Can you Tell the Future Using a Telescope? (Earth, light, theory)
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I've been racking my head on this one for some time and need help.
First a simplified scenario:
Person A is 100 light years away from Person B. Person B is 100 light years in front of Person C. Person C is 200 light years from Person A.
Person A shines a light and theoretically Person B will see the light from the Person A before Person C sees the light because of the whole speed of light thing. Great, no issues here.
Now ... say Person A is 100 light years away from a telescope. Person C is standing beside this telescope.
If person A shines a light towards the telescope and Person C, will light be seen by someone looking through the telescope before Person C who is looking with just their eyes?
I'm trying to figure out if a huge explosion happens deep in space, but will be viewable by the naked eye, would a person looking in a telescope actually see this explosion before someone without the use of a telescope, thus being able to see the future?
I mean i guess the person looking through the telescope could say *"ooh I know what's going to happen" to person C. I guess that would be called the immediate present future.
But i wouldnt call it "telling" the future. Unless of course the telescope wasnt real.
*I think, if im understanding you it would be akin to two people and an oncoming car.*
Say I have good hearing and the other person has bad hearing. I say a car will pass by, because i hear it before the other person. Therefore my present is the other's future. However when we think of time, I think we generally think of it as objective and not really dictated by our individual selves.
In your case one is just seeing the past before another; maybe "a future" but not "the future."
... Person C is 200 light years from Person A. ...
...say Person A is 100 light years away from a telescope. Person C is standing beside this telescope.
This part of your scenario does not make sense. First you say C is 200 LY from A. Then you say A is 100 LY from a telescope, but this telescope is right next to C. Are you presenting two different scenarios here?
In any case, light from whatever celestial event is going to hit the naked eye and the telescope at the exact same time, assuming they are next to each other. There is no increased ability by the telescope to see the future here.
The only advantage the telescope will have is that it will be able to discern fainter, likely more distance sources of light. Thus it will be able to see some events that the human eye will not be able to detect.
A telescope cannot be used to see the future...but a telescope can be used to see the past.
You can even see the past with your own eyes, if you look in the right direction. But a telescope lets you see the past more clearly.
You're right, a telescope can't see the future, only the past. I wouldn't limit it to just celestial objects we see whether by telescope or by the unaided eye. Although such distant objects are a great example of seeing the past. Even what you see on your computer's monitor is fromthe past because it takes time for the light to reach your eyes, albeit an extremely short period of time. In effect it means everything we see are events that happened in the past, even if it was only one trillionth of a second ago. Strangely, if we think about it, what we call the present is really made up of tiny events from the past. We can make various predictions about the future, but we can never directly observe it from our own point in time of the here and now (the present) because the future hasn't happened yet.
Actually none of the above explanations are good. A telescope certainly doesn't see into the future and it doesn't see into the past anymore than our own eyes do.
Imagine you are looking up at the night sky ...standing along side of a telescope, The light that impinges upon our eyes arrives at the front of the telescope at the exact same instant. The only thing a telescope does is gather more light by virtue of it's wider aperture than our own eyes. It then focuses this light down to a beam of a diameter of our own eyes. In short it's just a magnifier. But the light entering it arrived no sooner or any later than the light from the same distant object entered our eyes. Now, with unaided eyes the light from the distant object maybe too dim for us to see., but it's there none the less. There is NO time of arrival difference between the light entering a telescope or our eyes.
Actually none of the above explanations are good. A telescope certainly doesn't see into the future and it doesn't see into the past anymore than our own eyes do.
Imagine you are looking up at the night sky ...standing along side of a telescope, The light that impinges upon our eyes arrives at the front of the telescope at the exact same instant. The only thing a telescope does is gather more light by virtue of it's wider aperture than our own eyes. It then focuses this light down to a beam of a diameter of our own eyes. In short it's just a magnifier. But the light entering it arrived no sooner or any later than the light from the same distant object entered our eyes. Now, with unaided eyes the light from the distant object maybe too dim for us to see., but it's there none the less. There is NO time of arrival difference between the light entering a telescope or our eyes.
The person with the telescope would 'see' it first though right?
Philosophically I think one can argue that the one with the telescope definitely has an experiential knowledge advantage before the person without.
Maybe a more extreme experiment would be a telescope on another planet at the edge of the universe. It witnesses an explosion in space, and is able to beam it through a wormhole to earth on a TV screen instantly.
We know that it happened but won't be able to 'see' the light for ourselves with either our own telescopes or eyes.
I think a modified version of what I said earlier still stands.
"...one is just seeing the past before another; maybe "a future" (relative to someone else) but not "the future.""
The person with the telescope would 'see' it first though right?
Philosophically I think one can argue that the one with the telescope definitely has an experiential knowledge advantage before the person without.
Maybe a more extreme experiment would be a telescope on another planet at the edge of the universe. It witnesses an explosion in space, and is able to beam it through a wormhole to earth on a TV screen instantly.
We know that it happened but won't be able to 'see' the light for ourselves with either our own telescopes or eyes.
I think a modified version of what I said earlier still stands.
"...one is just seeing the past before another; maybe "a future" (relative to someone else) but not "the future.""
I said "The light that impinges upon our eyes arrives at the front of the telescope at the exact same instant."
That's what I said and it is exactly correct as stated....don't try to confuse yourself with worm holes and other unrelated stuff...
Now I'll really get you thinking....well maybe
If the observer standing along side the telescope and another person is actually looking thru the telescope are looking at the same object...in fact...the person looking thru the telescope is actually looking at light that the visually unaided observer has already seen..! This is because light traveling thru the telescope arrives at the observing eyepiece later than the naked eye observer. Opposite of what you're thinking.
Light travels thru a substance/material slower than it does thru air. thus the light traveling thru the lenses of a telescope arrives at an observes eyes after it arrives at an un-aided observers eyes. This is clearly true for a refractor type telescope. For a reflector type instrument the light path is longer (multiple
bounces) so the same statement is true .
I repeat
There is NO time of arrival difference between the light entering a telescope or our eyes.
If the observer standing along side the telescope and another person is actually looking thru the telescope are looking at the same object...in fact...the person looking thru the telescope is actually looking at light that the visually unaided observer has already seen..! This is because light traveling thru the telescope arrives at the observing eyepiece later than the naked eye observer. Opposite of what you're thinking.
Light travels thru a substance/material slower than it does thru air. thus the light traveling thru the lenses of a telescope arrives at an observes eyes after it arrives at an un-aided observers eyes. This is clearly true for a refractor type telescope. For a reflector type instrument the light path is longer (multiple
bounces) so the same statement is true .
I repeat
There is NO time of arrival difference between the light entering a telescope or our eyes.
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