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The earth is moving and so is the solar system, so shouldn’t they end up in space every time they travel through time?

BCdotWEB
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BrettYeager
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    Yes they should. All sci-fi ignores this aspect, otherwise we couldn't have time travel in movies :P – Tetsujin Sep 04 '20 at 17:52
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    One has to suspend disbelief in general for time travel - this is only one aspect of the problem. – iandotkelly Sep 04 '20 at 18:21
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    Gravity bro ! Gravity ! Thou art a heartless bitch. – Rahul Sep 04 '20 at 18:27
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    Maybe the DeLorean doesn't only move through time, maybe it moves through Time And Relative Dimensions In Space as well. I guess Doc Brown just didn't think that had the same ring as "Flux Capacitor." ;) – Steve-O Sep 04 '20 at 18:58
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    All motion is relative; the earth is only moving in space as compared to other objects such as the sun. – GendoIkari Sep 04 '20 at 19:04
  • I agree with Gendolkari. We don't know how time travel works, but if it involves any sort of motion, it probably wouldn't require any suspension of disbelief, at least in some cases. – M.A.R. Sep 04 '20 at 19:23
  • Anyone interested in writing a time travel story with a twist could use this as a jumping off point. “Turns out we were sending the test matter though time, we just couldn’t get it back again because we forgot to account for the different position of the earth. But we discovered momentum is conserved during the time jump, so the obvious solution is the time machine has to be a space vehicle.” – Todd Wilcox Sep 05 '20 at 04:00
  • A scientist who can create a device that could navigate space time would surely account for something as simple as the rotation and revolution of the Earth. Who said he didn't? – MovieMe Sep 05 '20 at 15:44

2 Answers2

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Probably the first reference to time travel is in H.G.Wells' The Time Machine.
The premise in the book was that the machine moved with the Earth because it was resting on the ground the whole time. Movement through time was progressive, there was no jump from one time to another.

The reader merely has to overlook the effects of erosion after the volcanic eruption.

Almost every time-travel narrative since has had the protagonists stay with the planet on which they started. Following Wells' example and conveniently forgotting about spatial movement. It makes a story easier to follow, and it is supposed to be fiction after all.

Chenmunka
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Not necessarily

Since we don't actually know how time travel works in the movie, we've no way of knowing what it should or shouldn't do in this case.

It could be that it exploits General Relativity (which is known for its time-dilation properties) somehow and so might be tied to Earth's gravity. Or maybe the Doc - being a scientist - actually thought about the Earth's movement at some point during his 30 years of working on it and built in a sort of device to keep it in the same spot as it travelled through time.

There are probably any number of solutions to your problem that you could come up with and just assume the Doc came up with one of them too and used it.

Also it's worth remembering that the time travel kicks off when the flux capacitor is moving at 88mph relative to the Earth's surface - which lends credence to the fact that time-travel has some sort of fixation on a given point on Earth. (otherwise it would be different speeds and you would have to drive in a specific direction, depending on the time of day, year, or even eternity)

komodosp
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