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[–] 160 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

That time machine still works, to be fair, just at 1X.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

    The movie Primer has a very limited time machine that works at -2X. You turn the machine on at, for instance, 2PM, and walk away, coming back in, say, eight hours. You then go into the machine, and you stay in there for eight hours. When you come out of the machine, it is now 2PM, the time when you first turned the machine on. It is a one-way machine; you can only ever use it to go backwards, and you have to go forwards in time the old-fashioned way.

    It was made on a budget of $7000 and it's one of the best sci-fi movies ever made.

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    [–] 81 points 3 weeks ago (9 children)

    How hard would it be to Dr stone a 120v live outlet?

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  • [–] 53 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    the dinos would get you first so very.

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  • [–] 31 points 3 weeks ago* (2 children)

    About half as difficult as it would be for the 220/240V one it needs.

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  • [–] 18 points 3 weeks ago* (2 children)

    there was an episode where they created a dynamo generator and batteries.

    1000004273

    that took them something like six months with many people helping.

    unfortunately dynamos(like above) and batteries work on DC current. that time machine works on AC.

    so you would need to do two things.

    1. create a mechanical DC>AC inverter that preferably is powered from the physical input of the dynamo
    2. create batteries in both series and parallel to ensure a 120v voltage is maintained at the required amperage.

    also consider that north American standards require electricity to run at 60hz. this means the AC signal flips the DC signal 60 times per second. creating a mechanical inverter would need to take into account the size of the circle for a complete rotation in 1 second as well as the speed at which the dynamo must spin in order to get 60 alterations per second. the rough formula would look something like: frequency = speed/(diameter*3.14). speed can be variable depending on the size of the copper wheel used as well.

    to sum everything up, for just the two people there, it's probably going to take them too long and they'll die from exposure or predators.

    get excited

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  • [–] 11 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

    Assuming Dr. Stone is some kind of MacGyver regen:

    Two obvious approaches to me that I'll run through in high level: build a wind/watermill generators or potato/lemon batteries

    First thing you'll need to figure out for both is how to make some wire. That's going to require finding some metal ore and a hot furnace, and creating a few tools out of stone to work with it.

    The biggest difficulty with the former two is going to be finding some ferrous metal to turn into magnets. You can make a magnet without electricity by smashing the shit out of some iron as it's aligned with the earth's magnetic field, and it'll become a weak magnet. From there with enough wire, you can build a generator. With the sails of the mill, you can build that out of wood and foliage.

    For potato or lemon batteries, you're going to need a shitload, as they give you about a volt and a pretty tiny current, but theoretically you could figure something out that way with enough. I imagine some things may want to eat your batteries though

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  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago* (1 child)

    how to make some wire. [...] finding some ferrous metal to turn into magnets.

    These two ingredients put our 120v dynamo really far up the tech tree from "make fire." Our intrepid time travelers are going to spend years trying to not be velocaraptor food and foraging for a meal themselves, all while making stupendous amounts of charcoal and prospecting for ore.

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    [–] 67 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    No problem. The same people arrive from even later in the future with enough built-in power for both machines and rescue themselves. Everyone returns to their own times. When they arrive back in the earlier time, now they know they have to build another machine with spare power to go rescue themselves.

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  • [–] 30 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    trash can. remember a trash can.

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  • [–] 26 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    What I love about that scene is that Bill and Ted are too dumb to know what a paradox is, and how dangerous that can be for a stable timeline. Instead, they just intuit the most useful way to abuse time travel and everything just happens to work out.

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    [–] 40 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

    That's exactly why the movie was called "Back the the Future": they had to find a way to get ... "back the the future".

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    [–] 39 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)
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    [–] 30 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    Travel million of years into the past, you show up in the opposite side of the galaxy were the solar system used to be

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    [–] 19 points 3 weeks ago* (1 child)

    The fact that it seems to be using a standard two prong plug outlet means it's incredibly power efficient just bring a jackery with you

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    [–] 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    They can be glad they're still on earth not somewhere in empty space. What a lucky coincidence.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago*

    between the planet revolving around the sun, the solar system revolving around the galaxy, and space expanding, we're moving at hundreds of thousands of km/h. Good luck getting back to where you started.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    Reminds me of my ole lady friend Marsha Worthsby used to live up top the hills back in days when we had to share the road with stegosaurus when we walked to school uphill both ways in waist-high snow. One day we was cold and decided to go into town to see if we could warm up at Bickett's hardware store because they was one of the first places to get power where I grew up. Marsha had the bright idea to buy a heater for a nickle and take it home. One problem, they had not run power up to the top of the hill in those days. She could not use it. Bickett's let her return the thing but only gave her 4 pennies back on account it was open.

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    [–] 8 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    Now it's time to search for some potatoes.

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    [–] 8 points 3 weeks ago* (2 children)

    Damn, now they have to make an alternator to spec without any tools or even raw materials with the knowledge they have in their heads. Time to dig for copper I guess.. whoops no shovels either..

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    [–] 7 points 3 weeks ago

    Anyone have an Orbitz drink?

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