of Earth's orbit into the sun, the rotation of the Milky Way, analogous rotational and linear velocities within the Virgo Supercluster, and the general expansion of the Univese.
posted by Sargas at 12:41 PM on February 27, 2009
For all calculations pertaining to a period of time less than one hour, the Overthinking It™ writers reserve the right to disregard effects due to the nonperpendicular axial-tilt of the Earth relative to its plane of revolution, the precession of the Earth about its axis, the gradual decay of Earth's orbit into the sun, the rotation of the Milky Way, analogous rotational and linear velocities within the Virgo Supercluster, and the general expansion of the Univese.
posted by Sargas at 12:41 PM on February 27, 2009
As most of us know, the Earth both rotates about its axis (accounting for the regular cycle of day and night, and hence a good bit of poetry) and revolves around the sun (accounting for the seasons, and hence the rest of poetry).
This is wrong. Seasons are caused by the tilt of the Earth. If you're going to be a pedant, get your facts right first.
posted by backseatpilot at 1:02 PM on February 27, 2009
This is wrong. Seasons are caused by the tilt of the Earth. If you're going to be a pedant, get your facts right first.
posted by backseatpilot at 1:02 PM on February 27, 2009
Also, I could be really annoying and point out that in fact it is the center of gravity of the Earth-Moon system that revolves around the Sun, but I won't. So nyah.
posted by backseatpilot at 1:03 PM on February 27, 2009
posted by backseatpilot at 1:03 PM on February 27, 2009
mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey : Isn't the "distance traveled" calculation missing the fact that the sun isn't a fixed point in space, as well? Isn't it also hurtling through the cosmos away from the point of the Big Bang, just like everything else?
I've always wanted to do a short with this very fact as a premise; basically a guy builds an actual working time machine, and because of some hand-wavy science explanation he needed to activate it from orbit and then land back on earth to see the past or whatever. Unfortunately, when he does, he finds himself in the middle of deep space because while he did travel through time to the past, he didn't travel through space and he is now in a place where the earth hasn't gotten to yet.
He then realizes he's fucked and eventually dies.
The earth gets back to the point that it was at when he left and our satellites pick up this strange object in space, when we investigate we find an earth built shuttle, with a hundreds year old corpse sitting at the controls.
And it is spooooky.
posted by quin at 1:50 PM on February 27, 2009 [5 favorites]
I've always wanted to do a short with this very fact as a premise; basically a guy builds an actual working time machine, and because of some hand-wavy science explanation he needed to activate it from orbit and then land back on earth to see the past or whatever. Unfortunately, when he does, he finds himself in the middle of deep space because while he did travel through time to the past, he didn't travel through space and he is now in a place where the earth hasn't gotten to yet.
He then realizes he's fucked and eventually dies.
The earth gets back to the point that it was at when he left and our satellites pick up this strange object in space, when we investigate we find an earth built shuttle, with a hundreds year old corpse sitting at the controls.
And it is spooooky.
posted by quin at 1:50 PM on February 27, 2009 [5 favorites]
FWIW That's exactly how the time weapons in Strontium Dog work.
posted by Artw at 1:55 PM on February 27, 2009
posted by Artw at 1:55 PM on February 27, 2009
... and revolves around the sun (accounting for the seasons, and hence the rest of poetry).
This is wrong. Seasons are caused by the tilt of the Earth. If you're going to be a pedant, get your facts right first.
Seasons are caused by the tilt of the earth's axis relative to the sun. You'll never guess how the tilt changes!
posted by Sys Rq at 2:00 PM on February 27, 2009
This is wrong. Seasons are caused by the tilt of the Earth. If you're going to be a pedant, get your facts right first.
Seasons are caused by the tilt of the earth's axis relative to the sun. You'll never guess how the tilt changes!
posted by Sys Rq at 2:00 PM on February 27, 2009
“Seasons are caused by the tilt of the Earth.”
I believe the correct phrase is ‘tiltiture.’
“point out that in fact it is the center of gravity of the Earth-Moon system that revolves around the Sun”
I believe it’s ‘centeriture.’
“Seasons are caused by the tilt of the earth's axis relative to the sun.”
I believe it’s ‘axisiture’
I’d like to do a “ ‘Back to’ Back to the Future” film that covers all three movies. The premise is that it’s not the time travel that’s improbable, but all the coincidental dramatic elements. So time travelers have to go back and stage manage the entire situation so the first time travel experiments don’t result in the complete destruction of the time/space continuum...iture.
So they hit Biff with a tranq dart just before George hits him. They place the sandbags at just the right point so they hit Biff’s gang. Etc. etc.
Pretty much every improbable occurance would be the result of these behind the scenes time travelers.
So when the guy who says “I think he took that guy’s wallet” calls the cops, it’s the time travelers who intercept the call, arrive on the scene and pretend to question people, etc. (you still have 30-odd intervening years). They move the manure trucks around, all that.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:54 PM on February 27, 2009 [4 favorites]
I believe the correct phrase is ‘tiltiture.’
“point out that in fact it is the center of gravity of the Earth-Moon system that revolves around the Sun”
I believe it’s ‘centeriture.’
“Seasons are caused by the tilt of the earth's axis relative to the sun.”
I believe it’s ‘axisiture’
I’d like to do a “ ‘Back to’ Back to the Future” film that covers all three movies. The premise is that it’s not the time travel that’s improbable, but all the coincidental dramatic elements. So time travelers have to go back and stage manage the entire situation so the first time travel experiments don’t result in the complete destruction of the time/space continuum...iture.
So they hit Biff with a tranq dart just before George hits him. They place the sandbags at just the right point so they hit Biff’s gang. Etc. etc.
Pretty much every improbable occurance would be the result of these behind the scenes time travelers.
So when the guy who says “I think he took that guy’s wallet” calls the cops, it’s the time travelers who intercept the call, arrive on the scene and pretend to question people, etc. (you still have 30-odd intervening years). They move the manure trucks around, all that.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:54 PM on February 27, 2009 [4 favorites]
Anyone seen 'Primer'? That did a good job of avoiding this whole problem by just making sure that the travelers were in the machine for the duration of travel... Sitting and sucking their thumbs for the twelve hours it took to go back in time.
posted by kaibutsu at 3:01 PM on February 27, 2009
posted by kaibutsu at 3:01 PM on February 27, 2009
I'd like to take a break from discussing things that aren't Batman to point out that they did a whole Philosophy of Batman series (nod to the "does" link in the post), and the articles are great fun, though Part III seems not to actually show up when you try to look at it for some reason and that makes me sad.
But back to Back to the Future, on a tangent: I'd like to think that the fading photos in the original film were not so much Marty & Family slowly being erased (which, in this otherwise sterling piece of hard science fiction, makes very little sense) as it was them being represented somehow as experiencing probabilistic flux—they would not cease to exist in the one true universe so much as exist in a smaller proportion of many universes, and Marty in this instance and his siblings in the photo were occupying some sort of strange nexus, a lens-universe where e.g. Schroedinger's cat would have been not an unobserved mystery but a semi-corporeal manifestation of the probabilistic halfsies that said gedankexperimental feline would, in a "normal" universe, have merely represented.
posted by cortex at 3:35 PM on February 27, 2009
But back to Back to the Future, on a tangent: I'd like to think that the fading photos in the original film were not so much Marty & Family slowly being erased (which, in this otherwise sterling piece of hard science fiction, makes very little sense) as it was them being represented somehow as experiencing probabilistic flux—they would not cease to exist in the one true universe so much as exist in a smaller proportion of many universes, and Marty in this instance and his siblings in the photo were occupying some sort of strange nexus, a lens-universe where e.g. Schroedinger's cat would have been not an unobserved mystery but a semi-corporeal manifestation of the probabilistic halfsies that said gedankexperimental feline would, in a "normal" universe, have merely represented.
posted by cortex at 3:35 PM on February 27, 2009
Of course, whatever physical effect it is that's responsible for the need to be traveling at 88 miles per hour, it is also relative to the local reference frame. Let us posit that these two references to local space are related: You need to be going 88 mph in order to time travel without beaming yourself into the inky translunar void or the stony chthonian depths. The actual time travel stuff is probably a doddle by comparison.
Suppose, then, that among the fluxes being capacitated is one wherein uncertainty of momentum exchanges with uncertainty of position. The particle mediating this exchange (usually virtual) I will call the diastazon. Obviously, we need to generate a considerable uncertainty of position in order to find Einstein eleven hundred miles* from where expected. Although the flux capacitor must be trading one uncertainty for another at completely unheisenberglich rates, nevertheless, at the moment of truth we will need some crazy low uncertainty of momentum to carry the operation off.** Probably a third of Doc's thirty years' research were devoted to working out the cost curve on which 88 mph is a minimum, as determined by the equations of Irregular Relativity, the statistical hazard of encountering and scooping up a real diastazon,*** and the variable accuracy-for-speed of the DeLorean's speedometer.
*Incidentally, I don't think we have to posit any superluminal speeds for Einstein. Human perception being what it is, I'd guess you have to lose a lot more than 1 ms between stopwatches before you'd notice. 10 ms is a pretty rocking reaction time for something you're prepared for, and you can't really have both those stopwatches in foveal vision at the same time either. To pull a thoroughly scientific number out of my thoroughly scientific fundament, I'd say those watches could be 50 ms apart and Doc wouldn't notice any difference. Which takes Einstein's little jaunt well below c. However, traveling to 1955 remains a completely different kettle of fish. If I haven't botched my sums, the Sun's orbit through the Milky Way traverses an arc of about 132 thousand million miles in 30 years. Slightly less by straight lines (not much less—the angular distance is tiny), but still.
**Also, at the moment of discharge the flux capacitor must create an enormous diastazonic current, doubtless requiring heroically dimensioned bus-bars of the purest silver, and, if improperly shielded, probably unleashing a diastazokrinetic pulse that fries any capacity for reason in its vicinity.
***Virtual diastazons permit time travel; real diastazons just spoil enjoyable fiction.
Not a plate of beans, but I did consume a bowl of lentils while explaining this. Hope that works for you. They were delicious.
posted by eritain at 7:37 PM on February 27, 2009 [3 favorites]
Suppose, then, that among the fluxes being capacitated is one wherein uncertainty of momentum exchanges with uncertainty of position. The particle mediating this exchange (usually virtual) I will call the diastazon. Obviously, we need to generate a considerable uncertainty of position in order to find Einstein eleven hundred miles* from where expected. Although the flux capacitor must be trading one uncertainty for another at completely unheisenberglich rates, nevertheless, at the moment of truth we will need some crazy low uncertainty of momentum to carry the operation off.** Probably a third of Doc's thirty years' research were devoted to working out the cost curve on which 88 mph is a minimum, as determined by the equations of Irregular Relativity, the statistical hazard of encountering and scooping up a real diastazon,*** and the variable accuracy-for-speed of the DeLorean's speedometer.
*Incidentally, I don't think we have to posit any superluminal speeds for Einstein. Human perception being what it is, I'd guess you have to lose a lot more than 1 ms between stopwatches before you'd notice. 10 ms is a pretty rocking reaction time for something you're prepared for, and you can't really have both those stopwatches in foveal vision at the same time either. To pull a thoroughly scientific number out of my thoroughly scientific fundament, I'd say those watches could be 50 ms apart and Doc wouldn't notice any difference. Which takes Einstein's little jaunt well below c. However, traveling to 1955 remains a completely different kettle of fish. If I haven't botched my sums, the Sun's orbit through the Milky Way traverses an arc of about 132 thousand million miles in 30 years. Slightly less by straight lines (not much less—the angular distance is tiny), but still.
**Also, at the moment of discharge the flux capacitor must create an enormous diastazonic current, doubtless requiring heroically dimensioned bus-bars of the purest silver, and, if improperly shielded, probably unleashing a diastazokrinetic pulse that fries any capacity for reason in its vicinity.
***Virtual diastazons permit time travel; real diastazons just spoil enjoyable fiction.
Not a plate of beans, but I did consume a bowl of lentils while explaining this. Hope that works for you. They were delicious.
posted by eritain at 7:37 PM on February 27, 2009 [3 favorites]
From a mathematical standpoint, the highly elaborated cognitive activity characterizing the site (and this thread) is expressed in surprisingly simple terms....
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 9:06 PM on February 27, 2009
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 9:06 PM on February 27, 2009
Actually, he does acknowledge that the Delorian does get extremely cold during the jump. Marty touches the car door and jumps back in pain, and he says that it burns, but that it was painful from cold rather than heat. Indicated by the "Hm" at the end.
What with relativity being so confusing, I find it hard to imagine where anything would be a second from now. His calculations didn't include the movement of the solar system relative to the center of the Milky Way, or the movement of the Milky Way relative to other points in the universe (take your pick, I assume there's not any definite center what with expansion). If time travel exists, knowing what we know, it could just end up following the momentum and gravitational course and electromagnetic forces it was already going on, stretched out over n amount of time. That clears up any relativity issues, although I think I might have just opened up a can of worms in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle area. I'm sure string theory or Star Trek will have a glib, unsatisfying answer.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:36 PM on February 27, 2009
What with relativity being so confusing, I find it hard to imagine where anything would be a second from now. His calculations didn't include the movement of the solar system relative to the center of the Milky Way, or the movement of the Milky Way relative to other points in the universe (take your pick, I assume there's not any definite center what with expansion). If time travel exists, knowing what we know, it could just end up following the momentum and gravitational course and electromagnetic forces it was already going on, stretched out over n amount of time. That clears up any relativity issues, although I think I might have just opened up a can of worms in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle area. I'm sure string theory or Star Trek will have a glib, unsatisfying answer.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:36 PM on February 27, 2009
leotrotsky: Remember, in BTTF 2, there were two Docs, who actually had a borderline conversation. And two Martys at different ages and two of Marty's (Martys'?) girlfriends meet, which Doc assumes would destroy the universe but instead just causes them to simultaneously pass out. I know it was the least good of the three, but it has to remain cannon as Three calls on events from Two.
Back to the Future never works when you put it through enough scrutiny, but I kinda like how the laws of time travel seem to change with the plot. It's science fiction so soft that all of my mental energy can go towards plot and comedy. I consider it one of my favorite Hollywood movies for that reason. And of course, Bill and Ted takes the idea to the logical extreme, so that the squishy-soft science fiction becomes a comedic engine.
posted by mccarty.tim at 10:04 PM on February 27, 2009
Back to the Future never works when you put it through enough scrutiny, but I kinda like how the laws of time travel seem to change with the plot. It's science fiction so soft that all of my mental energy can go towards plot and comedy. I consider it one of my favorite Hollywood movies for that reason. And of course, Bill and Ted takes the idea to the logical extreme, so that the squishy-soft science fiction becomes a comedic engine.
posted by mccarty.tim at 10:04 PM on February 27, 2009
This blog is cool! I'm going to spend some time on this.
posted by P.o.B. at 10:39 PM on February 27, 2009
posted by P.o.B. at 10:39 PM on February 27, 2009
Dude, talk about overthinking it! To avoid all that you just have to reverse the polarities. Didn't they ever take a science class?
posted by milarepa at 11:07 AM on February 27
But that's suicide! It'll create a temporal feedback loop that'll tear this ship apart!
posted by unregistered_animagus at 10:17 AM on February 28, 2009
« Older Wikileaks cracks password on NATO Afghanistan... | The Job Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by sciurus at 10:14 AM on February 27, 2009