Fast foward history...

[CiD]

This is an idea i proposed to my dad a few days ago... Say we discover a planet orbiting around another star like a million lightyears away. Say we had a telescope powerful enough to examine details of this planet. Even if there were intelligent life on the planet, our view of the planet is a million years old (imagine earth a million years ago). Now lets say that if someone were to fly a spaceship with this crazy huge telescope attached to the front toward the planet. Granted, this spaceship will need to fly somewhere in the neighborhood 10,000c times the speed of light or more. Disregarding the impossibilities of the spaceship and telescope, couldn't you fast foward the history of that planet? If there is life on the planet, couldn't you observe the evolution of life on that planet? By the time the ship arrives there, it has witnessed the million year history of the planet in the space of 100 years. Given this fact, the technology required to achieve this is not even an issue. If it would take 500 years for us to come up with the technology to do this, we would only miss 500 years of the history of the planet, We could still observe the original 999,500 years of history plus the extra 600 years to come up with the technology and make the trip.

[rockinred]

Lol that sounds pretty cool. Maybe one day...

[27]

Sounds plausible, but of course it would only look like it's fast forwarding.

[Super Duck]

Yeah, I'm sure you're correct there.

[Barns]

Please tell me if I failed: If you were flying away then would everything go in slow-motion?

[CiD]

Depending on how fast you are going yes. In order for it to rewind you would need to go faster than light. I'm not really sure what would happen in this specific idea. Is there any picture at all? Is the light coming from in front of the ship?

[Xaqaria]

These 'what-ifs' don't really work, and there really is no answer to them. To say 'Disregarding the impossibilities of the spaceship and telescope' is almost the same as saying 'disregarding the implications of relativity and light speed as a constant' which is the crux of your hypothetical question.

[27]

Please tell me if I failed: If you were flying away then would everything go in slow-motion? I don't think so. If you were moving away from something faster than the speed of light, then light itself couldn't reach your telescope, or your eyes so you wouldn't see anything at all. I think.

[Super Duck]

I don't think so. If you were moving away from something faster than the speed of light, then light itself couldn't reach your telescope, or your eyes so you wouldn't see anything at all. I think. Ah ... true. But then does that mean if you travel faster than light-speed, everything behnd you is black, and everything in front of you is fastforwarding? Lol. Also, if you travelled at exactly light-speed would the stuff behind you pause?

[CiD]

These 'what-ifs' don't really work, and there really is no answer to them. To say 'Disregarding the impossibilities of the spaceship and telescope' is almost the same as saying 'disregarding the implications of relativity and light speed as a constant' which is the crux of your hypothetical question. Yes, but if this were possible in the future we can still accomplish this with a (million years history - the amount of years it would take to design something like that). Could take another 2000 years, but you would only miss 2000 years out of the million to be viewed. When I first proposed the idea I thought simply the light we observe is a million years old and a spaceship (unmanned sort of like the voyagers) could fly to it and when it gets close the light will be 1 year old. In which case it has recorded the history of that planet. Then I realized how fast that ship would have to go to make this practical. At under the speed of light you will have 3,000,000 years of data and 2,000,000 to get it (At 1/2 the speed of light), or a million if it is transmitted to earth. Just something to think about... edit: I think one of the voyagers is on its way to alpha centari. It could record the history of that star, but it is only 4.5 lightyears away...i think.