I find myself pondering this when I'm really baked....suppose you were looking at another planet...say 50 light years from earth with a VERY powerfull telescope...the laws of physics say you would be seeing what was happening there 50 yrs in its (the planet) past...NOW suppose there is a MIRROR on that planet reflecting your image back to you (for the sake of argument it would act as telescope as well)....you would see earth as 50 yrs in the past right?...pretty mind bending!...and if you could focus down to street level..would you actually see people walking/driving around??

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I don't know the same things you don't know
Vlad the Inhaler/Scientist/Astronaut/general fuckup

That would be totally trippy

Well I guess you would see earth 100 yrs in the past..that would be WILD!

__________________
I don't know the same things you don't know
Vlad the Inhaler/Scientist/Astronaut/general fuckup

theoretically i geuss that would be true. if you could somehow view ...no, cause the way it works is not that you see the planet 50 years in its past. Okay.

The reason that we would perceive the planet as much older than it is, is because the visible light rays have taken time to cross the universe and eventually arrive at our planet. The planet itself is still in the present (ours as well as its own). The common conception of viewing (which I think you may be using right now) is that we see things outwards from ourselves. Really what happens is that the light travels to our eyes, and then we process and interpert it into images.

Technically, this would only be possible if you traveled, say 50 lightyears away from the earth. Then the light reaching you would be from 50 years ago. However, as it would take you much longer than 50 years to travel 50 lightyears, you would actually be seeing into the "future", according to your own personal standards. Yet if you just remained on Earth, you would see that progress and more, so it's not really plausible.


...sorry to burst your bubble...
(but that's just according to science anyway.........

no, if supposing there were a mirror telescope with a mirror image of our planet, you would see what was happening in that mirror fifty years ago from that planet, but that would also take 50 years for any light from earth to travel to that mirror so it would essentially be a window into our past 100 years ago.

you know what's crazy... the milky way galaxy, by popular estimation anyway is about 100,000 light years in diameter.

that is, at least to me, incomprehensibly large.
god what i wouldn't give to be a mayan.

anyone else try to diffuse their atoms and travel through space time?

hahahaha... I try to do it every day.
true stoner.

No, because everything is still in the present. But anyways, i'm not stoned enough to seriously debate this now, and it still wouldn't be time travel, because you would not be moving through time. it'd be time "viewing".

it doesnt matter... everything is happening in the present... but if we were to view a planet 50 light years away, we'd see it only as fast as the light could travel. we'd see it in it's solar orbit 50 years previous to where it is now. it's suns galactic orbit 50 some odd years from where it is now. you can't argue with space time.

If you look at something across the room all you're REALLY seeing is reflected light anyway!...Hypothetically it will work...but you have to consider that the lense compressing that distance would also "collect" every bit of dust along the way which would probably block any view you had...

__________________
I don't know the same things you don't know
Vlad the Inhaler/Scientist/Astronaut/general fuckup

...that's exactly what i was saying. that's why you can't see the earth in the past like that. i dunno why you're trying to debunk my arguement with my arguement...

hypothetically, i geuss. as the light would take 50 years to get to the planet, then 50 to get back...however you wouldn't actually get a clear view, becuase if you think about it, how much can you even see of the planets in our own solar system? most of the images procured are either from the space mission things that photograph stuff, or from non-visible radiation. it's weird, but i geuss your hypothetical situation would kinda work...(i just wasn't high enough to get over the reality and be amazed by the concept...)