02 Apr 06
Originally posted by BowmannAll the elements of both ears fused one bright morning and now I have but one ear but its very large and as long as I aim it in the right direction, VERY sensitive. I can hear termite farts. It keeps me awake till the buggers knock it off for the night.
What happened to your other?
05 Apr 06
Originally posted by sonhouseThat's so very un-Xtian. Back in the day, you would have been labeled an heretic, possibly and possibly burned at the stake. But i like your idea anyhow. Also crunches down the notion of human history to a mere fraction of it's actual total, if viewed another way.
Nobody going to comment on my apparent discovery here? Anyone else noticed this, the lunar clock idea?
Imagine time travelers lost in time, they have no idea what time they are in, all they have are radios which can talk across a few thousand kilometers reliably and some binoculars and some transport, cars, airplanes, horses, snowmobiles, whatever.
07 Apr 06
Originally posted by eldragonflyNothing new there, been a heretic since I was 8 YO. Yeah, the entire history of mankind would not show much of a change in the eclipse footprint thats for sure. Not sure the exact footprint now but say its 50 miles wide, totality, that is. 600 million years ahead its zero so 50 miles per 600 m Y, about 3 million inches, so its about 200 years per inch of differance. So 200,000 years ago it was about 80 feet wider.
That's so very un-Xtian. Back in the day, you would have been labeled an heretic, possibly and possibly burned at the stake. But i like your idea anyhow. Also crunches down the notion of human history to a mere fraction of it's actual total, if viewed another way.
I wonder if you could even measure that little change, given simple optics like binoculars and radios?
07 Apr 06
Originally posted by sonhouseUnless the lunar orbit is perfectly circular (as opposed to eliptical), this would be a troublesome method to estimate your place in time.
Nobody going to comment on my apparent discovery here? Anyone else noticed this, the lunar clock idea?
Imagine time travelers lost in time, they have no idea what time they are in, all they have are radios which can talk across a few thousand kilometers reliably and some binoculars and some transport, cars, airplanes, horses, snowmobiles, whatever. They wa ...[text shortened]... ole lot since there can be a couple of crashes of the landmasses and separations in that time.
08 Apr 06
Originally posted by techsouthYeah, I saw that complication, its not now or ever will be a circular orbit. But the overall idea still works over long time periods.
Unless the lunar orbit is perfectly circular (as opposed to eliptical), this would be a troublesome method to estimate your place in time.
08 Apr 06
Originally posted by sonhouseDon't think so.
Yeah, I saw that complication, its not now or ever will be a circular orbit. But the overall idea still works over long time periods.
Over long period of time, orbits in solar system are chaotic.
And therefore unpredictable.
08 Apr 06
Originally posted by sonhouseAssuming that the size of the sun remains constant and does not grow?
We just were treated to a nice total eclipse of the sun, the moon magically covers up the sun at times. That is an extraordinary kind of event and we happen to be in the part of the cycle of history of the earth-moon system that that can happen. Here's the puzzle:
What year is destined to be the last year there will be a total eclipse?
The moon is receedi ...[text shortened]... nt the totality will be say, one inch wide, then its never to be seen again. What year is that?
09 Apr 06
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Originally posted by abejnoodInteresting point. The sun does grow but I think it would be a billion years before it would be noticable, that is to say, effect the relative nature of the eclipse.
Assuming that the size of the sun remains constant and does not grow?
But going into the past, if anything, the sun would SHRINK.
I am thinking about the idea of using it as a long term clock and was thinking about the time from about +/-600 million years. There would not be a whole lot of size change in the sun in that period. 2 billion years into the future may be another story.
10 Apr 06
well, whenever i go time-travelin, i always take my pocket-sized 3.2 GoogolHz computer with me. then i can use software to project constellations into the far future and far past. on my other wrist is my combination phone/fax machine/chess computer/food hydrator/camera, which i use to take a picture of the sky. upload the image into the constellation software, and run a quick search. tis much easier and more accurate than a moondial.
10 Apr 06
Well, the one other problem with your estimate is assuming that the rate at which the moon moves away from the Earth is constant. It is not, and is in fact slowing down. I don't know when it will happen, but the moon will get to a point where it will no longer noticably recede from the Earth at all. (And as a side note, the Earth will be tidally locked to it, so that our days will be as long as the month!)
10 Apr 06
Originally posted by FabianFnasThats why we have discussions on stuff. Any way of showing long term clocks is interesting. I was thinking of ways our intrepid time travels
Why not use radiological methods for a clock instead? Woldn't that be far easier?
to do that without having to have a laboratory with them. I would think if time travel ever happens, they won't be going with a 747 full of stuff, more like a dufflebag. So how would you do radiological studies without a portable lab? Could you do it with a scintillator for instance? I am no expert in such matters but wouldn't it take some kind of ion mass analyzer to do isotope ratios and such? Mass analyzers I know like the back of my hand, I was in that field for 20 years but they tend to be rather massive if you use magnetic beamlines. Maybe there are ones using electric separation like the RGA,(residual gas analyzer) but I don't think they are accurate enough to do isotope separation.
10 Apr 06
Originally posted by grimandfrostbitActually, my time traveling friends have shown me that only works for a few millenia, (and no, they won't give me a winning lottery ticket, the creeps!). The time periods we are talking about would allow the galaxy itself to make several revolutions so in that time frame there would be no recognisable constellations. Wouldn't that make an incredible movie? Going back a billion years and taking a time frame movie of the galaxy say one thousand years per step. Watch what happens when the captured galaxies were on their own and then watch them crash into the milky way and seein the streamers of stars torn out of the little ones as they are consumed by the milky way.
well, whenever i go time-travelin, i always take my pocket-sized 3.2 GoogolHz computer with me. then i can use software to project constellations into the far future and far past. on my other wrist is my combination phone/fax machine/chess computer/food hydrator/camera, which i use to take a picture of the sky. upload the image into the constellation software, and run a quick search. tis much easier and more accurate than a moondial.
10 Apr 06
Originally posted by sven1000It certainly does that, but it seems pretty sure the time frame of 600 million years or so is enough to turn total eclipes into rings of fire around the sun at best. The moon only has to recede another 15,000 miles or so to make that happen. Do you have any estimates on the time frame you are talking about? It seems reasonable to project the earth as being tidally locked to the moon but I am thinking the sun would expand out to reach the earth's orbit long before the moon could lock the earth's rotation, the sun will do that in 5ish billion years maybe more but not much more than that. There are some estimates the sun will expand to destroy the earth in more like one or two billion years, even if it doesn't actually phyisically touch the earth.
Well, the one other problem with your estimate is assuming that the rate at which the moon moves away from the Earth is constant. It is not, and is in fact slowing down. I don't know when it will happen, but the moon will get to a point where it will no longer noticably recede from the Earth at all. (And as a side note, the Earth will be tidally locked to it, so that our days will be as long as the month!)