Archeological Viewing?

[kkozoriz1]

Right now this will be the first of Christopher's books that I don't pick up. I am SO tired of time travel. The thought of an entire novel dealing with it doesn't sound interesting in the least. Of all the Trek plots, time travel is the one that's the most overdone.

 

[publiusr]

Something to think about. Say we are at a pretty good distance from a star, enough so that we might see some of their history, and they ours. Due to the light delay, we record one another's histories by accident.

 

[Christopher]

How is that an accident? If both cultures are advanced enough to have that kind of telescopic power, then surely they both understand that the speed of light is finite, so they'd both know going in that they'd be seeing each other's pasts. I mean, that's just the way it works. It's a given in astronomy that the further out into space you look, the further back in time you're seeing.

 

[publiusr]

True--I should have used the words "by-product of" rather than accident.

Imagine an alien coming to us with a detailed map of the Earth in the 1680s, say. On a geologic scale, not much has changed, its just that it happens to be a historical artifact to us.