Stopped Time

starkaos

Assuming the impossible situation that it is possible to stop time, would the Earth be destroyed as a result? Velocity is a function of position over time so if it takes 0 seconds to move anywhere on the Earth, then anyone moving while time is stopped will be travelling at infinite velocity. Moving any object while time is stopped will exert infinite energy on the object when time goes back to normal. So while time is stopped, everything is fine, but any object that has been moved while time is stopped will be travelling at some insane velocity when time goes back to normal. Even the simple act of moving could cause immense damage with a person's body moving at infinite velocity causing air particles to be accelerated.

dalolorn

First off, stopping time would imply a requirement of infinity seconds to get somewhere, not zero seconds.

Putting that aside for a moment, fictional works typically portray extreme, but finite, slowdown (or acceleration, depending on your point of view) rather than what you've described. Furthermore, once you've stopped moving relative to a certain frame of reference, your velocity in that frame is zero regardless of how much time has passed - it may be extremely high while you're moving, but that's it.

You are, however, correct in assuming that there would be some... interesting... effects on the particles of whatever medium you're moving through, if they didn't block or destroy you as your hyperaccelerated self tried to go through them. (Also, you probably wouldn't be able to breathe the surrounding atmosphere, and I don't think you'd be able to see what you're doing to the surrounding environment.)

starkaos

How would we know if time stopped? It doesn't matter if time stopped if everything stopped as well since everything will go back to normal without realizing that something went wrong. It is only the situation where the protagonist or antagonist can act normally while the universe is frozen where things get interesting. Although, having your conscious active while your body and the rest of the universe frozen would probably cause most people to go insane. So if a person can move normally while the rest of the universe is frozen in time, then they would achieve infinite velocity.

For the most part, there is no real difference between stopping time and slowing down time so that it takes 1 million years of relative time to experience 1 year of real time. So instead of travelling at infinite velocity, they would be travelling at about 10% the speed of light or about 50% the speed of light if they are running. So the same issues as causing irreparable damage to the planet, not being able to breathe the surrounding atmosphere, and not being able to see would apply.

Fictional works have to use hummingbirds, fans, or other objects travelling at fast velocities in order to show that time is not stopped, but slowed down. However, slow time enough and even those objects can't show that time is slowed down.

jonsills

starkaos wrote: »

Although, having your conscious active while your body and the rest of the universe frozen would probably cause most people to go insane.

That's addressed in, among other places, the Rush song "Xanadu" (on the album A Farewell To Kings. In the first verse, the protagonist recounts his struggles to locate the mythical Xanadu, among "the ancient mountain-tops/Of Eastern lands unknown", then his jubilation at finding "the pleasure-domes/Decreed by Kublai Khan" and his joy that he "will dine on honeydew/And drink the milk of Paradise..."

Then there's the second verse:

A thousand years have come and gone
But time has passed me by,
Stars stopped in the sky,
Frozen in an everlasting view
Waiting for the world to end,
Weary of the night,
Praying for the light,
Prison of the lost Xanadu!
Xanadu...

Held within the pleasure dome
Decreed by Kublai Khan
To taste my bitter triumph
As the last immortal man
Nevermore shall I return
Escape these caves of ice
For I have dined on honeydew
And drunk the milk of Paradise -
Oh, is this Paradise?

Fictional works have to use hummingbirds, fans, or other objects travelling at fast velocities in order to show that time is not stopped, but slowed down.

As an example, this video for the Big Jim's Ego song, "The Ballad of Barry Allen":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XhBOoidC1k