Phun with Physics
Last night many things were discussed, and there were three things that bear worth writing about in particular:
1.) Under no circumstances should my brother Nate's feet begin lactating.
2.) The beautiful, hand-crafted squire's belt made by my House sister Christiana makes a very popular cat toy under the right circumstances.
3.) I need to flesh out the properties of the alternate space(s) I'm developing for my book.
So yeah, this is another book book entry. Thanks going to Master Kalum (mathematician and geek extraordinaire) for getting me started on it. Also another happy birthday to the same.
Step one, define the differences between the types of FTL drive in my universe. So far I have three separate types specified, with room for more if my sanity slips so far as to think that's a good idea. The three I have thus far are instantaneous teleportation or "space folding" (a la Dune), artificial wormholes, and "slip stream" travel (a la "Andromeda").
First one's easy: super-human makes one thing go from one point to another in space. It's a little light on science, but I have no problem plagiarizing paying homage to the likes of Frank Herbert.
Second one I've already made some fairly good headway on, insofar as what the experience is like. But we're not talking experiences here, we're talking SCIENCE. So, assuming that the space between the opening and closing of a wormhole is fundamentally the same as normal space - maybe a bit warped, but other then that, it's just space. Soooooo....what about the opening and closing bits? Well, forced to answer the question "what causes a stable wormhole to open," I've come up with this:
Wormholes are more likely to open where the normative values of space/time are significantly altered by natural or created occurrences and/or objects.
...which I'm pretty sure should nominate me for "most vague scifi scientific law this century." Really, I'm giving the "Heisenberg Compensator" trope a run for its money. However, it's a starting point. And you can't get very far without one of those.
Third one's going to be a lot harder, since it relies not only on wacky physics to start and end it, but really wacky physics to exist. Essentially, a ship enters "fluid space" (as I'm calling it), travels along a route, then exits fluid space into normal space. Some of the routes in fluid space are stable and constant, some are unstable, and some exist only for short periods. The alien race A'Laglaci (and their scions) have an innate ability to sense the best spots to enter and exit fluid space, and for the best routes to take to get where they're going. Everyone else depends on routes marked out by the A'Laglaci, or else uses whatever FTL method their species developed (in the case of humans, wormhole technology).
Now, were I a normal person, that would be enough explanation for me. But we can't have that, can we? No, I'm going to try my hand at a plausible sounding group of theories to explain what fluid space is, how it works, and how it interacts with normal space. Like a boss.
My first real problem is trying to figure out why the routes exist at all, what they are, and why they don't act the same way normal space does. Since I have no idea, the first thing that came to mind was "dark something" (note: Dark is the term used by physicists to define pretty much anything they don't get or can't define, so I was actually being pretty scientific). Then I remembered that the galaxy that I'm putting the A'Laglaci in is the Boötes Dwarf Galaxy (Boo I dSph), which is pretty well-known for being full of dark energy. I think. Anyway, that's what the ivy-covered types seem to think, so I'm running with it.
The crazy idea I have so far for the routes in fluid space is that they're a type of current system that runs throughout the space containing all universes (if you could step outside our universe, you could see it was just a bubble in a sea of lots of other universes). When a universe forms, it largely pushes the qualities of the space it's in aside. But some things, like these currents, can wind up slightly out of synch with the real values of the universe itself, so the two sort of exist side-by-side. At points, the currents can actually effect normal space (causing all sorts of strange effects we now call "dark energy").
Like currents in an ocean, some are fast, some are slow, some last forever (or seem to), some last a few seconds. And because they're only loosely associated with normal space, distance and time can act differently to anything traveling in their space. To access them, a ship (or whatever) needs to be "phased into synch" with fluid space, and then "rephased" in order to enter normal space (which is another way of saying I have no idea how you would access or leave fluid space, or at least that I'm still working on it). Because you still have to travel some distance, it still takes time to go from point A to point B - just not as much as it would take in normal space. At least, if you know what you're doing...and the A'Laglaci do.
I still haven't worked out what fluid space is like experientially, or any of those fun details like "what happens if you get stuck." But again, it's a start!
As for how the three interact: the first (Navigator) form of transportation is really the same thing as the wormhole transportation, just faster, more reliable, and with a lot fewer side-effects (like raving, violent insanity when it goes wrong). I'm pretty sure that wormholes and fluid space have all sorts of interesting and difficult interactions that would probably fill tens of thousands of text books in the universities of my universe: but I'm still not sure of the basics yet. Just that they do.
I also think that showing the essentially two types of FTL that exist have overlapping properties both make the universe more realistic, more open to other types of FTL drives, and more evidence that I need serious counseling for whatever problem motivates me to deal with physics this far over my head.
On the upside, most people don't get it: and a far greater majority don't care. Yeay easy to please audiences!
Peace Out.
1.) Under no circumstances should my brother Nate's feet begin lactating.
2.) The beautiful, hand-crafted squire's belt made by my House sister Christiana makes a very popular cat toy under the right circumstances.
3.) I need to flesh out the properties of the alternate space(s) I'm developing for my book.
So yeah, this is another book book entry. Thanks going to Master Kalum (mathematician and geek extraordinaire) for getting me started on it. Also another happy birthday to the same.
Step one, define the differences between the types of FTL drive in my universe. So far I have three separate types specified, with room for more if my sanity slips so far as to think that's a good idea. The three I have thus far are instantaneous teleportation or "space folding" (a la Dune), artificial wormholes, and "slip stream" travel (a la "Andromeda").
First one's easy: super-human makes one thing go from one point to another in space. It's a little light on science, but I have no problem plagiarizing paying homage to the likes of Frank Herbert.
Second one I've already made some fairly good headway on, insofar as what the experience is like. But we're not talking experiences here, we're talking SCIENCE. So, assuming that the space between the opening and closing of a wormhole is fundamentally the same as normal space - maybe a bit warped, but other then that, it's just space. Soooooo....what about the opening and closing bits? Well, forced to answer the question "what causes a stable wormhole to open," I've come up with this:
Wormholes are more likely to open where the normative values of space/time are significantly altered by natural or created occurrences and/or objects.
...which I'm pretty sure should nominate me for "most vague scifi scientific law this century." Really, I'm giving the "Heisenberg Compensator" trope a run for its money. However, it's a starting point. And you can't get very far without one of those.
Third one's going to be a lot harder, since it relies not only on wacky physics to start and end it, but really wacky physics to exist. Essentially, a ship enters "fluid space" (as I'm calling it), travels along a route, then exits fluid space into normal space. Some of the routes in fluid space are stable and constant, some are unstable, and some exist only for short periods. The alien race A'Laglaci (and their scions) have an innate ability to sense the best spots to enter and exit fluid space, and for the best routes to take to get where they're going. Everyone else depends on routes marked out by the A'Laglaci, or else uses whatever FTL method their species developed (in the case of humans, wormhole technology).
Now, were I a normal person, that would be enough explanation for me. But we can't have that, can we? No, I'm going to try my hand at a plausible sounding group of theories to explain what fluid space is, how it works, and how it interacts with normal space. Like a boss.
My first real problem is trying to figure out why the routes exist at all, what they are, and why they don't act the same way normal space does. Since I have no idea, the first thing that came to mind was "dark something" (note: Dark is the term used by physicists to define pretty much anything they don't get or can't define, so I was actually being pretty scientific). Then I remembered that the galaxy that I'm putting the A'Laglaci in is the Boötes Dwarf Galaxy (Boo I dSph), which is pretty well-known for being full of dark energy. I think. Anyway, that's what the ivy-covered types seem to think, so I'm running with it.
The crazy idea I have so far for the routes in fluid space is that they're a type of current system that runs throughout the space containing all universes (if you could step outside our universe, you could see it was just a bubble in a sea of lots of other universes). When a universe forms, it largely pushes the qualities of the space it's in aside. But some things, like these currents, can wind up slightly out of synch with the real values of the universe itself, so the two sort of exist side-by-side. At points, the currents can actually effect normal space (causing all sorts of strange effects we now call "dark energy").
Like currents in an ocean, some are fast, some are slow, some last forever (or seem to), some last a few seconds. And because they're only loosely associated with normal space, distance and time can act differently to anything traveling in their space. To access them, a ship (or whatever) needs to be "phased into synch" with fluid space, and then "rephased" in order to enter normal space (which is another way of saying I have no idea how you would access or leave fluid space, or at least that I'm still working on it). Because you still have to travel some distance, it still takes time to go from point A to point B - just not as much as it would take in normal space. At least, if you know what you're doing...and the A'Laglaci do.
I still haven't worked out what fluid space is like experientially, or any of those fun details like "what happens if you get stuck." But again, it's a start!
As for how the three interact: the first (Navigator) form of transportation is really the same thing as the wormhole transportation, just faster, more reliable, and with a lot fewer side-effects (like raving, violent insanity when it goes wrong). I'm pretty sure that wormholes and fluid space have all sorts of interesting and difficult interactions that would probably fill tens of thousands of text books in the universities of my universe: but I'm still not sure of the basics yet. Just that they do.
I also think that showing the essentially two types of FTL that exist have overlapping properties both make the universe more realistic, more open to other types of FTL drives, and more evidence that I need serious counseling for whatever problem motivates me to deal with physics this far over my head.
On the upside, most people don't get it: and a far greater majority don't care. Yeay easy to please audiences!
Peace Out.