Re: Getting out of this world?
- From: Brian Davis <brdavis@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 16:54:50 -0700 (PDT)
On Oct 2, 2:07 pm, Tina_H...@xxxxxxxxxxx (Tina Hall) wrote:
I don't have the knowledge to base the made up stuff on.
That's why I asked here.
Well, we'd like to help, but you have to have *some* base to build on.
Quite honestly, we have little idea where yours is (although as
another poster mentioned, we're beginning to get an idea from your
responses, which helps).
make up a "fifth force" that at certain energy levels comes
into play (but never below those),
Is there any real theory about such a force, and what would
be the other four?
There have been technical papers written about the possibility of a
fifth physical force, or at least a modification of the inverse square
law for gravity, but this isn't exactly what I was talking about. I
was just handwaving that at high energies (higher than we've
experimented with), there might physical principles, forces, or
situations that simply wouldn't be obvious at lower energies (and
therefore might be "unexpected"). As to the "other four", well...
gravity, the electromagnetic force, the weak and the strong nuclear
force.
The problem I'm having here is that you seem to want a "theory" to
use, while understanding very very little of modern physics. If you
don't know how things stand now, how can we productively explain to
you where there might be "loopholes" or other blindspots that might
provide for what you want? In short, to understand believable
mechanisms... you need to understand what's going on.
because before the LHC (or whatever super-techno-wizzy
thing you want to use)
What's the LHC?
Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the thing they turned on at CERN that you
keep mentioning ("how could it make black holes?", etc.)
I don't know any super-techno-wizzy...
That was just sort of my placeholder for technobabble that might be
used. I guess I need to be less... obtuse.
I really liked how Hogan did it in "The Genesis Machine"...
I am not familiar with that.
That's fine. I put it out there because it's somewhat relevant to the
discussion. You could certainly dig up more on it if you wished to. If
you are discussing science in science fiction on a newsgroup about the
same, you'll see titles & authors thrown about often. It's not
elitism, it's because it's a useful way to communicate to others
within the subject (takes advantage of a common background).
Then make a pattern-scanning quantum supercomputer, that can
record the position of all the subatomic particles in a body at
one exact instant, specifying both their position and momentum,
Is that possible?
No. Not even in theory (current theory), and even if that theory was
in error in practice such a machine is still highly implausible. But
again, if you want to stay within the current bounds of knowledge,
you're going to be disappointed - there is no known or suspected way
to do what you ask. That's not a limitation of too little imagination
(we can *imagine* lots of ways to do something similar), but a
limitation of working within the known laws of physics.
which of course violates the uncertainty principle...
?
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. In a very simplified form, the
fact that the product of the positional uncertainty and the
uncertainty in the measured momentum of a particle must be greater
than a fixed value (or perhaps more importantly, it can never be zero;
you can never know both the position and momentum of a particle
exactly). This is basic physics (I learned this in high school, for
instance), so I'd say a knowledge of it is important if you think your
potential readers are at least high-school educated.
Is any of these science? Or remotely founded on current
technology or science? No.
So there's no computer and scanner to do this, and no way
to build them?
Nope. In fact, there's some very good reasons to think it's not even
possible in theory. But the reason I suggested it is that the way the
theory is constructed (for a "shallow understanding"), there's a
slight sort-of loophole, in that if the position or momentum is in
higher dimensions as well, you might be able to reduce the uncertainty
to zero in our three dimensions, which would drive it to some high
value in the other dimensions, thereby sort of allowing the particle
to be displaced in a direction out of our normal three dimensions.
Does that make sense? It might not, but trust me - that's not even a
good way of doing it here (just a mildly tolerable way for an audience
with little to no science background). This is why we keep asking you
for details - they set what is or isn't "realistic" or "believable".
How far you have to go to suspend disbelief depends on what sort of
audience you expect to have read it. So yes, it *does* come into the
creative process. Even here in a newsgroup that ends in ".science".
I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between hard sci-fi and
blubber, and only care about how much technobabble I'd have to
suffer.
Then I think you need to figure out how much technobabble you or your
audience will need to make this go down.
Along the same line (digressing somewhat)...
Hey, it's USENET. We do that ;)
...with the hype about the supercollider experiment supposedly
creating black holes, I don't understand how black holes as
small as the particles they use could even be called that.
Then you don't understand black holes (which is OK, most people don't;
heck, I've had graduate level classes in relativity and I don't). A
black hole is something with enough gravity that the escape velocity
is greater than light at some point near it. You can get that by
taking a lot of mass and putting it in a small space, or by taking a
little mass and putting it in a very *very* small space. But the
effect is the same (or similar, ignoring Hawking radiation, possible
quantum effects, etc.).
For the tone, not for facts; I don't have facts.
Fair enough, but here... we tend to judge things on the facts, not the
tone. That's science.
I don't understand what you're saying as rude. Quite the
opposite.
I put that in because I was implying your scientific knowledge base if
far below the level that it takes to really explain this sort of
thing. Again, no offense intended - it's just a fact of the dialog.
What matters is my requirement: A real theory, a possible
experiment/project/whatever.
Well, then, again... it's simple. There are no currently accepted
theories that allow for the sort of thing you seem to want. And again,
it's not a lack of imagination - it's you asking for "a *real*
theory". not surprisingly, there are no "real theories" out there that
deal with this sort of thing because there's been no evidence that
needs explaining that *requires* this sort of thing. It's not a lack
of imagination, that's how science (and scientific theories) work.
What any reader may think about it is irrelevant.
Not if you want the reader to enjoy the story.
The problem is that I have no idea what theories
exist and what experiments could be done, that
may produce unexpected effects.
Pick one. Pick any one.
One from zero known theories results in zero picks.
Then I would politely recommend that you study the subject more. I've
got students who seem to want the same thing (in their case, "why
can't you just tell me the answer?", or "can't you just tell us which
equations to use and what numbers to put in for each variable?"). As I
explain to them, if I did that they wouldn't have learned anything,
and more importantly couldn't ever extend that knowledge to cover
novel situations. And if you are writing a story, well... novel
situations are your stock in trade.
Someone _using_ a real known phenomenon is ok, but
not some random made up possible phenomenon.
Then again, the answer is a loud resounding "No". There are no known
theories or phenomenon that get you this sort of thing. Not unless you
are willing to "make up" some aspects at least (as in the examples
above).
No, some folks tried to tell me how I should write a story, which
has nothing to do with the science.
Mea culpa then - we thought it might be helpful to explain why terms
like "suspension of disbelief" are important around here, and thought
a simple "No, there is nothing like what you describe in the body of
scientific evidence" probably wouldn't help.
Can you see how we might think you were asking about a "dimension
-transporter"?
No. For me, a transporter is an enclosed device where you go into.
OK. For most of the rest of us reading this thread, it's anything that
allows a transfer of information (or matter; the former covers more
possibilities) into a "different dimension" than the normal ones we
navigate. In other words, our definition of a "dimensional
transporter" seems to be far broader than you think it is (if anybody
here has a problem with me "speaking for the whole group" on this one,
please speak up).
Nothing at all isn't very believable. Coming up with nothing only
means that the folks here don't know as much as they like to think.
<sigh>. Or they (and many others) have looked at this problem
significantly more than you, from many different viewpoints, over many
years. You may choose to *believe* what you like - but belief isn't
science.
Never mind that that's the _destination_. I ask about the possible
means to get there from _here_.
To paraphrase Alice...
"Where are you going?" asked the Cheshire cat.
"I don't really know" said Alice.
"Well, then it really doesn't matter how you get there".
If you want a realistic discussion on how to get between two different
places, you really need to specify what those places are, and how they
differ. That really does help.
or detail it enough to try to make it self-consistent... which is
going to be very very hard, given the folks in this group.
I don't know why you say that. All the folks in this group have to
do with it is that I'm asking them for a theory to use.
Well, then use the theory of evolution. Or economic theory. Those are
both theories (one of them is even scientific and backed up with
evidence). Now if you want theories that *apply to the problem at
hand*, then you are asking us to make some sort of judgement call,
based on our grasp of the subject.
--
Brian Davis
.
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