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jmfargo ([personal profile] jmfargo) wrote2009-06-18 11:26 am
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Quick Dumb Question

If you were to go far back in time, GPS systems would be useless because there are no satellites, correct?

Is there a system, in use today, that can tell you your relative position on the face of the Earth without use of satellites, and not requiring any input from the user?
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[identity profile] sacramentalist.livejournal.com 2009-06-18 04:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Maybe if your TT had a sextant. Stars move, though.

[identity profile] jfargo.livejournal.com 2009-06-18 04:07 pm (UTC)(link)
*nods* Star drift was one of my problems with using anything that relied on, well, reading the stars.

However, with a small hand-held device that had star charts dating back a long enough time, I suppose you could figure out a location, but I was hoping for something easier.

(I say "hoping," but this does not mean I plan on going back in time any time soon. Just an exercise in mental gear-spinning.)

[identity profile] sacramentalist.livejournal.com 2009-06-18 04:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Can futuristic GPS'es send out tachyon signals or something?

[identity profile] jfargo.livejournal.com 2009-06-18 04:15 pm (UTC)(link)
No, but if you breach the containment unit on the power source of one, and shatter one of the many dylithium crystals, it will send out a tachyon-like wave-pulse.

Wait.

I mean...

I don't know.

[identity profile] sacramentalist.livejournal.com 2009-06-18 04:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Wait a minute. If you could re-phase the emissions... To the jeffies tubes, Geordi!
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