Freezing time as a method of suspended animation

[Omnis]

While recently watching part of the pilot episode of the original "Lost in Space" series, I noted the rather unique way that the Robinson family was placed in suspended animation aboard their ship. Their ship was equipped with some kind of electromagnetically-based technology that allowed only one second to pass inside their "freezing tubes" while on a voyage of 98 years. In short, it literally slowed down the passage of time.

In the book series I'm working on, I'm toying with the idea of having this kind of technology supersede cryogenic freezing (after about a century of use) by about the mid-twenty-third-century. This would allow passengers on ships making long voyages to comfortably enter and exit suspended animation without the health and medical complications that would tend to accompany older cryogenic methods. My question is whether or not such a technology is at least marginally plausible or can be made to appear so. And if it was possible, what kind of "spin-off" technologies for other uses would it necessarily bring in its wake?

 

[Ursa major]

I suppose it depends on what sub-genre you're writing in. In space fantasy, anything is possible. In a story that seeks greater fidelity to science (which your search for plausibility seems to suggest you're looking for), you're probably more limited in what you can do. In particular, I wonder whether the concept of space time - to the extent that it's understood at all by your readers - wouldn't provide an almost insurmountable barrier to suspending disbelief for some. (I'm thinking of those readers who'll be wondering why you're slowing time for the passengers and crew rather than speeding up the ships.)

 

[Metryq]

Following up Ursa's comments, suspending time sounds very fantasy-like. Heinlein used the idea in Beyond This Horizon, if I'm remembering correctly. He did not describe the stasis field as suspending time, but that is essentially what it did.

More plausible is an advanced nanotechnology that can rebuild bodies at the molecular level, essentially granting immortality so long as one receives regular infusions of replacement nanites. The problem then becomes one of major boredom on a long spaceflight, but a civilization with the immortality tech would have faced this problem already. Thus, starships might be tiny worlds where people go about their normal business while in transit.

Or, maybe these immortal people can "suspend time" in another way. The brain measures the passage of time by external cues—the daily passage of the sun, activity in the environment, etc. In Frederik Pohl's Man Plus an astronaut is turned into a cyborg so that he can live on the surface of Mars "unassisted." Since all of his senses are artificial, the computer that regulates them can do some neat tricks. During the months-long flight to the red planet, the computer slows the astronaut's sensorium, making the trip seem to take only a couple days.

James P. Hogan used the same general idea in Realtime Interrupt, which may have been a major influence for The Matrix. People insert themselves into a computer generated virtual world through nerve induction, rather than the clumsy, retro, mechanical plugs seen in The Matrix. Their time in the virtual world is expanded 200 times so that months or years of VR are only hours or days in the real world.

The starship might even mix the ideas—nanotech for immortality and a complete mini-world as a ship, yet travelers might drop in and out of VR, depending on what kind of work they need to do. (This concept was also addressed in Frederik Pohl's Heechee series.)

 

[chrispenycate]

If Niven can get away with a stasis generator (in "World of Ptavvs", and several times later, including "Ringworld") I don't see why you can't. (Niven is a "geeks" author; readers are always looking for details he got wrong.) One problem I do see; I suspect the inertia of the box would increase by the factor of time compression involved, so a half ton box would "weigh" five hundred tons at time passing at a thousandth of "normal" rate. No problem; you'd do your acceleration/braking periods with everybody awake, and only slow down while cruising. One problem I do see; if it's slow down, rather than stop, you're still going to have to pass some considerable time in the state, so you can't have "coffins" as in the old planet of the apes, you need lounges, and refectories, and gyms and computer rooms; probably the entire interior of the ship. Which makes communication with home while en route very complicated.

 

[Omnis]

I'm actually thinking that this technology would be used for more of a "stop" rather than "slow down" function. That being said, I also want to have it hedged about with clear, rational rules and limits to its use. I'm trying to stay as far as possible from pure fantasy while still portraying a continuing advance of technology and discovery of new physical principles (in contrast to the seeming centuries/millennia of scientific stagnation that characterize classic space opera such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, Honor Harrington, etc). In theory, this technology would be able to manipulate time in multiple ways, whether stopping it, slowing it down, or speeding it up. However, its use is only practical within a focused, limited, area or when applied to specific objects (such as a human body). There are also other practical limits to its use in slowing down or accelerating as opposed to simply stopping time, as chrispenycate pointed out.

What I'm kind of shooting for is a more realistic version of the "Hypertime" technology featured in the Clockstoppers film, which works by altering the speed of molecular activity. A key difference would be the fact that with the technology I'm thinking of, an object can only have its molecular activity accelerated (or deccelerated) when inside a special chamber where it can absorb the accelerating/deccelerating forces from all sides simultaneously. A person in an accelerated or deccelerated state would be unable to interact properly with a "real-time" environment (a major plot hole in the Clockstoppers movie was the fact that the characters were able to enter Hypertime simply by activating a special watch that somehow accelerated their entire bodies while leaving unaffected the ground or other physical objects they happened to be in contact with - except for a few scenes where a person wearing the watch was able to also accelerate a person who was touching him). It would be used almost exclusively for stasis purposes, given the unpredictable effects of simply slowing or accelerating a person's molecules (such as the ability of an accelerated/deccelerated body to properly process oxygen or carry on other necessary functions).

 

[Metryq]

How about a Star Trek-style transporter, or the "DC" stations in Forbidden Planet? There are numerous problems with this idea, too, but Star Trek never really nailed down the technology. In the original series, there appeared to be a kind of stasis as the dematerialization began. ("Don't worry, Boss. They can't do nothing till they're through sparkling.") Then in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan we see Kirk and Saavik actively holding a conversation during beaming, thus making the device a kind of wormhole. In one of the TNG episodes engineer Scott is discovered suspended in the transporter system of an old ship for close to a century. And there are other Trek stories describing the system as an "ultra-FAX" where a dead person can be "revived" by the last buffer recording of a transport (The Price of the Phoenix). This last option does not require the matter/energy of the person to be stored, but a massive amount of energy would be needed to reconstruct the person at the other end. (In one of the Trek novels McCoy voiced his dislike of the transporter because the "original" was disintegrated/destroyed, and he wondered what happened to the soul.)

EDIT: Check out the movie Primer. The "time machine" the inventors create runs a series of loops that go slightly farther back in time each cycle. So instead of a complete stasis, anything inside the box runs slowly backward in time. The story has the trope paradoxes that ruin far too many time travel stories, but perhaps the movie will give you some ideas.

 

[zaltys13]

check out Peter F Hamilton's Nights Dawn trilogy. He used exactly this device to stop time.

This is from the Wiki entry:

Zero-tau pod
A form of stasis chamber, once activated the zero-tau pod locks its contents within a certain position in the space-time-continuum and therefore actually stops time from passing within the chamber. Anything placed inside will therefore not age or decay in any way for as long as the pod is active. Zero-tau pods are depicted as coffin-like appliances with transparent lids that become opaque and reflective when the device is activated.[1]. As the possessed are still connected to the Beyond they remain aware of their surroundings while in a zero-tau pod, experiencing something akin to utter sensory deprivation. This is described as being "even worse than the Beyond" and therefore highly unpleasant for them, so much so that the possessing soul will abandon the body rather than remain in zero-tau. Zero-tau is commonly used by starships to place passengers in stasis for long or crowded journeys or during manoeuvres with high G-forces (like an active anti-matter-drive), and most interstellar spacecraft have at least a few such pods. Zero-tau technology forms part of the Alchemist weapon. Some people choose to make "future hops" and visit future eras through the pod's means.