time to think

that's why you build it like a spaceship 🤷 ez

Position isn't absolute so if this happens this means you knowingly made the time machine memorize position relative to e.g. the sun rather than the earth.
- incorrect, that is not what this means. They could have forgotten about the position setting all together. Also why the suns position? it is also moving and non absolute, just like earths. Makes no difference in this meme
  
  All of space is moving, you need to fix a reference point, there's nothing to stop you making it earth
  
  They could have forgotten about the position setting all together.
  You're assuming that the time machine would just change the time and keep the position but there is no absolute reference frame, so the time machine should use some reference frame in which it keeps the position constant. It would then be common sense to have the time machine keep the position relative to the earth. Anything else would be pretty dumb, unless you want to use your time machine also for space travel to other planets.
  why the suns position
  That was just an example. It's either the sun or the center of our galaxy, or some other reference point so if it wasn't the earth then the sun is the next most logical option.

You've got to entangle the same machine first over a massive macro quantum space-time superposition.

I remember reading about this concept as a kid in a short story Neal Shusterman wrote called Same Time, Next Year. Blew my mind

If space is always expanding, I’d really like to know if a time traveler would experience issues existing in a universe where the space between atoms is different from the one they left.
- They are not, that would require changes in the strong force.
- They wouldn't; the expansion of space isn't strong enough to change the distance between atoms; the force holding them together overcomes it.
- I was under the impression that gravity was a constant force keeping the atoms closer together
  
  More importantly it's the electromagnetic force that keeps atoms together. Gravity only keeps planets and stars together and also solar systems and galaxies, but in ordinary objects it's totally negligible.
  
  Space itself is constantly expanding. Theories of the Big Rip predict the space between atomic particles could become vast enough to rip them apart.

Should have watched Tom Scott

I know we're in a meme community but this did get me thinking... Not only is the Earth spinning but it's also in an orbit around the Sun which is also orbiting around the center of the Milky Way which is moving through space relative to other galaxies and so on.
Do we have enough information to calculate a position in space in the future for Earth without a fixed reference other than current point?
- That's what einstein said. There is no fixed reference frame, but only relative ones. Every "inertial"(meaning, motion without any external force) frame of reference is equally valid as any other inertial frame movibg with respect to it.
  But for sure we can tell earth's orbit is not inertial since circular motion occur, which is due to external force of gravity.
  Edit:typo
  
  Shouldn't it be (at least theoretically) possible to find some sort of geometric center where - on average - the rest of the universe is expanding away from?
- There is not central point in the universe, and no way to calculate a position. Everything is relatove
- Here, that might be interesting to you.
  You are not where you think you are
- This is why Doctor Who has a time and space machine. Also because the BBC didn’t have the effects budget to show him flying around.
  
  We also get a few glances of the coordinate system that the time machines use in doctor who. It appears to have enough digits for a date/time as well as an X/Y/Z grid coordinate.
- I don't think we have a relative fixed point to go off unless you choose the centre of the big bang. It's all relative to other things around us which are also moving lol
  
  There actually isn't a center of the big bang, every point is expanding away equally.
  
  Isn't everywhere kinda the center?
- I think you'll run into the three body problem.

It's just another problem with the mechanics of the snap at the end of Avengers: Endgame
- Magic exists in that universe though and they're using some of the most powerful objects in the universe. So like if it's granting a wish, you just wish that everyone comes back to earth or whatever. It's not even really a suspension of disbelief. It feels more silly to think that genius scientists using wish granting artifacts wouldn't remember to account for the movement of the earth through space.
  
  I cant watch that movie without thinking of all the unintended consequences. Pilots on planes snapped out, plane goes down, when pilot is snapped back, where plane use to be, but is now free falling.

It should be illegal to remind people (me, particularly) about Steins;Gate while they're at work
I can't be fucking crying on the clock, dawg

This blew my mind. All those movies!
So, Back to the Future's a bunch of bullshit?!
- It's possible to assume that the professor did the math.
  But yeah any time machine would also basically have to have space travel built in to compensate.
  They knew that when they wrote Dr Who (IE the time travel machine is called a TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space).
  
  Nah, this thing with the planet moving under you is stupid because it assumes a fixed reference frame which is not a thing in our universe. Any movement is always relative to something. You can't just "stay in place". Having the Earth move from under you is very arbitrary.
- There's a ton of issues with time travel. That could be one, but most fictional time-travel devices can be said to accommodate for the difference in distance. It would just be boring to explain on-screen.
- floating astronaut with pistol always has been
- That's why doctor who works, its very clear about the fact that TARDIS travels in spacetime, it can do only time, only space or both space and time and they can get away with time traveling and still staying on earth
- It could be explained as a time and space machine but just saying time machine is easier.
  That's how ive always thought of these things in my head.
  
  but imagine if you could set it to the same time but different distance, it would allow you to teleport, that might be too strong.

Oooohh. Thanks for the tip, just added that into my time travelling port o pottie's destination algorithms. Gotta respect the earth be moving and shit.

Wow, I never thought about that.
- It's even cooler if you remember we send something to the moon even with all this variables and no calculators humans were able to know where the moon would be
  Of course the moon is relatively close but still
- Math is hard.

Also, the earth will never be in the same place twice. So it's not even like you can only jump increments of a solar year.
- And its not like there even is a same place. Position is relative, but to what in this case? Doesn't even make sense
  
  well it's likely the big bang has a central point, no?

Also ghosts likely wouldn't be affected by a gravitational pull, so the concept doesn't make sense and there'd just be a trail of ghosts in space.
- Can't they just float and follow the Earth? Or would it be too fast? What's the terminal velocity of a ghost?
- What is this comment in response to?
  
  Glad I’m not the only one confused. Who’s talmbout ghosts
- I also think about this a lot.

See, that's a problem they always skip in time-travel movies.
- At least in Doctor Who, the T.A.R.D.I.S. can't teleport through space as well as through time, solving that problem. But most time machines don't