Science Fiction for Nitpickers

[esper]

I was just thinking up some puzzles and the idea crossed my mind of having my main character come across some kind of time-stopping technology (don't worry, there are no spoilers here, I decided not to use this in my game) in order to stop a missile strike that would wipe out the entire city. When I thought about grabbing what should be the hot-to-the-touch missiles to turn them back on their source and having the text read "They are unusually cold for rocket-propelled missiles," I got to thinking... you wouldn't be able to survive if you could stop all time around you. Heat is simply the result of friction from the vibration of the molecules in a substance. If time were to stop completely, this vibration would no longer exist and the entire area effected by the time-stop technology would be zero degrees Kelvin, AKA absolute zero, and the character would die instantly.

Does anyone else have any cool sci fi that just wouldn't be possible, and why? Or a rebuttal for the one I posted (don't just say "Duurrr, you can wear a special suit that keeps you warm, herf derf," actually have some science to explain it)?

[ManicMatt]

If I switched brains with someone else to be in their body, wouldn't my brain and brain cavity be different sizes to theirs?

Okay, not my idea.... but...

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Your "time" thing is true, but since stopping time is already bending the laws of *whatever*, let's bend them a little further. Consider an extreme slowdown, instead of stopping. Like, half a millimetre every thousand years. Now consider that it brings everything down proportionally, including the amount of vibration necessary to produce heat. Not sure I'm explaining myself as well as I'd like to, but this is something one could "buy", I think.

Anyway, I don't think time-stopping tales go that far. Their reasoning is so much like hitting the pause-button - it's so much of a human fantasy, really... and it implies that everything would stop. Your scientific explanation, while correct, assumes that some essential rules of physics will still apply, and that's just it. They don't apply anymore.

Sheesh, what an incomprehensible post. I may try again later when I wake up.

[GreenBoy]

Anything made like that would have to have some sort of safety feature.

Its just plan bad PR for someone to make a time stopper that kills people.

Anyways puzzles in adventure games dont have to make physics sense only mental sense.
Take a classic like picking up some coins with a magnet.  I dont know of any coins that can be magnetised.  At least not very easily.  But people use it all the time....

I suppose my point is that science fiction is fiction.

Otherwise spacetravel etc become rather ellusive.

[fred]

Maybe your device could be fixed if instead of freezing time it made a time-loop of a certain interval, or traversed the same interval in forward and reverse alternately. So the friction between molecules would be there, just in cycles or in reverse. If the interval was very short, time would still seem perfectly frozen.

[ManicMatt]

How come when you pause time you don't pause yourself? Didn't think of that did you, but you did think about molecules... 

[Unknown_Terror]

How come when you pause time you don't pause yourself? Didn't think of that did you, but you did think about molecules...Ã, 

Pausing time would probably pause yourself. It depends what exactly gets paused when time is paused....Time could be considered the fourth dimension of motion, in which case stopping time would stop everything, including yourself.

[ManicMatt]

Pausing time would probably pause yourself.

Really? I didn't think of that.

[Tuomas]

Then why on earth would someone pause the time if they stopped themselves. tHen there would be no-one to start it again!

[SSH]

A pause is when something stops for a period of time. If time itself stops, how can that be a pause, since what "time" are you measuring it against? It's just a meaningless scifi plot device.

[Khris]

I think the movie "The Time Machine" (the remake starring Pierce) did a great job working around the problem. The time machine created a sphere inside which time passed normally from the point of view of someone operating it, while the outside world changed rapidly around the sphere when he traveled to the future or the past.

The sphere was penetrable, so if he stuck out his hand while traveling to the future, the circulation would be cut off instantly resulting in the hand falling off or transforming to dust, dependent on the time traveling "speed". (There's a scene in the movie showing this effect, but I don't want to spoil too much.)

I don't remember if he "paused the world" in the movie, but I'd think as soon as he did that, the sphere would become impenetrable:
Apart from temperature considerations, the point is whether things would still be mobile. My guess is that air'd become completely massively solid at zero time passing state (just like everything else). This is probably equivalent to the temperature dropping to 0 K, but I don't think I'd kill everyone rather than preserve them perfectly.

I can still vividly remember a Donald Duck comic book I read as a kid where Donald and his nephews had some kind of time stopping device. They walked over the grass and the pointy blades hurt their feet, and at one point they had to fight through pieces of garbage that had been blown up by the wind and were fixed in mid-air. I think this is the best approach to realizing such a device in a game.

[fred]

Any given constellation of molecules that constitutes the state of affairs at a moment in our time has (time==infinite) possibilities of reoccuring at some later point, even if time is never reversed or frozen. So there's no need for time travel or pausing time, just sit back and wait for the molecules to rearrange themselves properly again. With infinite time, the same situation is bound to occur again, including the particular constellation of molecules that make up you. Just remember, patience is a virtue...

[nulluser]

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[Akatosh]

Well, did any of you read Terry Pratchett's 'Time Thief' (or whatever the English name is, that's what you get if you translate the German one back to English)? Time gets stopped there; it only keeps running for certain - at least partially supernatural - entities (e.g. Death's granddaughter) and those who carry "their own time" with them around, stored in a complex machine. If that machine stops running (you can wind it up again), the person instantly freezes. Also, everything in the world freezes in time, for example, the shards of a window that was just broken float in the air. The continue to move again if they're touched by a supernatural entity or someone with a running "time storing device", but as soon as they leave that person's body (ouchie), they freeze again.

[nulluser]

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[Hammerite]

Well, did any of you read Terry Pratchett's 'Time Thief' (or whatever the English name is, that's what you get if you translate the German one back to English)? Time gets stopped there; it only keeps running for certain - at least partially supernatural - entities (e.g. Death's granddaughter) and those who carry "their own time" with them around, stored in a complex machine. If that machine stops running (you can wind it up again), the person instantly freezes. Also, everything in the world freezes in time, for example, the shards of a window that was just broken float in the air. The continue to move again if they're touched by a supernatural entity or someone with a running "time storing device", but as soon as they leave that person's body (ouchie), they freeze again.

in english it was 'The Thief Of Time'.
so nearly right. 

[Akatosh]

Well, my point was that the time stops everywhere, just not where the device's user stands, so he can still breath and everything. Of course, he'd have to carry the device or some kind of remote control or such with him the whole time.

[Babar]

Time had already stopped. Some idiot designed and created a machine to freeze time, and turned it on. While it is technically incorrect to measure time when there is no time, by my calculations, it was stopped for roundabout 3200 years. You fools probably didn't even notice! I got a chance to travel to the future (can't really go into much detail about that, sorry), and wished to go to the year 2012 (the supposed "new" date for the end of the world), but something yanked me back.

When I got here, everything was still, nothing moving. It was really freaky. I thought to go around and have a little fun , but when I stepped out of the time-hole field, I think my movement caused everything to start again. So now I'm stuck here, nobody I know, years lost off my life.


.....


So now you know why I spend so much time on the forums.