What would a dimension with unstable forces be like?

[scifiwriter]

Ok, I am no physics major…. I am a writer, but I truly need to get some Physics information. I am sure that should I get this work in progress published, some physics major will be able to blow huge holes in my idea, as it stands today. So I would like to throw out some suppositions here and let those who know what they are talking about discuss my idea here. This will help my work in progress to be more realistic for my sci-fi audience.
So here goes….
1) My Protagonist’s (female) mother was kidnapped by my Antagonist and hidden in another Dimension.
2) My Protagonist follows my Antagonist and My Protagonist’s Mother into that Dimension.
3) My Antagonist has the ability,when in this dimension, to manipulate Strong Force, Weak force, and Electromagnetic Force to cause them to be what he wants. I see him considering himself a kind of cosmic computer simulation programmer in this Dimension.
4) I see this Dimension as having more instability in these forces than our own.
5) When my Antagonist or someone of his race it not existing in this dimension long-term cohesion is not possible.
I know this supposition is tenuous at best. But what Can I say, I am a sci-fi writer. What I am asking is the following questions.
Say such a dimension actually exists….
1) What would it be like to exist here even for a billionth of second without cohesion? What I mean is if My Antagonist simply held her together but not the rest of the proto- matter around her?
2) How might to human brain try to process what it was experiencing in this dimension?
3) What universal Laws would have to exist in order for this dimension to exist?
4) What would this proto-matter look; act; and be like? What it be a corrosive, or alkaline substance? Would it be Liquid, semi- solid, or gas? Would it be none of the above?
5) Since my Antagonist doesn’t actually come from this dimension but another dimension that allows him to move very quickly (say the speed of light) how would this supposed Proto-matter react to his presence.
6) What other things would you all be able to suppose about my hypothetical dimension?

 

[_shankybro_]

I am no physics major either...but can grasp some of it...But I am a big big fan of sci-fi...

==>
Another Dimension? A good idea...but if you need to give your story a mind-bender angle, make that dimension 'TIME'...Say your antagonist takes the protagonist's mother back in time (what i mean is that the antagonist just finds a way to go back in time)...this way there are a lot of possible ways in which he can change the future in which the protagonist and his mother actually exist..maybe change their family structure altogether...become the protagonists father (or anything else!) .think about it...time travel is always fascinating :-)

 

[scifiwriter]

Although this is an exciting concept I truly want to play with the ideas of the four force and string theory.
Personally I find this theories fascinating in the first place. which of course is why I am wanting to write about it. Thanks for the idea, but remember Time Travel is highly overdone at this stage.
I am looking for a fresh and exciting angle. If you have watch Star trek next generation however you will get a clearer idea of what My idea is.

Imagine a whole dimension that is in effect a Holodeck... that is the ability to reorganize matter and have it behave in a programmatic way.

However, My dimension would be at the nuclear level. I am clear about the idea just not on whether my character could even be able to understand the things around her before the "Holodeck" program begins.

example: My character appears in the dimension before he orders the physics of the world to resemble our own. Only she is fully formed... what would she see, hear feel, smell,taste, before that program begins?

Immediately after this he will take her back to her bed, her mother is fixing her breakfast. Although it is a good copy of how he perceives the world she lives into be, but for instance the dog when she first sees him is has hair about 1 inch the next time she sees the dog it is 3/4 and inch long. This is because of the fact that matter is so loosely cohesive that in this dimension it seems that one is always losing protons and all the other "tons" that are the elemental components that make up matter.

This is the reason that she must quickly get her mother out of this place before she and her mother lose cohesion as a whole.

Also It is my plan to have it where when she thinks she has found her mother My Antagonist begins the process of dissolution in elemental particles. She will notice that the Mother she thought she found will dissolve into symbol and blink out of existence and suddenly another program begins.
In time she will quit searching and sit at wherever he has her at the moment doing nothing. He will be angry because she will not play his game anymore.

I hope that this further explanation will help explain my idea better.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Although this is an exciting concept I truly want to play with the ideas of the four force and string theory.
Personally I find this theories fascinating in the first place. which of course is why I am wanting to write about it. Thanks for the idea, but remember Time Travel is highly overdone at this stage.
I am looking for a fresh and exciting angle. If you have watch Star trek next generation however you will get a clearer idea of what My idea is.

Imagine a whole dimension that is in effect a Holodeck... that is the ability to reorganize matter and have it behave in a programmatic way.

However, My dimension would be at the nuclear level. I am clear about the idea just not on whether my character could even be able to understand the things around her before the "Holodeck" program begins.

example: My character appears in the dimension before he orders the physics of the world to resemble our own. Only she is fully formed... what would she see, hear feel, smell,taste, before that program begins?

Immediately after this he will take her back to her bed, her mother is fixing her breakfast. Although it is a good copy of how he perceives the world she lives into be, but for instance the dog when she first sees him is has hair about 1 inch the next time she sees the dog it is 3/4 and inch long. This is because of the fact that matter is so loosely cohesive that in this dimension it seems that one is always losing protons and all the other "tons" that are the elemental components that make up matter.

This is the reason that she must quickly get her mother out of this place before she and her mother lose cohesion as a whole.

Also It is my plan to have it where when she thinks she has found her mother My Antagonist begins the process of dissolution in elemental particles. She will notice that the Mother she thought she found will dissolve into symbol and blink out of existence and suddenly another program begins.
In time she will quit searching and sit at wherever he has her at the moment doing nothing. He will be angry because she will not play his game anymore.

I hope that this further explanation will help explain my idea better.

Errr.. this will probably sound discouraging but SCIENTIFICALLY, everything you're saying here is just a bunch of gibberish. Which, is pretty much the case for all sci-fi so I wouldn't be detered by it. Do you think there's ever been an episode of Star Trek that made any sense scientifically? Of course not. However, if you want some quick analysis:

Dimension in physics refers to a degree of freedom, like you can move in the x-direction, y-direction etc. Not a physical place you live like a 1920's Flash Gordon serial. Also, Proto-matter isn't a word, best I can google it's from Star Trek III, so there's really nothing to be said about how the *fictional word* of a "dimension" behaves. Also, you keep saying "cohesion" but most of the ways you use it don't really make any sense in terms of what the word means in physics. And I couldn't even begin to parse a statement like "would the dimension be a solid, liquid, metal, etc." Such things are labels given to aggregates of atoms, usually related to their electron structure.

As for tuning the parameters of the universe I don't think anyone really has a handle on that. Of the few dozen constants that define the "Standard Model" of physics I don't think anyone has any real idea to what extent they can be varied and still have things like quark confinement or sufficiently screened electron charge, etc. Of course in a computer simulation you, of course don't have to use OUR universes laws of physics at all...

 

[scifiwriter]

I know My postulation has holes(obviously more like huge tears), in it scientifically
OK, but I am trying to firm it make it more scientific. I am sure it does sound like gibberish. What can one expect when it comes to Physics I only have the most basic of understanding...

Point is I want to know more, and I know to come to some people who do and ask them to explain a few things to me.

Sci-fi writers do however, want their ideas to be possible. They do wish that any scientific guy such as yourself could pick up their book and say something like this...
" OK, so she got a few things wrong but basically she got that right.

OK so dimension isn't the word... what would you call a place that doesn't obey the same universal laws that we do.

Two- proto-matter is just a word I created because I couldn't find a word to discribe what I am talking about. What I mean by that word is...
Proto-matter in my mind would be the basic elemental stuff we are made of ie: electrons, atoms,Quarks and the like.

I am glad we have to set about defining that because that is at the core of my question.

What would it be like to be in a world where these things are as unstable as I discribe, or at least slightly less cohesive than our own?Is their a word already in existence that I am not aware of for those things?
Please be patient with me I want to understand. If I get it wrong please explain like you just did with Dimension. I now know the word Dimension is wrong for it isn't a Direction I mean. I mean a pocket of space in which the laws of our universe are only slightly changed, enough where it could be manipulated.

Scientifically, could such a pocket exist? I think this question is fundamental to all my other questions.could there be unknown to us place within our universe that contain a pocket of space where the laws of cohesion as we know it are more fluid.
ie. quarks or atoms (or whatever we call it) are less likely to remain solid than our own?

For instance My desk I am writing on; in this pocket of space;would lose enough atoms(if you will) In say, 6 hours that I could really tell a difference. Would such a place even be able to be explained scientifically?

 

[cephron]

Hi scifiwriter,

I think I understand a lot of what you're trying to say. I'll try to give you a hand...

Sci-fi writers do however, want their ideas to be possible. They do wish that any scientific guy such as yourself could pick up their book and say something like this...
" OK, so she got a few things wrong but basically she got that right.

Sort of, but not quite. Something science fiction writers frequently do is this:
"I know that in the real world, [X] isn't possible (or maybe theoretically possible, but not anytime soon). But suppose - just suppose - [X] were possible, by doing such-and-such. What would be the implications? How would our technology be affected, and how would this change our lifestyle/culture/existence? And what original, interesting narratives might arise from such a situation?"

In other words, it's ok to change a rule or two - but, to make good science fiction - try to keep it at just a simple rule or two, and then the real work comes from figuring out the implications. Take Mass Effect, for example. They postulate an element which, when an electric current is run through it, affects the mass of nearby matter. Very simple. So what can they do with it? Well, they come up with a bunch of things, some more far-fetched than others. Good science fiction (imo) comes from breaking just a couple (best=just one) rules which result in interesting implications which are not far-fetched, but follow directly. But as long as you're consistent about which rules you break, how, and what the results are, the science fiction can be fun and interesting.

OK so dimension isn't the word... what would you call a place that doesn't obey the same universal laws that we do.
...
What would it be like to be in a world where these things are as unstable as I discribe, or at least slightly less cohesive than our own?
...
Is their a word already in existence that I am not aware of for those things?

I think the word you're looking for is universe. Your character can travel between our universe and a different one (and possibly more?) It's a different universe because (1) you can't reach it just by traveling through space, and (2) it obeys different laws regarding strong and weak nuclear forces, etc.

This actually might have precedent (the existing part, not the travel part) in some versions of the multiverse hypothesis/theory/notion. Namely, that ours is only one of countless separate universes, all of which obey different laws of physics (or, at the very least, have different values for the various cosmological constants). So that part makes sense.

It sounds to me like you're imposing two "fictions" on top of this: 1) the ability to travel between universes, and 2) the ability (of some characters) to actually influence the cosmological constants in some universes. The first one sounds like a reasonable plot device to use in a science fiction. It's been done before, in some ways. In Asimov's The Gods Themselves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gods_Themselves), the laws of the two universes would slowly change, merging towards an average, evey time the universes connected (by teleporting material between them). That was a neat idea, perhaps worth your attention.
The second notion, that some entities can manipulate the laws (or at least the cosmological constants) at will, seems a bit more fantasy-ish to me; it's not a simple rule change, for one thing. And, if not restricted in some way, you essentially turn the character into a kind of Dr.Manhatten, who could probably dissolve a planet by thinking about it. But, see if you can put some interesting restrictions on it that lead to a non-contrived-sounding narrative. *shrug* It's your story!

Hope this long-winded spiel has helped clarify stuff for you :)

 

[scifiwriter]

cephron

Thanks so much for your post. I was beginning to wonder if I was going to be able to explain it in a way that others could understand enough to be able to help me.

I know what you mean by it being just one rule. I guess the one rule that would have to be the rule of cohesion. It's more central to my story's plot line anyway.

I guess I used the device that he could manipulate this universe because I wanted to explain why she just didn't disintegrate the second she arrived. I know it was a lazy way out , but I wasn't sure how that could work.

Of course, the fiction of traveling between the universes is a must. As there could be no story without this.

Let me see if I can surmise my premises in the Book in a concise form...

1. Our Universe is actually tucked into another Larger universe. Picture a Basket of apples and you get the picture I am trying to pose to my readers.
2. These Universes are each peopled with Intelligent life.
3. The larger basket(if you will) is the oldest Universe of all and is peopled with being that move faster than the speed of light. They are capable of choosing to slow them self for short periods of time and it is at that time they are able to make themselves apparent in our universe.
4. What separates our universe and the bigger Basket universe is a Brane. The Brane that some Physics people consider as what created the Big Bang.


This at least must remain a part of my book or the whole thing falls apart

 

[maverick_starstrider]

cephron

Thanks so much for your post. I was beginning to wonder if I was going to be able to explain it in a way that others could understand enough to be able to help me.

I know what you mean by it being just one rule. I guess the one rule that would have to be the rule of cohesion. It's more central to my story's plot line anyway.

I guess I used the device that he could manipulate this universe because I wanted to explain why she just didn't disintegrate the second she arrived. I know it was a lazy way out , but I wasn't sure how that could work.

Of course, the fiction of traveling between the universes is a must. As there could be no story without this.

Let me see if I can surmise my premises in the Book in a concise form...

1. Our Universe is actually tucked into another Larger universe. Picture a Basket of apples and you get the picture I am trying to pose to my readers.
2. These Universes are each peopled with Intelligent life.
3. The larger basket(if you will) is the oldest Universe of all and is peopled with being that move faster than the speed of light. They are capable of choosing to slow them self for short periods of time and it is at that time they are able to make themselves apparent in our universe.
4. What separates our universe and the bigger Basket universe is a Brane. The Brane that some Physics people consider as what created the Big Bang.


This at least must remain a part of my book or the whole thing falls apart

Well of course the multi-verse/alternate reality, etc. trope is probably amongst the oldest and most common devices in science fiction. And, as has been mentioned (kudos to "the gods themselves" reference, that's a good book) the "different universes with different laws" is well covered territory. However, this brings me back to the first point, science fiction never deals with such things SCIENTIFICALLY, it's always just a bunch of SCIENTIFIC GARBAGE (not literary garbage of course, I'm a big sci-fan myself). In these things it's always like "The laws of physics are different in this universe so apples are purple and platforms of rock can float and the sky is orange, etc." of course this is nothing to do with how real laws of physics would change and, of course, the reality would be infinitely more complex and infinitely less capable of being molded into a plot or narrative.

Look at it this way, our universe is made of chunks of "matter" the most important every day properties of this stuff (how it bends, how it shines, how it conducts heat or electricity, etc) relate to how the individual electrons, associated with the atoms that make up the matter, undergo a dance of attraction to the bare atomic nuclei and repulsion between other electrons all playing out in the structure of quantum mechanics and the electromagnetic force. The atomic nuclei are then made of protons and neutrons which are, in fact, composed of quarks which are attracted into stable "bound states" by the strong force through a not rigorously understood mechanism called "quark confinement".

Now in a science-fiction novel one always must relate things, through analogy, to something the reader intuitively understands. Unfortunately this pretty much bars all of interesting physics immediately. As was mentioned, in Mass Effect what do the Mass Effect pylons do? "Ship go in blue light, go super fast, end up at other end of universe". Readers can understand that. Is it forbidden by physics? Absolutely, don't let some Scientific American article try to con you into thinking otherwise. Or let's go to your proposed story where an alternate universe is "collapsing" or losing "cohesion". A science fiction story might portray this as the ground collapsing or the air becoming unbreathable or some such as the protagonist races away for their dear life as the "universe" loses "cohesion" behind them like something out of a Roland Emmerich movie. However, if you REALLY tweaked the fundamental force laws then quarks wouldn't become confined, thus no protons, no atoms, no dance of electrons, no solids or metals, etc. Everything entirely down the line of physical abstraction (quarks -> atoms -> solids/gases/liquids/plasmas, etc) would simply instantaneously stop working. The protagonist WOULD NOT drop to the ground clasping their throat, the air WOULD NOT explode in fireballs, it would just be an image of the world we know then, I guess, a blank screen (assuming light could even be said to behave the same way or exist in such a universe which it likely wouldn't (exist I mean)). Could quarks with different strong force strengths form DIFFERENT kinds of bound states in this universe? Perhaps. Would these form super-protons and super-neutrons, which form super-atoms, which form super-solids, etc.? Absolutely not. Could such a universe have life? Perhaps. Would that life be "just like a human but with pink skin and a third eye" or "made of blue incorporeal glowy stuff and have a hive mind"? Absolutely not. Speculation on how the differences in such a universe would cascade up levels of abstraction to the point where you could have some sentient entity would be so unbelievably beyond conception it is ridiculous.

The point of all this is that sci-fi has never been about accurate science and if it were it would be the most worthless genre ever. It's about speculating how plot, narrative and characters change when the writers quill can frame such things in a world that is different then ours but still relatable and insightful for us today.

 

[cephron]

Thanks so much for your post.

My pleasure! Science fiction is one of the things that got me into science.

I know what you mean by it being just one rule. I guess the one rule that would have to be the rule of cohesion. It's more central to my story's plot line anyway.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "the rule of cohesion". Is this a rule you're making up, or is this a real-world rule that you're breaking? Do you mean how matter (as we know it) would be unstable in a different universe? If so, I think you could safely get that one for free. Like I mentioned before, I understand that multiverse theories (and the world you are postulating would classify as some sort of multiverse, albeit within a bigger, unifying universe) frequently claim differing laws of physics in different universes. Interestingly, if my understanding is anywhere near correct, the vast majority of these universes could not support any kind of coherent matter.

I guess I used the device that he could manipulate this universe because I wanted to explain why she just didn't disintegrate the second she arrived. I know it was a lazy way out , but I wasn't sure how that could work.

Of course, the fiction of traveling between the universes is a must. As there could be no story without this.

Here's a thought, then - let's make the universe-manipulator and the inter-universe transport two facets of the same technology. Say you have something that opens a traversable wormhole between two universes. Now, let's borrow from Asimov's book and mix the universes' laws: your wormhole, while open, has a "lensing effect" which causes matter near the ends of the wormhole to be affected by laws of both universes, simultaneously. "Near" could be anything from a couple kilometers to a couple lightyears, whatever you need. Maybe you could set up several wormholes with overlapping areas of effect. This could compound the effect until you've constructed a "safe zone" in the other universe in which conventional matter can exist without losing cohesion.
Perhaps you could overlap wormhole-end-areas from multiple different universes in order to customize the laws you want in a volume of space, kind of like vector addition and scaling.

Or - on the other hand - maybe wormholes are one-way affairs, and a (universe A -> universe B) wormhole will spill A's law effects into B as long as it's open, but the effect will disperse and wear off slowly after the wormhole closes. A wormhole from B to A would have the converse effect. This might make a good plot device, as maybe you'd need to regularly open a wormhole to keep "recharging" your safe zone, or else stuff begins to disintegrate. These ideas are rough, but can perhaps be worked into something consistent and elegant, or help inspire you as you seek a better solution.

Let me see if I can surmise my premises in the Book in a concise form...

1. Sounds interesting. A multiverse within a larger universe...

2. Are you sure? How would there be intelligent life in all the universes with no matter cohesion? According to standard multiverse ideas, those would be the vast majority. Or what about universes whose laws cause them to instantly collapse into a black hole? I imagine covering these cases might score you some realism points. But I recommend that you only put intelligent life where it makes sense. For cohesionless universes, perhaps intelligent life could build colonies there, using safe zones?
[EDIT: thank you maverick_starstrider for your excellent treatise on what "losing cohesion" actually means in this context.]

3. Ah, very interesting! You should read up on tachyons; these are the theoretical particles that travel faster than light - only faster than light. They are usually beaten to death in science fiction, but at least it's a starting point. I came across a neat picture near the bottom of wikipedia's Spacetime article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime). They have a graph of #space-dimensions vs. #time-dimensions, and the resulting kind of world. Notice the square for (1 space dimension, 3 time dimensions) - "Tachyons only". xD
Perhaps your larger basket-universe is one such universe, an infinite line with three different dimensions of future. Have fun figuring that out! xD
If I was going to have life in such a world, I would (1) treat them, character-design-wise, as ascended beings, or lesser deities, or some such (how could you or I understand a being inhabiting three distinct dimensions of time??), and (2) if you must have them interact with our mundane universe(s), I would have them do it through an avatar of some sort, as opposed to "slowing themselves down" (I think that would violate general relativity just as much as us going past the speed of light).

4. Sounds realistic, at least from an inside-the-universe POV.

Finally, this conversation should probably be moved, classical physics is probably the last place it belongs! xD

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I would suggest making up your own rules perhaps taking only some inspiration from real science. Basically the only thing you need to do to make most scifi fans happy is keep the rules consistent and make them make some sort of sense. In another thread recently we were discussing what bothers us about movie science. I remarked that "sciency" explanations tend to ruin it and I think at least a couple other members agreed. It is far easier to suspend disbelief when you are not asked to think about how these things work (out of sight out of mind) than it is to choke down really poor "scientific" explanations for them. And typically the harder you try the worse it gets. It just highlights the lack of realism rather than adding to any sense of realism.

That is just my honest opinion as an avid reader and consumer of fiction.

 

[latitude]

I think your ideas sound very cool. And you're right, the very best of sci-fi incorporates strong and legitimate science into it.

One thing I would caution you is to avoid pseudo-scientific words and jargon like "proto-matter" and "law of cohesion"-- people with an education in those areas instantly sniff those out, and they decrease the authentic feel of the book.

The image of the protagonist being unable to hold herself together in this alternate universe is very alarming and a very cool idea. Could you investigate some of the principles of entropy for this, perhaps? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy It's a classical idea, but could easily be extended, I think. That everything tends towards entropy has always fascinated me. If your antagonist can manipulate the fundamental forces, perhaps he can hasten this process in your protagonist-- taking scientific liberties, of course, but losing body heat more quickly and almost having the effect of "dissolving" into the matter of the new universe?

I have always loved the idea of getting into parallel universes... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation is a good starting point for that, perhaps? Have you ever read The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman? It's part of trilogy but contains some tasty and satisfying scientific fantasy that calls strongly on the Many Worlds Interpretation, as well as (later in the trilogy) quantum entanglement. It ends up being believable because of its basis in existing theory.

I love sci fi and realistic fantasy, so let me know when you publish cause imma buy that baby :)

 

[FlexGunship]

1) My Protagonist’s (female) mother was kidnapped by my Antagonist and hidden in another Dimension.

Another Dimension? A good idea...but if you need to give your story a mind-bender angle, make that dimension 'TIME'...

I think she should be hidden in DEPTH!

Like, at the end of a long hallway, or something.



EDIT: I'm so sorry. I just couldn't help it. I'm actually still laughing at myself a little.

 

[Xom]

I think she should be hidden in DEPTH!

Like, at the end of a long hallway, or something.



EDIT: I'm so sorry. I just couldn't help it. I'm actually still laughing at myself a little.

Or hide her in WIDTH, and let the yo' mama jokes ensue...!

 

[FlexGunship]

Or hide her in WIDTH, and let the yo' mama jokes ensue...!

AHHH HAH HA HA HA!

I think the funniest thing is that Xom has only one post. That means he registered this account for the sole purpose of executing a multi-dimensional "yo' mama" joke!

I'll buy you a drink.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

I have always loved the idea of getting into parallel universes... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation is a good starting point for that, perhaps? Have you ever read The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman? It's part of trilogy but contains some tasty and satisfying scientific fantasy that calls strongly on the Many Worlds Interpretation, as well as (later in the trilogy) quantum entanglement. It ends up being believable because of its basis in existing theory.

I love sci fi and realistic fantasy, so let me know when you publish cause imma buy that baby :)

That sure as hell has no basis in "existing theory". Many-worlds has nothing to do with "alternate realities", where Lincoln wasn't president or some such no doubt. I'm afraid this is also another sci-fi trope with no grounding in science.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

My pleasure! Science fiction is one of the things that got me into science.


I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "the rule of cohesion". Is this a rule you're making up, or is this a real-world rule that you're breaking? Do you mean how matter (as we know it) would be unstable in a different universe? If so, I think you could safely get that one for free. Like I mentioned before, I understand that multiverse theories (and the world you are postulating would classify as some sort of multiverse, albeit within a bigger, unifying universe) frequently claim differing laws of physics in different universes. Interestingly, if my understanding is anywhere near correct, the vast majority of these universes could not support any kind of coherent matter.



Here's a thought, then - let's make the universe-manipulator and the inter-universe transport two facets of the same technology. Say you have something that opens a traversable wormhole between two universes. Now, let's borrow from Asimov's book and mix the universes' laws: your wormhole, while open, has a "lensing effect" which causes matter near the ends of the wormhole to be affected by laws of both universes, simultaneously. "Near" could be anything from a couple kilometers to a couple lightyears, whatever you need. Maybe you could set up several wormholes with overlapping areas of effect. This could compound the effect until you've constructed a "safe zone" in the other universe in which conventional matter can exist without losing cohesion.
Perhaps you could overlap wormhole-end-areas from multiple different universes in order to customize the laws you want in a volume of space, kind of like vector addition and scaling.

Or - on the other hand - maybe wormholes are one-way affairs, and a (universe A -> universe B) wormhole will spill A's law effects into B as long as it's open, but the effect will disperse and wear off slowly after the wormhole closes. A wormhole from B to A would have the converse effect. This might make a good plot device, as maybe you'd need to regularly open a wormhole to keep "recharging" your safe zone, or else stuff begins to disintegrate. These ideas are rough, but can perhaps be worked into something consistent and elegant, or help inspire you as you seek a better solution.




1. Sounds interesting. A multiverse within a larger universe...

2. Are you sure? How would there be intelligent life in all the universes with no matter cohesion? According to standard multiverse ideas, those would be the vast majority. Or what about universes whose laws cause them to instantly collapse into a black hole? I imagine covering these cases might score you some realism points. But I recommend that you only put intelligent life where it makes sense. For cohesionless universes, perhaps intelligent life could build colonies there, using safe zones?
[EDIT: thank you maverick_starstrider for your excellent treatise on what "losing cohesion" actually means in this context.]

3. Ah, very interesting! You should read up on tachyons; these are the theoretical particles that travel faster than light - only faster than light. They are usually beaten to death in science fiction, but at least it's a starting point. I came across a neat picture near the bottom of wikipedia's Spacetime article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime). They have a graph of #space-dimensions vs. #time-dimensions, and the resulting kind of world. Notice the square for (1 space dimension, 3 time dimensions) - "Tachyons only". xD
Perhaps your larger basket-universe is one such universe, an infinite line with three different dimensions of future. Have fun figuring that out! xD
If I was going to have life in such a world, I would (1) treat them, character-design-wise, as ascended beings, or lesser deities, or some such (how could you or I understand a being inhabiting three distinct dimensions of time??), and (2) if you must have them interact with our mundane universe(s), I would have them do it through an avatar of some sort, as opposed to "slowing themselves down" (I think that would violate general relativity just as much as us going past the speed of light).

4. Sounds realistic, at least from an inside-the-universe POV.

Finally, this conversation should probably be moved, classical physics is probably the last place it belongs! xD

Let's be clear: Traversable Wormholes and Tachyons aren't physics. No more than your standard "omicron radiation" and "quantum resonance cascades" in a Star Trek episode (that's just gibberish). Ultimately there are 2 main types of sci-fi. The "leave the laws of physics behind" kind, where you have ships going faster than light or through wormholes (or "being shot through quantum foam" a la Crichton's "Timeline", that still makes me laugh) and meeting alien species and having laser battles and traveling in time, we'll call this the "Star Trek" type. The second type REALISTICALLY extends knowledge and technology we have to some disquieting limit. i.e. what happens when A.I. surpasses human intelligence? What if we could re-write our genetic code through gene therapy, what if we could make robots that were so realistic we couldn't tell the difference. We'll call this the "Gattaca" or "Neuromancer" sci-fi. These are both good types of sci-fi with a long proud history of entertaining me. However, IMHO whenever you have a "Star Trek" type that tries to pretend to be a "Gattaca" type you just get a big joke. Star Trek doesn't make the least bit of sense, the writers just allow whatever they want to happen (if a time-traveller from the future touches themselves in the past their past self then only has 47 seconds to reduce their theta radiation count or else their heart will explode... sure...) and just cover it with gibberish words (or "techno babble"). Again, my point is, if you want to write "Star Trek" type sci-fi with wormholes and alternate universes that's cool but you must realize that you left science behind quite a few exits back, that's just the price you pay. It can never be made "realistic" or "sensical" to anyone who actually knows something about such things. That's why you don't try to.

 

[FlexGunship]

My pleasure! Science fiction is one of the things that got me into science. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "the rule of cohesion". Is this a rule you're making up, or is this a real-world rule that you're breaking? Do you mean how matter (as we know it) would be unstable in a different universe? If so, I think you could safely get that one for free. Like I mentioned before, I unders...

[...goes on for several pages...]

...n inside-the-universe POV.

Finally, this conversation should probably be moved, classical physics is probably the last place it belongs! xD

Woah, there's your book right there...

 

[cephron]

@maverick:

Yes, I'm pretty clear about that. :) If you look in any of my posts, I try to say clearly (to the best of my understanding) where rules start being broken.

For example...

... This actually might have precedent (the existing part, not the travel part) in some versions of the multiverse hypothesis/theory/notion. Namely, that ours is only one of countless separate universes, all of which obey different laws of physics (or, at the very least, have different values for the various cosmological constants). So that part makes sense.

It sounds to me like you're imposing two "fictions" on top of this: 1) the ability to travel between universes ...

IMO, there's a third kind of science fiction that you haven't mentioned; you might say it's the "Larry Niven" kind, or the Asimov kind shown in The Gods Themselves. In this, yes, you do break rules; but you don't just throw physics to the wind like you do in Star Trek. Instead, you change something - fully aware that you're making this universe different from the real one - but then you work out how this would affect the universe, using the best logic you can, and trying to stay true to all the physics you haven't changed (which is usually most of it, at least in the early Niven). And you see how believable you can make the integration of your different physics into the real physics.

While it is not Gattaca-type scifi (nor is it pretending to be), it would hurt to have it classified under Star Trek. One of the goals is for it to be "realistic" and "sensical" to people who know stuff about it, even while they know that it is not real. We may not be perfect at it, but it looks to me like this is the kind of SF being pursued in this thread.

(btw: there are probably better examples for this type than Niven, but Niven is already a far cry from Star Trek/Wars/Gate etc. in paying attention to real-world physics)

 

[latitude]

I would say that there is definitely more variation than those two scenarios you give, maverick. Extension of an idea beyond what is perhaps proven to be possible is very common, and I think most people would happily read a science fiction book containing these extensions without feeling the need to analyse flaws in the extension. However, you can make the experience more enriching for those who DO sense flaws by ensuring that, as far as is realistic, you draw on real science, and inject your "made-up" theories or laws with the flavor of real, everyday scientific rigour.

Yes, there are books that simply throw all realism to the wind and you must swallow it and simply contain your disbelief entirely if you are to enjoy it (very difficult, at times!). Then there are books that you can acknowledge contain flawed science, but still enjoy for the very realistic, science-like texture that they contain.

It reminds me a bit of comparing an unremarkable, run-of-the-mill fantasy book containing numerous dijointed made-up words to something like Tolkien's universe. Both are equally as fake as another and contain no basis in actual mythology or human history or human interaction, but Tolkien's is much more enriching and enjoyable because it imitates realism so closely. People like that.

I think this writer is looking less for locked-and-loaded, it-all-checks-out conclusive physical support for her scenarios, than for ideas and concepts that could inspire and lend some credence to them.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I think maverick is right but as people have said there are different ways to do the star trek type throw the physics book out the window. Some do it well by examining the implications of the technology others do not.

To the OP I would say think carefully about what you want from your story. If you have an idea for a plot why just tack on science fiction? It is better to thoroughly worldbuild your setting first before trying to write a story in it.

 

[cephron]

I think maverick is right but as people have said there are different ways to do the star trek type throw the physics book out the window. Some do it well by examining the implications of the technology others do not.

I guess I would prefer to put it this way: some SF throws the physics book out the window; others do not throw away any part of it, but just add a new chapter.

eg.
Star Trek: throw physics book out the window.
Gattaca: leave physics book exactly the way it is.
The Gods Themselves: leave current content of physics book as is; add new chapter entitled "inter-universe diffusion of cosmological constants".

And then the art (and the tricky bit) comes with:
1) making the new chapter self-consistent,
2) make it so that, if one were assuming the new chapter were true; one would not create blatant contradictions in the pre-existing chapters.

The thought experiments we've done so far in this thread almost certainly don't meet this lofty standard (especially the bit about tachyons, I know, in know! xD ). But it's a good goal to have in mind when trying to write any "realistic" science fiction which deviates from the real.

 

[scifiwriter]

@ Cephron

IMO, there's a third kind of science fiction that you haven't mentioned; you might say it's the "Larry Niven" kind, or the Asimov kind shown in The Gods Themselves. In this, yes, you do break rules; but you don't just throw physics to the wind like you do in Star Trek. Instead, you change something - fully aware that you're making this universe different from the real one - but then you work out how this would affect the universe, using the best logic you can, and trying to stay true to all the physics you haven't changed (which is usually most of it, at least in the early Niven). And you see how believable you can make the integration of your different physics into the real physics.

This is exactly the kind of Sci-Fi I am trying to write and why I am here talking to you guys.

Also Chepron when you asked about my one rule I was referring to the breaking only One Physics Law. You know the... only ask me to buy One Law being broken. I like the freebie On the Multi-Universe as being believable. Now I just need to combine the ability to
1. Transverse these Muti-Universes
2. The safety buffer Zone for my Instability in the nuclear physics of this Membrane


I truly Love the Idea of a kind of Avatar, for what I have now decided, are a Tachyon-based Life-forms.

(maverick: I know that you do not believe that Tachyons exist but as you know It wasn't something I created out of nothing; many scientific minds are debating the existence of tachyons;as well as many other particles. For now I will assume that Tacyons exist, as a device for my plot.)

Am I right in thinking My beings would be capable of experiencing Past- Present and Future at the same moment. At least that is what I thought I understood from the article On wikipedia.

Assuming I am correct, It would be just as irritating for these creatures to think of one single moment in time as I have of considering experiencing all of Past,Present, and Future as one moment.

I was thinking: How frustrating it might be to understand our need to order our world in some kind of sequential way. This has my mind racing in both plot and character possibilities. What a gorgeous tension device for my Antagonist. Thanks!

An Avatar would definitely be essential, for such a Life-form.Since they are all places in time at once they would need to have a "place-holder" if you will with in time itself, in order to be seen and visible in our Universe.

My thoughts now are centered in the area of what would the technology need to be in order to create a Avatar that could exist in our world? How could they control this Avatar. Unfortunately All I can think of is the Movie I saw that is titled "Avatar". Some human cloned DNA Splicing with their Own.

[Of course, I am sure, that some may argue that that would be impossible;our DNA spliced with Tachyon Particles, and I would fully agree. So, what if the avatar is fully human but it is controlled by these beings. The Good beings would choose a volunteer clone of another while the bad choose to force existing humans to do their bidding.

Interesting... Another Idea... I have seen in some medical magazines that idea of implants.
What if a device could be created to in essence High-jack a humans body and the controller takes over.

Hmmm... More to think out and reason out. Of course that question would have to be queried on a neurology forum.(IE. Is it even a possibility given the current trends on research)

Cepron you said;
Here's a thought, then - let's make the universe-manipulator and the inter-universe transport two facets of the same technology. Say you have something that opens a traversable wormhole between two universes. Now, let's borrow from Asimov's book and mix the universes' laws: your wormhole, while open, has a "lensing effect" which causes matter near the ends of the wormhole to be affected by laws of both universes, simultaneously. "Near" could be anything from a couple kilometers to a couple lightyears, whatever you need. Maybe you could set up several wormholes with overlapping areas of effect. This could compound the effect until you've constructed a "safe zone" in the other universe in which conventional matter can exist without losing cohesion.
Perhaps you could overlap wormhole-end-areas from multiple different universes in order to customize the laws you want in a volume of space, kind of like vector addition and scaling


This too has really got me thinking...
I love these ideas...
Let me see If I am picturing it right.( is a long explanation please be patient)

In essence what you are talking about is much like a large river Like the Mississippi dumping it self into the gulf leaves a trail of brackish water wherever it goes, this B rakish water would become more saline the further into the ocean it goes until it finally become saline water and the fresh water quality is gone.

In the same way Our Universe is spilling into the Brane Universe when this device opens the Fabric of the Brane. For a small as of yet undefined part of this Brane would be as the brackish water, or a mixture of the two universes laws.

If I am understanding this right, It would work to explain the chaotic nature of my characters experiences there. Also I have decided that she actually will not see my Antagonist here . I am planning on a omni-present voice while she is in this Universe.

@Maverick - No one- eyed Pink people or purplish- lime green skies OK
OOOhh and Maverick- I love the idea that all she would sense is an empty nothingness until my Antagonist arrives. UMMM but since I have dropped the programmer universe idea on the cutting room floor that device is no longer needed.]

Back to the Avatar Idea... could the device be as simple as a refraction of light. seeing as these being exist in a world that is based on the speed of light would it be highly likely that their technology would be highly developed and centered around Light physics.

My thinking is... what if they have learned to bend light in such a way that they can create a almost solid form, then my antagonist could become whatever they choose. One time he could choose to appear as a little girl; another a huge man or even another point in time as a beast with scales and sharp fangs.

I know far fetched but I am brain-storming here if you have better more realistic ideas let me know.

Now on to the points you responded to Cephron...

2. OK, I concede to the life is in every Universe. Now that I have seen the chart at the bottom of article you sent and read Maverick's post I agree that life in the Multi-Universe would be more of a fluke than the rule. So I am creating only two Universes where life exists. Besides, I only truly need life in my Marco Universe and the Micro Universe(Our Own) for my plot to advance.

@TheStatutoryApe:

Basically the only thing you need to do to make most scifi fans happy is keep the rules consistent and make them make some sort of sense. In another thread recently we were discussing what bothers us about movie science. I remarked that "sciency" explanations tend to ruin it and I think at least a couple other members agreed. It is far easier to suspend disbelief when you are not asked to think about how these things work (out of sight out of mind) than it is to choke down really poor "scientific" explanations for them. And typically the harder you try the worse it gets. It just highlights the lack of realism rather than adding to any sense of realism.

I like what you said here. Believe me I am taking it to heart. But you see I have to fully understand what I am writing about before I can write it. I use truth as a spring board for all my writing figuring If I don't believe it neither will anybody else. This(this thread) is purely research on my part. I will not talk science in the book. What will do is make it clear exactly what is really going on in my own mind and relay this through the point of view of my Character.

For Instance: Maverick's explanation that in the absence of all any molecular cohesion... If I understand you right Maverick, one would have a blank screen. This has lead me to the idea that if you existed even for a short moment within this brane you would experience a sense of nothingness just before your life would disintegrate into quarks.(whatever exists that is smaller than a molecule). OK, so what I would do with this information is to use it to heighten the tension my main character feels when she looks just beyond the safety of the bubble created as a "Safe Zone".

What she would experience, as she looks into the boundary of the Brane, is that she would see the wall of Darkness, she would feel an eiry silence in all her senses. No sense would be active in the direction of that blank wall.
I suspect that if my brain could process this I would be abhorrent to enter such a place. Such a place would equate to lifelessness. I would presume that a strong instinct of survival would come up.
So what does a writer do with such a prospect... she will decide to have a bit of fun with it. She will have the Main Character struggle tremendously with the Instinct to run as far away as possible from this place vs. the great Love she feels for this woman(her mother) and the fact that she and her mother couldn't possibly live long in such a place. What will my character do?

I have just realized that this post is getting very long... I will post a bit more, later on in order to respond to everyone I missed in the next post.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

I guess I would prefer to put it this way: some SF throws the physics book out the window; others do not throw away any part of it, but just add a new chapter.

eg.
Star Trek: throw physics book out the window.
Gattaca: leave physics book exactly the way it is.
The Gods Themselves: leave current content of physics book as is; add new chapter entitled "inter-universe diffusion of cosmological constants".

And then the art (and the tricky bit) comes with:
1) making the new chapter self-consistent,
2) make it so that, if one were assuming the new chapter were true; one would not create blatant contradictions in the pre-existing chapters.

The thought experiments we've done so far in this thread almost certainly don't meet this lofty standard (especially the bit about tachyons, I know, in know! xD ). But it's a good goal to have in mind when trying to write any "realistic" science fiction which deviates from the real.

Let's be clear "The Gods Themselves" was 100% Star Trek sci-fi. It was about as SCIENTIFIC as Lord of the Rings. I read it a long time ago but I remember something about ethereal glowing blue people and tungsten being important to inter-universe travel or some such. I remember it being a good book with an interesting setting but scientifically? Don't kid yourself, it was sssstttttuuuuppppiiiidddd. See there's this COMPLETELY incorrect notion that traversable wormholes and tachyons and flowing cosmological constants have a SHRED of science behind them because scientists gave them names. Let's be absolutely clear here, these names were reserved for things that we know DON'T occur. We've reserved the name ORC for disfigured, violent, barbarian like species and ELF for graceful, long-living slightly below human height species. That doesn't make these things any more realistic. There's an irritating trend for new sci-fi writers to read an issue of Scientific American or Discovery or some such (or watch a PBS Nova special) and slap down some 'string theory this' and 'heisenberg's uncertainty principle' that and 'quantum entanglement' this and 'M-branes' that jargon (which is this generations 'Lorentzian Wormhole' this and 'Allubierre Drive' that). The second you write down one of those words and you don't have a graduate degree in physics you ARE writing "soft sci-fi", i.e. the Star Trek variety. Again, absolutely nothing wrong with this genre (I quite like it, even being a physicist) but let's call a duck a duck. I always remember Michael Crichton being terrible for this. The vast majority of the time he was an expert of pacing and drama and a fan of the soft sci-fi setting but then he'd randomly digress into a string of retarded "scientific explanation" that he'd "learned" by talking to a geneticist or physicist for 20 minutes. It broke the flow, it was stupid and it was entirely unnecessary (and thus detrimental) to the story. Robert Sawyer, Isaac Aasimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Orson Scott Card, Michael Crichton etc. These are SOFT sci-fi writers.

 

[Thetom]

Robert Sawyer, Isaac Aasimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Orson Scott Card, Michael Crichton etc. These are SOFT sci-fi writers.

Funny, I was told Arthur C. Clark wrote Hard SF (i was told this by a writer mind you).

The example i was given was a short story he wrote about a tour bus on the moon, which starts to sink into the dust filling a crater. As the bus sinks the pressure builds. The tourists on the bus are oblivious to the fact that they are sinking deeper into the soft dust, but one of them remarks on the poor quality of tea. That is about all of an explanation Clark gives; the reader is just expected to know that liquids boil at a lower temperature under higher pressure (resulting in the worse tea). One of Clark's little jokes. lol.
So, at least in that snippet of an example, the writing is hard SF as it remains within established scientific constraints.

It seems there isn't a precise definition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_science_fiction

 

[cephron]

Let's be clear "The Gods Themselves" was 100% Star Trek sci-fi.

Hm, I'm afraid I completely disagree with that statement. While I'd be inclined to engage with you further over it, I'm headed out for next week and won't have internet access. :( Maybe we could start a new thread about it when I get back? After all, this thread is about helping scifiwriter with his worldbuilding, whatever genre we choose to call it. Scifiwriter clearly wants to put in concepts that are not possible given the real-world laws of physics, but he has also made clear that he wants to make an effort to minimize the breakage of laws and make his fictions as consistent with real-world physics as he can:

This is exactly the kind of Sci-Fi I am trying to write and why I am here talking to you guys.

@SFwriter:
I've had a lot of fun trying to help you out, but unfortunately, I'm heading out tomorrow, and won't be on the internet for probably about a week. Some parting remarks...


Firstly, concerning the Tachyon-entities and their avatars:

When I said avatar, I was meaning the more general definition of the word (you can look it up if you don't know it), which doesn't imply splicing genes or anything of the sort.
You are correct that there is no way you could have a hybrid tachyon/human creature; in fact, if you want to keep relativity more-or-less intact, I don't think tachyons and normal matter could really interact significantly (ie. transmit information between them) at all (let alone across a brane! Remember, we have them in different universes as per your current design). I was thinking that the Tachyon-entities' control of their avatars would almost have to be metaphysical in order to avoid breaking relativity. The way I see it, there are three kinds of directions you could go with this:

Option 1) Forgo the Tachyon entities and everything associated with them, replacing them with a different class of beings in the plot. A class of beings much more understandable, which can relate to our universe in a more conventional way. This option is the "safest" in terms of keeping things real.

Option 2) Allow the Tachyon entities, but they can only control their avatars (or any interaction with our universe at all) through metaphysical means. This would allow interaction which would bypass relativity without breaking it, but would add a clear element of fantasy to your story. Metaphysical stuff is harder to fit into the category of science. It's not quite the same as throwing the physics book to the wind, but it is introducing something dangerously close to magic. As for their avatars, no technology would 'produce' them - there would just be some individuals (human? something else? whatever) who claim to speak for the Tachyon-entities. And no one would be able to prove/disprove it scientifically. I kind of like this option, but remember - it adds fantasy!

Option 3) Allow the Tachyon entities, and devise some physical way that would allow them to talk to slower-than-light beings. I don't recommend this option, as I suspect any attempt to do this would break relativity pretty badly. However, I don't know the first thing about tachyons, mathematically speaking. All the above speculations came from reading up on them on Wikipedia. If someone else stumbles upon this and can provide an option here that more-or-less respects physics, or has a better understanding of tachyon/bradyon interaction, please do let us know!

Before moving on, a word about Tachyon-entity "technology". I highly recommend you give up on this entirely. While it's tempting to try to visualize what their world would be like, again, I stress that it is way too foreign for us to grasp. Maveric's talk about different laws of physics should convince you of that. To postulate Tachyon-based life is a cool notion/plot device, but who's to say they even have bodies? Solid matter as we know it couldn't even logically exist in a 1-dimensional world with 3 dimensions of time. If they have "technology", it's as radically different from our notion of technology as the rest of their universe is. Imo, it would be impossible to say anything believable about it.


Secondly, concerning the wormhole/universe law overlap:

For the one-way-pipe wormhole version, your "river pouring into the sea" analogy is really on the mark! For the 'lensing effect' version, I was thinking that it wouldn't be a chaotic mixing between them, but rather a smooth gradient.
Eg. in universe A, you have:
100% A-laws at infinity distance from the wormhole,
75% A-laws / 25% B laws at some distance 'X' from the wormhole,
and 50% A-laws / 50% B laws at the center of the worldhole;
and then in universe B you have:
25% A-laws / 75% B laws at distance X from the wormhole,
and 100% B-laws at infinity.

...and of course, the changes in law would propagate at the speed of light (might be different for different universes!) from the point of origin, and their intensity would fall off according to some power of distance, etc. You would pick distance X according to what would be useful for your story, because X determines how big a safe zone you can build given a certain number of wormholes.

Personally, I like the lens-effect version more, but the one-way-wormhole has lots of fun implications.

But whichever one you choose, its a good idea to make sure you figure out how energy is conserved (another lesson learned from Asimov! You really should read The Gods Themselves, most of my ideas in this thread are inspired from there). Make sure your wormholes and safe-zones don't allow for the construction of an infinite-energy machine that could keep going forever; that's a pretty bad thing for a realistic scifi.

I'll try to catch up on this later. Bye for now, good luck and have fun!

 

[maverick_starstrider]

You are correct that there is no way you could have a hybrid tachyon/human creature; in fact, if you want to keep relativity more-or-less intact, I don't think tachyons and normal matter could really interact significantly (ie. transmit information between them) at all (let alone across a brane! Remember, we have them in different universes as per your current design). I was thinking that the Tachyon-entities' control of their avatars would almost have to be metaphysical in order to avoid breaking relativity...

What the hell? This is total gibberish, if they ever come up with a new star trek series you should write for it ;) What exactly might the Green's Function be for inter-brane or inter-universal tachyon propagation?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Also Chepron when you asked about my one rule I was referring to the breaking only One Physics Law. You know the... only ask me to buy One Law being broken. I like the freebie On the Multi-Universe as being believable. Now I just need to combine the ability to
1. Transverse these Muti-Universes
2. The safety buffer Zone for my Instability in the nuclear physics of this Membrane

I would advise you to read the science behind these things before speculating on them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse#Tegmark.27s_classification

When writing a story, especially science fiction, you should build the world before running off with a plot. Otherwise your story just becomes one ad hoc solution after another to patch up the mistakes in your flawed premise; e.g.

The laws are different in this other universe
How does the character survive?
Er...she can create a bubble of laws around her
How does she do this?
Er...she can change laws with her mind
How does this work?
Er...pass
Why didn't she instantly die?
Er...pass
If she can change the laws then what's the problem, she can wish her mother back
Er...the tachyon aliens stop her
How can a tachyon alien exist?
Er...they see all of time and space and use avatars
How are you going to write a story with characters that can see the future perfectly?
Er...

etc etc etc.

I'm not knocking you but I've seen this dozens of times before. Authors come asking for advice and when they hear that what they have said makes no sense they make up one piece of technobabble after the other until what you are left with is a star trek sized mountain of nonsense just to justify a plot that would work without the science fiction.

I truly Love the Idea of a kind of Avatar, for what I have now decided, are a Tachyon-based Life-forms.

(maverick: I know that you do not believe that Tachyons exist but as you know It wasn't something I created out of nothing; many scientific minds are debating the existence of tachyons;as well as many other particles. For now I will assume that Tacyons exist, as a device for my plot.)

I think you are really misunderstanding the scientific consensus. Tachyons are not debated as if they may exist, they are pure speculation. If you are going to include them in your story how will you get around causality violations?

Am I right in thinking My beings would be capable of experiencing Past- Present and Future at the same moment. At least that is what I thought I understood from the article On wikipedia.

Er...why would you think this?

Assuming I am correct, It would be just as irritating for these creatures to think of one single moment in time as I have of considering experiencing all of Past,Present, and Future as one moment.

I was thinking: How frustrating it might be to understand our need to order our world in some kind of sequential way. This has my mind racing in both plot and character possibilities. What a gorgeous tension device for my Antagonist. Thanks!

I don't think this is correct at all but even so this is going to be impossible for you to write. How exactly do you imagine a being that can violate causality just by perceiving to work? It won't be "irritating" for them to think because they won't "think" at all! How can you think when everything that has ever and will ever happen to you (as well as everything that you have ever and will ever do) occurs at the same time? You can't have any thoughts because that implies something occurring that hasn't happened and then does happen. This doesn't make any sense if you are proposing beings for which everything has happened.

My thoughts now are centered in the area of what would the technology need to be in order to create a Avatar that could exist in our world? How could they control this Avatar. Unfortunately All I can think of is the Movie I saw that is titled "Avatar". Some human cloned DNA Splicing with their Own.

[Of course, I am sure, that some may argue that that would be impossible;our DNA spliced with Tachyon Particles, and I would fully agree. So, what if the avatar is fully human but it is controlled by these beings. The Good beings would choose a volunteer clone of another while the bad choose to force existing humans to do their bidding.

Word of advice; Avatar was one of the worse science fiction movies for science EVER. You would no more be able to splice your DNA with an alien than you would with a jelly fish. And let's not even go down the route of why the blue aliens were just humans with a lick of paint...

Interesting... Another Idea... I have seen in some medical magazines that idea of implants.
What if a device could be created to in essence High-jack a humans body and the controller takes over.

Hmmm... More to think out and reason out. Of course that question would have to be queried on a neurology forum.(IE. Is it even a possibility given the current trends on research)

There is nothing on the ability to control thoughts and bodies I assure you and you have far too many plot holes in your foundational premises to start worldbuilding on top of.

Here's a thought, then - let's make the universe-manipulator and the inter-universe transport two facets of the same technology. Say you have something that opens a traversable wormhole between two universes. Now, let's borrow from Asimov's book and mix the universes' laws: your wormhole, while open, has a "lensing effect" which causes matter near the ends of the wormhole to be affected by laws of both universes, simultaneously. "Near" could be anything from a couple kilometers to a couple lightyears, whatever you need. Maybe you could set up several wormholes with overlapping areas of effect. This could compound the effect until you've constructed a "safe zone" in the other universe in which conventional matter can exist without losing cohesion.
Perhaps you could overlap wormhole-end-areas from multiple different universes in order to customize the laws you want in a volume of space, kind of like vector addition and scaling

How exactly would a safe zone be created considering that long before a change in the universe's constants became apparent you would be dead? In addition how exactly are you going to explain away the God like powers of the protagonist?

In essence what you are talking about is much like a large river Like the Mississippi dumping it self into the gulf leaves a trail of brackish water wherever it goes, this B rakish water would become more saline the further into the ocean it goes until it finally become saline water and the fresh water quality is gone.

Analogies are very bad things to use when you understand a topic so poorly. They give the illusion of understanding when none exists. Stay on the science if you want to properly comprehend what you are talking about.

Back to the Avatar Idea... could the device be as simple as a refraction of light. seeing as these being exist in a world that is based on the speed of light would it be highly likely that their technology would be highly developed and centered around Light physics.

My thinking is... what if they have learned to bend light in such a way that they can create a almost solid form, then my antagonist could become whatever they choose. One time he could choose to appear as a little girl; another a huge man or even another point in time as a beast with scales and sharp fangs.

This makes no sense. Why would their technology be developed around "light physics" any more than our own? Why do you assume that bending light in such a way is possible? Light paths bend due to gravity, that doesn't make them solid. You are just trying to propose a cliché tachyonic forcefield (star trek much?).

I know far fetched but I am brain-storming here if you have better more realistic ideas let me know.

I know it must sound like I'm having a go at you but honestly drop all the stuff you don't understand if you want to make this story make sense. You really are wandering into "the technobabble is techbabbling and that's reversed the polarity of the theta field!"

OK, I concede to the life is in every Universe. Now that I have seen the chart at the bottom of article you sent and read Maverick's post I agree that life in the Multi-Universe would be more of a fluke than the rule. So I am creating only two Universes where life exists. Besides, I only truly need life in my Marco Universe and the Micro Universe(Our Own) for my plot to advance.

What do you mean by macro and micro? There is only one universe even in multiverse theory.

For Instance: Maverick's explanation that in the absence of all any molecular cohesion... If I understand you right Maverick, one would have a blank screen. This has lead me to the idea that if you existed even for a short moment within this brane you would experience a sense of nothingness just before your life would disintegrate into quarks.(whatever exists that is smaller than a molecule). OK, so what I would do with this information is to use it to heighten the tension my main character feels when she looks just beyond the safety of the bubble created as a "Safe Zone".

How on Earth will she do this considering that she will be killed instantly?

What she would experience, as she looks into the boundary of the Brane, is that she would see the wall of Darkness, she would feel an eiry silence in all her senses. No sense would be active in the direction of that blank wall.

Where does the air come from? She'll be dead pretty quick (assuming you can get around the fact that she will be dead instantly anyway). And how exactly is she meant to control the universe with her mind?

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I like what you said here. Believe me I am taking it to heart. But you see I have to fully understand what I am writing about before I can write it. I use truth as a spring board for all my writing figuring If I don't believe it neither will anybody else. This(this thread) is purely research on my part. I will not talk science in the book. What will do is make it clear exactly what is really going on in my own mind and relay this through the point of view of my Character.

For Instance: Maverick's explanation that in the absence of all any molecular cohesion... If I understand you right Maverick, one would have a blank screen. This has lead me to the idea that if you existed even for a short moment within this brane you would experience a sense of nothingness just before your life would disintegrate into quarks.(whatever exists that is smaller than a molecule). OK, so what I would do with this information is to use it to heighten the tension my main character feels when she looks just beyond the safety of the bubble created as a "Safe Zone".

What she would experience, as she looks into the boundary of the Brane, is that she would see the wall of Darkness, she would feel an eiry silence in all her senses. No sense would be active in the direction of that blank wall.
I suspect that if my brain could process this I would be abhorrent to enter such a place. Such a place would equate to lifelessness. I would presume that a strong instinct of survival would come up.
So what does a writer do with such a prospect... she will decide to have a bit of fun with it. She will have the Main Character struggle tremendously with the Instinct to run as far away as possible from this place vs. the great Love she feels for this woman(her mother) and the fact that she and her mother couldn't possibly live long in such a place. What will my character do?

This is a good example of where you fall pretty much completely outside of any sort of real science. Its really up to you to make it up as you go along here. It just needs to make some sort of intuitive sense and be consistent. You can look outside science too.

For example an old friend of mine had a near death experience. While he was 'dead' he said that he had no perception of 'up' or 'down' or any sort of boundaries. He said it took a moment to realize but he was supposedly "seeing" in all directions at once. He also described the seemingly infinite expanse of the 'place' he was in as not being "black" or "white" but just somehow indescribably "blank". This would perhaps be a fairly logical explanation of what it would be like to be a disembodied mind in a "blank" universe. He personally believes that he was actually dead and "inbetween worlds". If others have had similar experiences they may be inclined to consider such an explanation 'realistic'.

 

[cephron]

How exactly would a safe zone be created considering that long before a change in the universe's constants became apparent you would be dead? In addition how exactly are you going to explain away the God like powers of the protagonist?

The point of the wormhole technology is to take away the need for any godlike powers. We replace them with a new plot device, a fictional technology which is subject to various constraints in an attempt to make it more realistic (while still remaining a useful plot device). If you wanted a safe zone, then you would have to postulate that you could open all the necessary wormholes in the appropriate places before taking a single step into the new universe.
What I'm trying to do is set constraints based on what the fiction needs to accomplish, and then optimize for realism within the bounds of the constraints. The less outlandish the constraints, the more realistic the solution can be. I'm not claiming in any way that the wormhole technology is any more physically possible than godlike powers, but I would say that it is more realistic, which is why I recommended it in the first place.

On the other hand, your assessment of SFwriter's speculations is pretty justified, and IMO lots of your advice to him is good.

@SFwriter, I'd also recommend you hang out on the Special/General relativity boards, and maybe some of the other ones. Reading the FAQ there and browsing the threads is a good way to learn about popular misconceptions people have, nonintuitive truths about how the world actually works, and you may begin to see slots where realistic fiction could be inserted without causing contradictions everywhere. In the meantime, decide what level of realism you want and have fun.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

The point of the wormhole technology is to take away the need for any godlike powers. We replace them with a new plot device, a fictional technology which is subject to various constraints in an attempt to make it more realistic (while still remaining a useful plot device). If you wanted a safe zone, then you would have to postulate that you could open all the necessary wormholes in the appropriate places before taking a single step into the new universe.

I see. Awkwardly the OP is then in the situation of trying to explain how the protagonist generates these universe spanning wormholes. Whilst they are entirely speculative there has been published work on the subject that show some of the characteristics wormholes might have if they exist, the OP might want to look those up.

 

[cephron]

Yes. If your science fiction includes some fictional physics, you do at some point have to make stuff up. But I'm in complete agreement with you about the research; that's the way to figure out how make the made up stuff more believable.

 

[scifiwriter]

@ Cephron
Let me point out I am a girl not a guy *Grin* sorry about the confusion on that point.
@Ryan
It is not my protagonist that has control of this "Wormhole" Technology it is my Antagonist
The Mega (or you could say Parent) Universe is the bigger Universe(Alternate Reality)
The Micro (Fetus) is our own Universe (Alternate Reality)
The M Brane(Placental Sack) is all that is separating our Universe from ours.
The Being from that Older more advanced Universe has advanced technology as they were actually in existence before we were from our POV.

Point two this is my research... Nothing is written in stone here.This is just bouncing around an idea and allowing you all to take the shots and shoot it down so that i can make it more believable! Instead of just saying it's gibberish could you explain why it won't work. That would really be more helpful.

Understand that there is so much information and so many people talking about what is possible and quite a few haven't even been in a physics class * raises hands to denote I am one of those people*

This presents a problem, since I know nothing about what is credible according to the laws of Physics,how can I spot gibberish from the real science... Go talk to some scientists, and trust that they know real science from fake. So here I am!

When comes to my scenario about the Mississippi I was only trying to explain what I thought I understood to Cephron and give him the opportunity to correct me if I had it wrong.



I am asking for some patience and understanding here. I am in a brand new world of thought than I am used to. I am trying to expand my ability to enter a more scientific less fantasy_soft SCi-FI genre and into a more realistic book.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Just want to throw out some basic special relativity here: Tachyons WOULD NOT allow for travel (or perception) back in time. Draw a space-time diagram with a light-cone (light is a 45 degree angle). Draw an event A at your origin, draw an event B anywhere later along the time axis, draw a light-cone for B. Now Tachyons, by definitions, have speeds anywhere from faster than the speed of light (c) to infinitely fast. On your diagram this corresponds to a line which makes an angle with the x-axis anywhere from less than 45 degrees to 0 degrees. From this, please, tell me how you connect event B to A. You can't. Tachyons would violate causality (since they could "beat" the electromagnetic force in a "race") but they certainly wouldn't allow motion backwards in time, they'd also have a velocity with an imaginary component which is pretty WTF.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

@ Cephron
Let me point out I am a girl not a guy *Grin* sorry about the confusion on that point.
@Ryan
It is not my protagonist that has control of this "Wormhole" Technology it is my Antagonist
The Mega (or you could say Parent) Universe is the bigger Universe(Alternate Reality)
The Micro (Fetus) is our own Universe (Alternate Reality)
The M Brane(Placental Sack) is all that is separating our Universe from ours.
The Being from that Older more advanced Universe has advanced technology as they were actually in existence before we were from our POV.

Point two this is my research... Nothing is written in stone here.This is just bouncing around an idea and allowing you all to take the shots and shoot it down so that i can make it more believable! Instead of just saying it's gibberish could you explain why it won't work. That would really be more helpful.

Understand that there is so much information and so many people talking about what is possible and quite a few haven't even been in a physics class * raises hands to denote I am one of those people*

This presents a problem, since I know nothing about what is credible according to the laws of Physics,how can I spot gibberish from the real science... Go talk to some scientists, and trust that they know real science from fake. So here I am!

When comes to my scenario about the Mississippi I was only trying to explain what I thought I understood to Cephron and give him the opportunity to correct me if I had it wrong.



I am asking for some patience and understanding here. I am in a brand new world of thought than I am used to. I am trying to expand my ability to enter a more scientific less fantasy_soft SCi-FI genre and into a more realistic book.

Yes, but you're missing our point. Our point is absolutely NOT that your story is bad or that you should stop writing. Our point is that you will NEVER be able to make what you propose "more" realistic (it has nothing to do with reality to begin with). Our solution to you is write it anyway, its science will be garbage, but it may be a great story and that's all that really matters. And has been pointed out, really what you're suggesting is basically a spin on the "stuck in a dream world/reality" a la Dreamscape, Nightmare on Elm Street, etc. But there's NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. But you can never expect a physicists seal of "accurate science" approval, so don't bother with it. Strip the extraneous "physics" "concepts" and break it down to the raw story.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

I don't know if any of you read the blog www.cosmicvariance.com but the main guy there, Sean Carroll, had a post where he talked about being one of the "science advisors" on the new Thor movie. He has a really good post about how, when he came in, they just wanted a bunch of technojargon to patch up the "magic" of the "science" in the plot. However, he strongly pushed for a different approach, attempting to make the physics of the Marvel universe INTERNALLY consistent. In other words, the rules of that universe aren't the same as ours, they're actually this, but given that, this and this are possible. And I think that's the true ticket to a soft sci-fi narrative. Don't worry about matching things up with reality. We see this all the time in movies and sci-fi, each movie lays out its own personal "rules" of time-travel or vampires or whatever and then as long as the rest of the movie conforms to these rules the audience is happy.