A patent application

Patent application

To/  Mr One Biertankard

        Patent office

        Planck Centre

        Zurich

        Switzerland.

From/  A Kranc

Dear Sir

I hereby apply for a patent that will result in an increased capacity of any car park.

Einstein’s general relativity theory states that the universe is a space time continuum. This means that a change in time can affect space and vice versa.

At present each car park in a city takes up a great deal of space,such that it is often necessary to create several levels. This is called a multi story car park, I believe.

My idea is to utilise time rather than space to increase the size of any car park.

To explain how this would work I will utilise Einstein’s way of thinking. This is the use of a very simple thought experiment. 

This involves visualising just one parking space. This space will aways be either empty or full. If it is full, there is no way of quickly increasing the available space so that another car can be accommodated. The other parameter in the continuum, however is time. As this parking space is not always full, another car can be accommodated at the times when the parking space is empty. Using today’s terminology, this would be called a ‘time share.’

This helps a little but one car can only use the space when the other car decides not to. This is a little inconvenient and it only doubles the available space, so why not use the time that the space is empty -  the future?

This would involve, for example, letting a car use the time tomorrow when it would be empty all day; as that time has not arrived, no car would be using it.

If tomorrow is booked then simply use the following day, and so on ad infinitum.

At the entry to this car parking space there would be a ticket machine as at present but as each car arrives, it would be transported forward in time to the next free day. The use of this space would be limited only by the future use of this space - perhaps an Aldi Supermarket is being planned to be built on it in 5 years time. In this case, only the future five years would be used. This however is equal to 1,825 car parking days that can be provided by one parking space.

A car parking space is not normally used for the whole 24 hour period, the average time required is 2 hours 21 minutes. I therefore suggest that parking is charged by the minute. The other part of the 24 hours can, of course be used by other cars. A quick calculation shows that  that about 12,500 cars can be accommodated in this one parking space that has a life of five years. The entry and exit delays will be no different from the present as the time ‘location’ for each car will be controlled by a simple Euclidian algorithm on a computer.

The number of cars that can be accommodated can be doubled by finding just one more parking space.

The same principle could, of course, be used to solve the housing crisis. This would, of course involve people making journeys through time to visit their friends and relatives but I have an idea about that….

Thank you for your consideration.

Autoplex  Kranc – ITCV consultant.