The Flux Capacitor

As featured in ‘Back to the Future’ a device imagined by Doc Brown when he was standing on the edge of his toilet, slipped and hit his head on the sink, when he came to had a revelation of the Flux Capacitor

The Flux Capacitor is one of the central pieces of equipment in the DeLorean Time Machine which is what makes time travel possible.

In Theory :

This is essentially a storage device for the huge amount of power 1.21 gigawatts (1,210,000,000 watts) of power, once 88mph is reached power is channelled through three glowing rods. This forces microwaves to flow in one direction meeting in the centre.

A newly developed Flux Capacitor (not for time travel though) uses Quantum tubes of magnetic flux moving around a central capacitor by a process known as Quantum Tunnelling, This creates a brace of wormholes accelerating at different velocities relative to each other.

1.21 Gigawatts of energy would be released from the Flux Capacitor through the Flux Bands (mounted on the outside of the DeLorean). This would allow for the transition through the wormhole to happen at 88mph, the wormhole would have to be created by the Delorean harnessing two black holes, entangle them, and then separate them again. Except this involves ties between quantum mechanics and classical mechanics. (See our ‘Is Time Travel possible’ blog)

The Back to the Future A-Car (the DeLorean used for close up filming) Flux Capacitor consisted of 3 high pressure gas relays connected to Glass Vacuum tubes.

In this particular theory the space-time continuum is shown to be essentially spherical. The Flux bands allowing the traveller to enter the wormhole in one location in space, but emerge from it in a new location which is exactly the same in space, but entirely different in time. So you travel through time, but remain in the same relative place.

Of course this is far more complex than we have described here, but again see our blog ' Is Time Travel Possible' for more detailed explanation.

The short version is that nothing really stays in place, the world is constantly moving through space, so even a slight displacement in time would be extremely difficult to link up exactly with a particular point in space.

DeLorean Power ?

The Delorean runs on regular gas (petrol unleaded) to power its 2.8 v6 Peugeot Renault Volvo (PRV) ZMJ-159 engine. But the Time Machine conversion runs on something little more potent ….

Can a DeLorean go 88 mph? Yes it can it can :

In U.S Spec - 130 BHP - 0.60 in 9.6 Seconds - Top Speed 122 mph

In European Spec - 150 BHP - 0.60 in 8.5 Seconds - Top Speed 129 mph

One of the key problems for the flux capacitor is energy. Even theoretically, the amount of power needed to create a wormhole (as yet, still only a concept rather than a reality) is barely conceivable.

In the film, it’s defined as 1.21 gigawatts (pronounced ‘jigawatts’ in the film). That’s an awful lot of watts, the kind you can only get from a plutonium-powered nuclear reactor, or a couple of seriously huge gas turbines or, say, a bolt of lightning !

So try to explain how much power this is the nuclear power reactors in a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier produce 194 megawatts (1.94 x 10-8 watts)

But here we are talking about a Bolt of Lighting which is 300 million volts, and 30,000 amps. For comparison a household current is 240 Volts (120volts for USA) and 16 Amps. And a bolt of lighting is 5 x 10⌃9 Joules perfect for Doc Browns Delorean Time Machine

Giga is a prefix for units that typically means 10⌃9 This means 1.21 gigawatts would be 1.12 x 10⌃9 watts

What other mode of transport requires this colossal amount of power ? Try the S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarrier at 317 gigawatts

The Reactor

So how could that work? Let’s get technical for a second. If the reactor uses (for example) Plutonium-239 (dangerously radioactive by the way), then each atom of the stuff could theoretically produce 200MeV (mega electron volts) during the fission process, equivalent to 3.2×10⌃11 joules of energy. With each Plutonium-239 atom having a mass of 3.29×10-25kg, you would only need a fuel mass of 1.2×10-5kg, which could conceivably fit in the boot of a DeLorean.

So long as it didn’t explode, and 1.21 gigawatts is all the power you needed, then you could conceivably power a time-travelling car.

Then all you’d have to worry about are the complexities of relativity, space-time paradoxes and the impossibility of altering the future by changing history to make time travel by DeLorean a reality.

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