[I’m working on an outline for a series of stories. Here’s a starting point for the framework.
photog]
Dorn had been daydreaming through the first period of his Quant class and now he realized he had lost the thread of Professor Gordrow’s lecture just as the professor called on him. “Well, neophyte Dorn, I notice that your cortical penumbra hasn’t changed potential since the lecture began, so you must already know everything I’ve transmitted.” “Yes, your sagacity, I mean no, your sagacity.” “Well which is it? Are you now conversant in the primary examples of the seven first order patterns of First Contact, or aren’t you? Answer me, you vacuous waste of neutrinos.”
Hearing the question, Dorn relaxed, for he had spent last semester studying First Contact under the foremost Quantum Historian in the Multiverse, Banstat Fabobble. For this reason, Dorn confidently answered, “Yes your sagacity I am.” “Well then tell the class what you think is the most unlikely quantum outcome for any First Contact scenario.” Dorn raised his transmission to the highest polite output level and declared, “As proven by Fabobble’s first theorem of interspecial dynamics, no species below the level of independent interstellar travel can ever compete successfully against a species above that level. In fact, it’s axiomatic.” Feeling very proud of himself Dorn allowed his cortical penumbra to pulse through the electrogravitic spectrum for a noticeable time.
Professor Gordrow replied, “Very glibly stated Dorn, and also utterly wrong! Banstat Fabobble is a hack and a fraud who has made his reputation kowtowing to administrative nincompoops who wouldn’t recognize a quantum paradox if it swallowed up their own boring corner of the multiverse.” Dorn’s penumbra shriveled up and he retreated to the periphery of the academic cloud and Professor Gordrow continued.
“Now attend to what I say. Every First Contact is unique and the seven first order patterns account for barely 99.999999999% of all known cases. This leaves an infinity of less probable cases, of which some subset, which itself includes an infinity of examples is composed of just the type that that fathead Fabobble claims is impossible.”
“If it please your sagacity, can you give us an example?” asked a nervous thought from the front of the class. Gordrow was silent for a moment and then continued. “Of course, I can. In fact, I’ll use the most famous First Contact of all. I’ll use Earth.” “But Earth’s First Contact was a case of two advanced races meeting in neutral space” corrected the nervous interlocuter. “Hah!” exclaimed Gordrow, “that is what we teach the dust clouds before they coalesce. But you are ready for the messy truth. Record this data. Attend!”
Am I the only who finds myself wanting to, “Attend!”?
I’ve been toying with the idea of providing a framework for a bunch of individual stories. A quantum history class might provide that. It could be fun.
Is harriettcy18 a porn spammer?
I’m okay up to low level tensor calculus, but my old brain starts to itch when I try to absorb superstring theory or more than the most basic quantum mechanics.
Old dog can’t learn too many new tricks
War Dog, spam removal is one of my daily chores. Funny thing, I’m not sure that string theory, dark matter and dark energy are even real. It sounds like phlogiston, a make believe solution to a misunderstood phenomenon. Time will tell. Although the way things are going we may soon have bigger problems than faulty physics.
Luminiferous aether ?
Superstring theory does seem to go along way to describing the issues in quantum mechanics. Still, not even superstring theory can satisfactorily resolve the four basic forces into one.
I just wish we could find a way to make gravity, which also means anti-gravity. Then the stars are ours and we’re about two steps away from warp or free drive (depending on if you prefer Roddenberry or EE Smith). Just think, the Alpha Centauri system and back in ten years even without warp/free drive.
I’m far from a physicist, just a humble engineer, but the big brains have had about a century to unravel the quantum mystery and from what I’ve heard they aren’t even close to a breakthrough. And maybe the problem is too big for our little brains. It’s probably better for our geniuses to concentrate on things they can accomplish. They could start by figuring out how to get the human body to regenerate nerve cells for instance. Now that would be a worthwhile accomplishment. I’d say cure cancer but they’ve bounced off that one for sixty years and they don’t… Read more »
Lat entity I heard use that term was Mentor of Arisia! ;-D
I’m quite sure that the Professor has written a number of monographs on the Arisian universe in his career. Earth does seem to get an inordinate amount of attention in the multiverse for some unknown reason.