# What's The Concensus on "Time Slips"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 20, 2013, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415 "2013-06-20T01:01:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/1 "2013-06-20T01:01:09Z")
In 1979, two Britsh couples belived that they encountered a “Time Slip”. Link:[Is time slip possible? | Warrior Forum - The #1 Digital Marketing Forum & Marketplace](http://www.warriorforum.com/off-topic-forum/227854-time-slip-possible.html) As far as I know, the four people stuck to their stories…but anyway, does General Relativity allow for spacetime to double back on itself? If it is possible to travel back into the past, what effects could a time traveler have? The people in this alleged incident tried to take photos, but nothing came out-why? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/2 "2013-06-20T01:13:40Z")
No. It’s total bullshit not supported by science. I am pretty sure a wormhole did not open up and transport some dumbasses to some hotel from another time. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/3 "2013-06-20T01:13:58Z")
No. It’s not possible. Our world would be replete with time travelers if time travel was possible. The story is a bunch of crap. No one noticed their car, their dress, their money, their speech? Come on. ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/4 "2013-06-20T01:24:15Z")
I also find the idea highly dubious. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/5 "2013-06-20T01:26:00Z")
Never had acid _that_ good.☹ ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/6 "2013-06-20T05:33:18Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > If it is possible to travel back into the past, what effects could a time traveler have? **The people in this alleged incident tried to take photos, but nothing came out-why?** Come on, Dopers, we ALL know the answer to this one! Pics or it didn’t happen! ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/7 "2013-06-20T06:50:11Z")
“Time Slips” are about as real a phenomenon as “concensus” is a word. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/8 "2013-06-20T07:10:08Z")
This should be a bit obvious, but one of the key elements of a “time slip” is that you move through time but not through space. Because, you know, the earth is stationary and the entire universe moves around it. Oh, wait… (Time slipping 100 years would only put you a few hundred billion miles away from the earth. Other than that I don’t see any problem with this theory. 😛 ) ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/9 "2013-06-20T10:04:43Z")
“Time slip” was also a phrase used by Kim Stanley Robinson in _Red Mars_. Earthling colonists on Mars continued using the 24-hour clock they were used to, so the “time slip” represented the difference between Earth’s and Mars’s rotational periods (about 37 minutes). At midnight, the clocks stopped for those 37 minutes before resuming. A totally mundane phenomenon jazzed up with a fancy name. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/10 "2013-06-20T10:11:48Z")
[QUOTE=Al Stewart] It was late in December, the sky turned to snow All round the day was going down slow Night like a river beginning to flow I felt the beat of my mind go Drifting into time passages [/QUOTE] 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/11 "2013-06-20T10:41:36Z")
What probably happened in that someone pumped knockout gas into their hotel room (which as we know happens all the time) and while drugged they accidentally ended up on the wrong side of the Time Cube. And then someone declawed their cats. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/12 "2013-06-20T10:58:37Z")
Ralph, do you believe in time slips, and do you believe that the two couples experienced a time slip? ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/13 "2013-06-20T11:24:50Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > Ralph, do you believe in time slips, and do you believe that the two couples experienced a time slip? I believe that they had some very strange experience, what it was, I don’t know. It seems odd that they would concoct an elaborate hoax and stick to it. Did they all experience the same hallucinations? It would be interesting to interview them now, 34 years after their experience. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/14 "2013-06-20T11:27:49Z")
Ralph, do you believe in time slips. ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/15 "2013-06-20T11:38:23Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I believe that they had some very strange experience, what it was, I don’t know. It seems odd that they would concoct an elaborate hoax and stick to it. Did they all experience the same hallucinations? It would be interesting to interview them now, 34 years after their experience. How is that elaborate? Four people all agree to lie and say something happened. I don’t see anything at all hard to explain. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/16 "2013-06-20T12:10:50Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > This should be a bit obvious, but one of the key elements of a “time slip” is that you move through time but not through space. Because, you know, the earth is stationary and the entire universe moves around it. > > Oh, wait… > > (Time slipping 100 years would only put you a few hundred billion miles away from the earth. Other than that I don’t see any problem with this theory. 😛 ) Spatial coupling is strongly (Inverse 11th power) linked to local gravity vectors, therefore is able to remain apparently independent of temporal coupling. I’m susprised you didn’t know this. Or, y’know’, it’s bullshit. But there’s no such thing as absolute location anyway - so both scenarios are equally problematic, that is:- [ul] [li]Time travelling and staying in the same room, vs[/li][li]Time travelling and staying in the same location in space (thus finding the earth is somewhere else)[/li][/ul] (The second one would require a privileged reference frame) ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/17 "2013-06-20T12:31:27Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > do you believe in time slips. With a bit of a mind flip. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/18 "2013-06-20T12:38:48Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > With a bit of a mind flip. 😃 and nothing will ever be the same. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/19 "2013-06-20T12:40:03Z")
Time slips are real. At some companies if you don’t turn them in, you don’t get paid. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415/20 "2013-06-20T12:40:05Z")
It’s just a jump to the left. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-concensus-on-time-slips/661415.md?page=2)