Time Travel will Kill You!

Time Travel Will Kill You!

By Ryan Matthew Randquist

Most people think of time travel and imagine trips to the past to meet great historical figures, changing history or perhaps a trip to the future to see how things have changed. Most people don’t think of time travel as leading to their near immediate death and that is become there are some fundamental facts that people are not aware of.

Consider the following:

• The Earth is spinning around at a very fast rate, some 1,000 miles per hour which is about a little over 1/3 miles per second.

• The Earth is moving around the Sun at a rate of 67,000 miles per hour or 18.6 miles per second (roughly).

• The Sun itself is moving through the Milky Way Galaxy at a rate of 448,000 miles per hour or 124 miles per second.

• The Milky Way Galaxy is moving at a rate of 1.3 million miles per hour or 361 miles per second.

The point is that there is constant movement so let’s say you want to time travel six months into the future. For one thing even if the only movement was Earth orbiting around the Sun, the Earth would be on the other side since half a year would have passed.

Here is the crux of what I am writing. With all that movement, even going one second into the past or future will mean that you will arrive at that point in time but in a very different place. If you are lucky you will still be on Earth but even then will you emerge at ground level or 50 feet above ground or 50 feet below ground (or some other distance) and what if you emerge in front of a semi hauling down the highway? What if you emerge high up in the atmosphere? Are you prepared for a crash landing? What If you emerged in space and can see the Earth moving away from you?

This is what I propose if you are going to time travel.

• First, don’t use Google and a calculator like I did to get approximate distances per second. Use a calculator that will give you the exact figure.

• Second. Get a time machine like in the one from H.W. Wells book The Time Machine where you can view time changing. If you see Earth fly away then you can reverse course and go back to the moment you left and not die.

• Third, if you must, get a time machine that is also a space craft. If you can borrow the USS Enterprise then this is ideal. A DeLorean is not as it cannot travel in space and besides, 88 mph in space is nothing when you see how fast everything is moving.

• Finally, take into account that where you are going might not welcome time travelers.

You probably are wondering what time periods to avoid if you are able to travel safely through time. Well here are a few.

1. Avoid the dinosaur era as you might get eaten.

2. Avoid the era of the Salem Witch Trials and you more than likely will be burned at the stake for sorcery.

3. Avoid landing in the middle of a famous battle. Nothing will change history more than if a time machine or UFO looking object suddenly landed in the middle of Gettysburg or the Battle of the Bulge.

What if you are captured or seen and want to avoid death? What can you do then? Well you could pretend to be a powerful god or messenger who can create fire with the push of a button (hint, bring an iPhone with a saved video of fire) and this will likely cause the locals to grant you demigod status. Of course you will change the course of history but who cares? You are likely stuck in the past anyways so might as well enjoy having people drop grapes into your mouth and fan you with large palm leaves. Let someone else be responsible for restoring the timeline.