Time Travel Pt 2 - Where In Space?

OK, here's one, time travel geniuses. Let's say you time travel to another time, where in space do you end up? Most would assume in the same spot you left. But the spot you left is NOT THE SAME SPOT IN TIME!! It's safe to guesstimate the earth has never been in the same spot twice. According to some website, the earth spins 30KM a minute. That's like 2 miles. Or 80 miles, I'm a geek but I don't convert metric. Whatever, get in your car and look at the KM on your odometer instead of miles. When you get to 30, think of how far you'd get in an hour. We do it EVERY MINUTE!

The earth revolves around the sun 1800KM in a minute. We basically live on the teacups. On top of that, our solar system revolves around the Milky Way Galaxy 15,000KM in a minute, and THE GALAXY is moving 18,000KM a minute. Plus, the universe is constantly expanding so you're moving even faster. So I think I did the math right, we are moving almost 600KM a second. So if you travel through time, you are likely to end up in empty space or inside of a random star. Be prepared for that.

If there's some sort of teleporter involved, I guess you can do the calculations and figure out where in space you'd need to be at a certain spot in time, but I think at that point you might as well forget time travel because the space travel teleporter machine is probably more marketable. What's the point of going back in time to plunder gold from the ancient Egyptians and bang Cleopatra if you can just find an asteroid made of gold and bang an alien?

Time Travel Pt 1 - Changing the past

Remember in Back To The Future when Marty McFly's brothers and sisters (and himself) started fading out because he was failing? Did that make any sense?? That was the first time I really started thinking seriously about time travel.

Basically, I am of the opinion that you can not change the past. IT ALREADY HAPPENED. Some people talk about different timelines or universes or whatever. BULLSHIT. Either you're going back in time or you're not! You could go back in time to ensure that something did happen, but it would turn out that you had been there all along. Even if you managed to change something, if you truly changed it, you would only remember it as something that had always been that way, and you probably wouldn't go back in time to change it, so that creates a paradox. So forget that.

Check out Terminator, this is an example of somebody really getting it. The Terminator goes back in time to try to change something, but they only ever end up moving closer and closer to the future that the Terminator came from. That's what I'm talking about!! It turns out that he was there the whole time! And the dude they send back to stop the Terminator ends up becoming John Connors' dad! It never happened without him, BECAUSE YOU CAN'T CHANGE TIME. They were sending somebody back in time to change something, but they didn't realize that they were only fulfilling what had already happened.

I'm also a fan of Bill and Ted promising to go back in time - at a later date - and fixing a problem that they had that very moment. Why don't more people do this in movies?? Let's say I'm in a shootout with some crazy Indians (in the Wild West), and I'm really outgunned. I can plan to come back in time at a later date and give myself some reinforcements, and as long as I follow through with that, I'm good, right? There could be 100 of myself, totally shooting all the Indians. I don't have to live through a "timeline" without reinforcements, and then go back and change it, I just have to make it so that it's ALWAYS LIKE THAT.

If you would like to change something that happened in the past, it just couldn't be possible. It already happened. If you end up in some other "timeline" or "multiverse" then you aren't time traveling, you're visiting a parallel universe in a way that resembles time travel.

The Flash

The Flash has always pissed me off. He is the most powerful Superhero in the DC Universe, and he's portrayed as a douche. He just runs fast and does stuff fast. His power is so much more than that. He has no drive, he's just doing it for the fun of it. Look at Batman, the dude has no powers, he just kicks ass day and night because he hates crime. The Flash was like, "I've got nothing better to do so I might as well stop some guys who PERPETUALLY ROB THE BANK." Seriously, they don't ever learn?? And WTF, robbing banks?? When is the last time The Flash broke up a check-fraud operation? Robbing a bank is a minimum 25 year sentence and almost every bank robber gets caught. You can make more money scamming with much lower risk and lower penalties. Flash just beats up retards all day long. So impressive.

Look at his powers!! The dude is amazing! He could use his vibration thing to rip out Superman's heart and eyeballs, or just make them explode. That is HARD CORE. Superman wouldn't even know what hit him. What if the last thing he saw was Flash holding his heart and saying, "Hey, it was me." I would crap my pants. Maybe Flash should be evil, then his book wouldn't keep getting cancelled over and over again.

Above all that, Flash can travel through time. He basically owns time. Nobody else really does it like he does. I mean, Superman used to do the spinning the world backward thing, but that proved to be too much of a reach even for comic books, so they dropped it. I'd like to see an Elseworlds story where Superman's family is killed and he goes nuts and to try to bring them back he makes the world spin around backward and ends up killing all life on earth.

Why the hell does Flash run around beating up bank robbers and do JLA watchtower duty all day when he is easily the most powerful superhero in the universe?

I'm going to try not to focus on superheroics too much, but I had to get this out while it was fresh.

Invisibility Eye Test

OK, I'm sure you've seen invisible people pop up in science fiction or superhero stories from time to time. Famous examples are H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man, The Invisible Woman from Fantastic Four, and other sorts of things that have cloaking devices that make them invisible to the naked eye.

There's only one problem. I'm willing to accept a fictional reality where invisibility is possible, so that's not the problem. We are going to assume that invisibility is for real. But how do these invisible people see? I mean, I don't know about you but for me, light enters my head through my pupils, is reflected off my retina, which sends the signal to my brain that deciphers what's going on. An invisible person's retina is absolutely useless because the light passes through it. They would be blind. Any sort of device to capture the light would have to be visible or at least cast a visible shadow.

If the writers of Fantastic Four are going into "unstable molecules" then they should address this issue, as well.

This is what Stan Lee told me personally when I posed this question to him:
"It's simple, Ben-- she wears contacts! But tell me, how do you know light passes through invisible people? I mean, how many invisible people have you met lately?"

WHAT A TOTAL BS ANSWER!!! STAN, YOU COPPED OUT. I know light passes through invisible people because THEY ARE INVISIBLE!! IT IS THE DEFINITION OF INVISIBLE, unless you are in complete darkness, but then everything is invisible and there is no light. Or if somebody is blind, then to them, everything is invisible. But assuming someone is in broad daylight and your vision is not impaired, if you can't see them, they shouldn't be able to see you, either, because they are blind. Me: 1 - Stan: 0. BAM! Done. Next...

P.S. Stan, thanks for the no-prize. STILL A COP OUT, THOUGH!!!!

I'm a dork, and that's why I'm here.

I'm going to use this blogging space to post about the scientific things in fictional worlds that make me pull my hair out, like how Peter Parker can't hold down a steady job but he invented these amazing web shooters, and on top of that, web fluid. WTF, why doesn't he either market those or create something else??

Stuff like that. Don't get me started on time travel...