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literally looking into earths past

Anonymous Sat 09 May 00:10:56 2020 No.11651937 View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>11651940 >>11651962 >>11652019 >>11652021 >>11652058 >>11652100

hypothetically, could we use a chain of mirrors out to certain distances to see into earth's past, the same way we look at starlight from billions of years ago? please see image for further details.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:12:08 No.11651939 Report

Quoted By: >>11651955

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:12:55 No.11651940 Report

Quoted By: >>11651955

>>11651937
No. Violates Special Relativity.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:20:45 No.11651955 Report

Quoted By: >>11652213

>>11651939
does this not make sense? pretend we can turn off the light that earth emits (or reflects, whatever). while its turned off, we make a string of mirrors that loop back to earth, the final mirror being out of earths orbit, completely stationary in space. now turn earths light back on. that light will have to travel x2 light years from the earth, to furthest mirror, then back to the return mirror. lets say x, the distance of the furthest mirror, is 500 thousand light years away. that would mean it would have to go another 500 thousand light years to make the return trip, resulting in the final return mirror giving us a constant picture of earth 1 million years ago (once the light has finally reached the return mirror, that is.)
>>11651940
what does that mean?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:24:27 No.11651962 Report

Quoted By: >>11652037

>>11651937
Fun idea, but it would work like the time machine in Primer: The history would only start being recorded when you first set up the device. You're suggesting keeping the light trapped in a loop until you want to access it. There would only be a finite amount of light, and every time you peak at it, it is lost, and the light remaining in the loop decreases in intensity a bit.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:33:29 No.11651998 Report

Quoted By:

No it does not violate shit. light takes time to travel and special relativity just tells us that in all inertial reference frames light travels the same speed. meaning you cant run with a flashlight to increase the speed of light

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:38:00 No.11652019 Report

Quoted By:

>>11651937
OP put this into a spacetime diagram and You'll understand why it wont work.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:38:46 No.11652021 Report

Quoted By: >>11652027 >>11652037

>>11651937
Yes you can but practically you can't, you would need a huge ass distance of mirrors that we will never be able to even reach one way. If you are suggesting that we loop the light inside a system or device it won't work.
Just take a picture, there, you can look at the past.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:40:42 No.11652027 Report

Quoted By: >>11652035

>>11652021
i just wanted to know if it would work conceptually. i know we could never possibly do that in reality but it was just a lingering thought ive had.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:42:08 No.11652035 Report

Quoted By:

>>11652027
Then the answer is yes

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:43:07 No.11652037 Report

Quoted By: >>11652042 >>11652050

>>11651962
>>11652021
i didnt say anything about a "loop" either so im not entirely sure what you mean. to clarify, i proposed that setting up a mirror (or a system of mirrors) out to x light years, and having a few more mirrors to bring the light at x light years away back to earth would give us a picture of earth from ~x2 light years away

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:44:54 No.11652042 Report

Quoted By: >>11652048 >>11652050

>>11652037
>"...would give us a picture of earth from ~x2 light years away"
*would give us a picture of earth ~x2 years ago

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:46:11 No.11652048 Report

Quoted By:

>>11652042
Yea sure

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:47:34 No.11652050 Report

Quoted By: >>11652061

>>11652037
>>11652042
Both. The light is 2 years old, but it also takes you at least 2 light years to set up your mirrors, so ultimately you won't be able to get light from before you send out the mirrors from Earth.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:50:01 No.11652058 Report

Quoted By: >>11652064 >>11652066

>>11651937
That mirror (only a single giant one and a telescope would suffice) would have to be projected out into space faster than the speed of light in order to capture old information and send it back.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:51:58 No.11652061 Report

Quoted By:

>>11652050
i realize that but i just wanted to clarify semantics to make it as understandable as possible. but if thats the case then thats what i wanted to know. i dont know much about special relativity or spacetime diagrams anything so if anyone else wants to chime in about that go ahead

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:53:33 No.11652064 Report

Quoted By: >>11652066

>>11652058
>only a single giant one and a telescope would suffice
i just now realized this lol. would make it alot easier to explain. but what do you mean? that we would need to launch the mirror faster than the SoL? why not keep it stationary?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 00:54:35 No.11652066 Report

Quoted By:

>>11652064
>>11652058
when i asked you to explain what you meant, i meant in regards to you aying it would need to be "projected into space"

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 01:09:53 No.11652100 Report

Quoted By: >>11652294

>>11651937
No, because the present isn't a key to the past. Uniformitarianism is extremely flawed.

See: https://cdn.mrctv.org/sites/default/files/videos/converted/114507.mp4

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 02:03:01 No.11652213 Report

Quoted By:

>>11651955
It would definitely work but the mirror would have to be gigantic and we'd just be seeing earth after having launched the mirror in space not before that.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 09 May 2020 02:43:27 No.11652294 Report

Quoted By:

>>11652100
what the fuck did I just watch a 35 minute video?

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