Poll of the Day > In Back to the Future 3, why can Emmett Brown not get gasoline-- *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

--in 1885, but can somehow construct a train equipped with functioning hover technology from the in-universe 2015 and a working flux capacitor in the same era?

I must have these answers.
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Gasoline didn't exist in 1885. When Dr. Brown and his family arrived in 1985, he said to Marty and Jennifer the time machine train ran on steam. I think Dr. Brown and Clara collected the flux capacitor and remains of the train to put together a new time machine that probably didn't run on gas. Then they went to 2015 or another future time to build in the hover technology before going to 1985.
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his life was no longer in danger so he was able to focus on R&D and managed to come up with some further discoveries; (he invented time-travel and he knows that hover tech is possible (and he has the board to work with)) (though he doesn't need to invent hover-tech in 1885 either, he just has to get to the future).

for the gasoline, remember that he only had 1 week or 2 weeks or something. after Marty left, there was no longer a need for gasoline. (though I suppose there is a small window there in which the time constraint is lifted, but they still go through with the train mission).

but I mean, it's a good metaphor or whatever for "necessity is the mother of invention".
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fishy071 posted...

I think Dr. Brown and Clara collected the flux capacitor

If you're talking about the flux capacitor inside of the DeLorean that Brown left Marty to find in 1955, then wouldn't that cause a whole slew of continuity problems and paradoxes?
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he doesn't need to use the old de lorean, he already designed and built it himself why would he need to reverse engineer it?
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Sahuagin posted...

why would he need to reverse engineer it?

I don't know. I guess I'm just wondering how he'd get parts for it in the old west. Or maybe I'm just asking stupid questions again. <<';
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the first hard part would be affording everything. I assume he somehow managed to purchase a working locomotive and used that as the basis of his next machine rather than a de lorean. (doing some cursory research, it would cost maybe around $10,000 in today's money for a used locomotive in the 1800s, so maybe it's not even that bad if I got that right (further reading suggests it may be 5-10x higher than that though)).

flux capacitor could be easy or not so easy depending what it actually is, since it's not explained. would probably require melting and casting metal but he's working as a blacksmith already, so np. (but he can also redesign it anyway, so that's completely open.)

and then, the next hard part would be the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity which was ridiculous enough to make 1955 Doc go crazy for a few moments. not a physicist or electrical engineer so not sure how absurd it would be to generate that in 1885.
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Sahuagin posted...

not a physicist or electrical engineer so not sure how absurd it would be to generate that in 1885.

Lightning yo.
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AllstarSniper32 posted...

Lightning yo.

he doesn't have the clock tower event to work with though. he would have to get a train travelling at 88mph to be struck by lightning.
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Sahuagin posted...

his life was no longer in danger so he was able to focus on R&D and managed to come up with some further discoveries; (he invented time-travel and he knows that hover tech is possible (and he has the board to work with)) (though he doesn't need to invent hover-tech in 1885 either, he just has to get to the future).

The real problem isn't "Does he know how to do X?", but "Where the fuck is he getting the necessary supplies for X?"

You could take the smartest physicist or engineer in the modern world, and somehow manage to send them back to medieval times, and they're going to be completely incapable of building things like computers or nuclear reactors. They would basically have to reinvent science and technology from scratch for a lot of more advanced tech - you basically have to create the tools necessary to create the tools you need to create the tools just so you can get to the point where you can start working on the actual tech.

There's a reason why most time travel fiction tends to draw the line at things like guns/cannon and gunpowder as things a future traveler can introduce to destabilize history - because the recipe for black powder is relatively simple, it can be reproduced from fairly common ingredients, and the metal casting methods necessary to make rudimentary gun barrels and cannons has been around for ages (and cannon/guns had a massive transformative effect on real world history). But you'd have trouble duplicating anything electronic prior to at least the 20th century.

The original time travel tech in Back to the Future was built with 1980s resources, and the hover tech was even more advanced. Both presumably involve at least things like transistors and capacitors that don't even remotely exist in 1885. If the movies were hard sci-fi (which they obviously aren't), Doc would have pretty much no chance in hell of replicating the tech in the Wild West.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

and the hover tech was even more advanced.

He did have the hoverboard at the end of the movie, who knows what he was able to get off of that thing.
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AllstarSniper32 posted...

He did have the hoverboard at the end of the movie, who knows what he was able to get off of that thing.

Power differential alone would limit what that tech could do. You'd still basically have to reinvent the entire tech tree to convert that tech into something that would fly a train.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

[snip]

I already did a breakdown of what he'd need to accomplish. it's not easy but not impossible. acquire locomotive, build new flux capacitor (not as hard as you make it sound), get 1.21GW into said capacitor while running the train at 88mph.

hovering the train is not required in 1885. that can be retrofitted later.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Power differential alone would limit what that tech could do.

Wait, how do you know what tech is inside the hover board? If you know how it works, please go invent it already. It's long over due.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

You'd still basically have to reinvent the entire tech tree to convert that tech into something that would fly a train.

I really don't think he made the train exactly like it was shown back in 1885. I've always thought that he made a train just able to time travel, then traveled to the future since it was already shown they can convert your vehicle into a hover vehicle. And maybe he wanted it to run on steam just so that it still sounds like a train.
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EclairReturns posted...

If you're talking about the flux capacitor inside of the DeLorean that Brown left Marty to find in 1955, then wouldn't that cause a whole slew of continuity problems and paradoxes?

Not at all. They could take the flux capacitor, use it to travel to the future, create a new flux capacitor, return to the old west, and return the old flux capacitor.

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Actually a train is a great way to meet all the requirements back in 1885. It could actually reach the speed required (especially with future tech/knowledge helping), and since train tracks were metalic, you could set up/attach a tall rod to collect lightning, and possibly even create a large capacitor to store the energy needed, releasing it as the train passed at 88mph (or faster).

There are tons of videos etc on how to build your own capacitor, and the Doc was a genius and could probably do an even better job.....normally, using a car, it wouldn't matter much (As the capacitor would have to be large and stationary), but with a train, running on a metalic rail? No problem.
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Sahuagin posted...

build new flux capacitor (not as hard as you make it sound)

I'd argue it's probably harder than either of us make it sound, considering Doc is the only person on Earth to ever pull it off in that universe, and it took him 30 years to do it. The science would have to be hellishly complicated, and it obviously has extreme power requirements to operate that would dictate other aspects of construction (ie, you'd need tech capable of handling that power draw and not burn out or explode, at the very least).

It would be pretty much impossible to build even the most simplistic of 1980s electronics with 1880s tech (even a pocket calculator would be more or less out of the question). I'm assuming TIME TRAVEL TECH is going to be multiple factors beyond a VCR or GameBoy.



Sahuagin posted...

get 1.21GW into said capacitor

Which, from what we've been told, is nearly impossible.

It's not just a question of generating the power, it needs to be applied at exactly the right moment. In the absence of plutonium (which he'd never be able to get access to in 1885), he'd have to channel lightning, and as he himself mentions, it's pretty much impossible to predict in advance where lightning will strike.

He'd basically have to build some kind of track that would allow a train to travel at 88 mph (which would be dangerous as hell with 1880s train tech) and loop around in a relatively small area (which would make it even more dangerous - derailing would be a constant threat). Then he'd have to find some way to build multiple lightning rods, each of which can channel power directly into the track/train while it's moving, and basically keep the train running every single time a major storm happens in the hopes that he'll get a lucky hit and power up. At which point he'd damn well better hope he got the tech right, because one assumes time travel with defective tech or miscalculations probably fires you into another reality or takes you apart at the molecular level.

Yes, he MIGHT be able to do it... but it would take decades of work and resources he has absolutely no access to. It would take a LOT of money he doesn't have - and you can't even assume he'd just bet on tons of old sporting events, because he'd likely lack the practical knowledge.



AllstarSniper32 posted...

Wait, how do you know what tech is inside the hover board?

I don't need to. Because I know that it was made as a commercial product in 2015 (or earlier).

We don't use a nuclear reactor to power an iPhone. We use just as much power as we need in commercial tech to get the job done, without ridiculously excessive overkill. Because we have to meet the bottom line to turn a profit.

A hoverboard would have just enough lift/power to move the board. You almost certainly wouldn't be able to upscale it to lift a car or more, in the same way I can't upscale novelty "hover" tech toys using magnetic fields to build myself a suit of hover armor I can use to fight crime.

Ehh, let's be honest, I'd totally use it to commit crimes.
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AllstarSniper32 posted...

I really don't think he made the train exactly like it was shown back in 1885. I've always thought that he made a train just able to time travel, then traveled to the future since it was already shown they can convert your vehicle into a hover vehicle.

I'd accept this, but I also still think the time travel itself is the bigger stumbling block.

The advantage of being able to get the hover tech functional in 1885 is that a) it theoretically allows the train to reach 88mph without risk of derailment or having to overcome the tech limitations of steam trains of the era, and b) you could theoretically put the train high enough in the air to dramatically increase the odds of being struck by lightning to power the flux capacitor. But it likely would dramatically up the costs and time needed to upgrade, so it might certainly be better to just get time travel working and cross your fingers.
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The real question here is why Doc couldn't get Gasoline in 1885 considering a process was invented to harvest it/gather it in the 1850s, and by 1892 it was used to power cars. Even if Doc had no knowledge of the process himself, he should have been able to gather the info and process it easier then buying a train, creating a capacitor etc....but.....I am guessing the real reason is that doc didn't know when lightning would strike.

Without that, he needed a way to quickly transfer a large amount of electricity (1.21 gigawatz) to the capacitor and that would not work on a car...or would be way freaking harder (honestly still not that hard you set up a metal rod on top of the car, drive it up to 88 mph, and drive the rod inbetween 2 metal tracks that start off wide and then end up just the distance away as the bulb at the end of the rod.

That bulb connects the car to the capacitor with the electricity, sending it to the destination time you want.

You would still need to make tracks for the car to run on, or a very smooth surface so it can reach 88 mph in a straight line....and even with all that, it honestly might be easier to just use the train.

Also, it would be far more complicated to add to the movie, and wouldn't have the COOL factor of a hoovering train.
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if marty had failed to get his parents back together in the 1st movie, then he wouldn't have been born. if he was never born, he would never grow up and go back in time to mess up his parents getting together....
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A few other things.

It would be easier to reach 88 mph with a train even in 1885 then to reach it with a car, trains around that time reached over 100 mph, and that wasn't including using slopes/gravity to boost the train to higher speeds (a large limiting factor was the wheels and stability of the train, which Doc could have improved as well).

Train tracks themselves were an additional limiting factor, but could be replaced/repaired fairly easily/quickly, and Doc could have again used knowledge/skills to ensure they were above the normal grade, were brand new and as safe as possible.

In theory.....you could actually create a capacitor ON THE TRAIN itself, and use the friction etc of the train on the tracks to build up an electrical charge....not even needing lighting. Doc was a scientist and could have come up with such a method...even in a fairly short time.

There are a variety of ways to convert kenetic energy/static electricity etc directly into current and store it, and a train is actually perfectly situated to hold/carry a huge (or a series of huge) capacitors....it could basically give him a constantly source of power in the past (as long as he had a train track to land on) and once he got to the future he could retrofit it however he wanted.
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Krazy_Kirby posted...

if marty had failed to get his parents back together in the 1st movie, then he wouldn't have been born. if he was never born, he would never grow up and go back in time to mess up his parents getting together....

I know it sounds like that, but it's quite possible that it would work mathmatically, and basically marty would end up canceling himself out.

The time loops basically are all factored in, and eventually become irrelevent...the end time stream, has the actions that happened with marty's influence happen naturally basically, and marty never exists.

Consider him a variable in an algebraic equation. Marty is X and initially the equation includes him, but when marty travels back in time, he alters the equation back then and can continue to do so, up until the point that he cancels himself out of the equation. From that point on, he nolonger has any effect on the future.
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EclairReturns posted...

--in 1885, but can somehow construct a train equipped with functioning hover technology from the in-universe 2015 and a working flux capacitor in the same era?

I must have these answers.

I think he took the train to the future which is how he got it to fly. As for how he did that I have no idea. You kind of answered your own question on the flying part, though.
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Also, channeling lightning, or knowing when lightning will strike would not neccesarily always be hard.

It was in the first one because they were not prepared and had no prior knowledge etc, but Doc could have done research into lightning storms etc after the events of the first movie, just in case he got stuck in any set time. In addition he could have done research in how to actually GENERATE lightning strikes in any severe storm, and ways to capture use it as needed as well.

Meanwhile time travel I believe is actually possible, and does not create a new time stream etc. I believe everything flows in a logical progression and can be determined with enough information in advance (you can predict the future with 100% accuracy if you know enough). You can also tell what happened in the past the exact same way.

But what about time travel?

I do think time travel is possible, but it doesn't work like most thing, you don't actually move forward or back, but instead you change the universe around you to a previous point, everything is still moving forward in a logical manner, that manner is just directly affected by your time machine, reverting it to a past state.

In such a case, any time they traveled back, they would revert everything into that previous state, then they could make any changes they wanted, and move forward again would cause those changes to go into effect (unless other changes were made before they went forward or the changes they made became impossible to alter).

This works VERY well with back to the future, since it would directly explain the reason why marty going back and making changes only went into effect after certain things were no longer possible to fix, or he left the time without changing them.

Basically when marty went back, he made changes that would cause him not to exist in the future (if he went back to the future), and the only way to avoid not existing anymore after the point of him making those changes, was to reverse them and ensure he would still exist again.

When you go forward in time, all the normal rules apply and the universe just progresses as normal, you are just jumping forward through a bunch of steps, to where the universe would be logically after so much time (or steps...which is all time is) had passed.

It's all logic and math, and it works quite well with Back to the future.
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wolfy42 posted...

In theory.....you could actually create a capacitor ON THE TRAIN itself, and use the friction etc of the train on the tracks to build up an electrical charge....not even needing lighting. Doc was a scientist and could have come up with such a method...even in a fairly short time.

but then the train would end up in the future, which could cause a big accident. a car is much smaller
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Krazy_Kirby posted...

wolfy42 posted...

In theory.....you could actually create a capacitor ON THE TRAIN itself, and use the friction etc of the train on the tracks to build up an electrical charge....not even needing lighting. Doc was a scientist and could have come up with such a method...even in a fairly short time.

but then the train would end up in the future, which could cause a big accident. a car is much smaller

Not unless the tracks were gone by then, and many tracks from back then are still around (although there would be some risk involved....another train being there when you arrived etc). It's possible the tracks could have even been there in 2015 etc.....when hover tech was around etc, and he went directly there (although no trains were still being used, the tracks were, so it was totally safe). By that time Doc would know this (Since he spent time in 2015 before) and that could be another reason he used a train.
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zebatov posted...

EclairReturns posted...

--in 1885, but can somehow construct a train equipped with functioning hover technology from the in-universe 2015 and a working flux capacitor in the same era?

I must have these answers.

I think he took the train to the future which is how he got it to fly. As for how he did that I have no idea. You kind of answered your own question on the flying part, though.

He DID go to the future for the hover tech. As he's getting ready to leave, Marty even asks him if he's going back to the future, and Doc replies "Nope! Already been there!" before activating the trains flying mode. The implication really couldn't be any clearer.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I don't need to. Because I know that it was made as a commercial product in 2015 (or earlier).

We don't use a nuclear reactor to power an iPhone. We use just as much power as we need in commercial tech to get the job done, without ridiculously excessive overkill. Because we have to meet the bottom line to turn a profit.

But the point still stands that you have no idea what kind of tech and power is running the hoverboard. The hoverboard has enough power to carry Doc and uh the chick with ease. Not saying it can lift a train, just saying you have no idea what kind of power it has.

Also, why wouldn't it have nuclear power? Doc comes back with that Mr. Fusion thing that makes nuclear power just by putting garbage into it. The hoverboard could have some never ending battery on it or something.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The advantage of being able to get the hover tech functional in 1885 is that a) it theoretically allows the train to reach 88mph without risk of derailment or having to overcome the tech limitations of steam trains of the era, and b) you could theoretically put the train high enough in the air to dramatically increase the odds of being struck by lightning to power the flux capacitor. But it likely would dramatically up the costs and time needed to upgrade, so it might certainly be better to just get time travel working and cross your fingers.

But you don't need hover tech to get a train to reach 88mph since they already did that. And I'm thinking Doc is smart enough to make a train that can do that without blowing up.
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EclairReturns posted...

If you're talking about the flux capacitor inside of the DeLorean that Brown left Marty to find in 1955, then wouldn't that cause a whole slew of continuity problems and paradoxes?

As long as he returns it when he's done with it there isn't an issue.
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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

EclairReturns posted...

If you're talking about the flux capacitor inside of the DeLorean that Brown left Marty to find in 1955, then wouldn't that cause a whole slew of continuity problems and paradoxes?

As long as he returns it when he's done with it there isn't an issue.

I see what you did there.
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y'all are thinking about time travel movies way too much lately
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Maybe he just wrote a letter to his future self like he did for Marty in part 2. His future self goes to past and drops off the items in secure location to be picked up later to not create a paradox. It's as good of an explanation as anything else.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I'd argue it's probably harder than either of us make it sound, considering Doc is the only person on Earth to ever pull it off in that universe, and it took him 30 years to do it. The science would have to be hellishly complicated, and it obviously has extreme power requirements to operate that would dictate other aspects of construction (ie, you'd need tech capable of handling that power draw and not burn out or explode, at the very least).

It would be pretty much impossible to build even the most simplistic of 1980s electronics with 1880s tech (even a pocket calculator would be more or less out of the question). I'm assuming TIME TRAVEL TECH is going to be multiple factors beyond a VCR or GameBoy.

you're talking about this like you know nothing at all about this subject. it's not that hard to make rudimentary semi-conductors when you know how they work and how to process metal. calculators use microchips which are not required in this scenario. the only thing needed is the flux capacitor which is named and shown as a large electrical component, not a computer or other multi-component end product.
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