Acts of Conscience (55 page)

About two-thirds of the land mass lies between the two mountain ranges, forming a dry highland, itself subdivided, principally by the cold Antarctic Highlands (the Koudloft; koud = cold), which form a plateau region connecting the two mountain ranges. “Leftwards” of the Koudloft, where the valley narrows and comes down to the sea, is the Greek city of Orikhalkos on what is called the Plain of Brass (Koperveldt, for its bright amber-gold vegetation). Vapaa lies on the other side of the Koudloft, facing the Inner Veldt. Koro’mal’luma lies at the far “rightward” end of the valley, beyond the Mistibos forests, at the mouth of the Somber River.

Between the antarctic tundra and the Mistibos lies the 4-million square mile Inner Veldt (Opveldt), a dry, lightly-forested savanna where most of the Veldteboer population is located. The Opveldt is the prime habitat of the wolfen and dollies and, prior to human colonization, included vast herds of womfrogs. These have been decimated by hunting, many of the smaller tribes surviving by taking refuge in the Mistibos. Of the three subspecies of wolfen, the white wolfen live on the Koperveldt and in the Koudloft, the more numerous red wolfen on the Opveldt, and the primitive green wolfen in the Mistibos. There are several minor subspecies (brown, gray, and tan, to name a few) of wolfen living in the mountains, the desert and the various isolated coastal plains, some of them close to extinction now.

In addition to the French Islands, the northern hemisphere contains many island chains, mainly volcanic, none colonized by humans, some of them with very little native life. These seas are infested by swarms of boomers, whose numbers are unaffected by limited human hunting. Unknown to humans, or anyone else, the boomers are actively investigating human technology. Though the boomers, living in the ocean, can’t make fire, they do have hands.

Asynchronous Metadynamics:

A Prototype Unified Field Theory

Completely Imaginary Physics, for the fun of it! The main purpose of this essay was to synthesize the terminlogy the characters in the story would use to discuss their technological surround and, ultimately, the principles of the Teleport Bomb. No one should imagine I actually know what the hell I’m talking about here...

The universe consists of the Einstein-Feinberg Continuum, which is divided into the Einstein Plenum (zero velocity = zero energy; c = infinite energy) and the Feinberg Plenum (infinite velocity = zero energy; c = infinite energy). Mass and energy are, of course, equivalent in both plena, and inertia is conserved linearly. Theoretical particles existing in the Feinberg Plenum, called tachyons, would be detectable in the Einstein Plenum by their Cherenkov radiation wakes. No such wakes have ever been detected. AsMet takes note of this fact, and posits that as velocities increase, the statistical likelihood of aggregations of matter decrease.

If m represents the rest mass of a particle (that is, its zero energy state), for “normal” particles, m2 > 0, for massless particles such as photons, m2 = 0, and for tachyonic particles, m2 < 0. Since calculating the rest mass of a tachyonic particle involves taking the square root of a negative number, it can be seen that the rest masses of tachyons are imaginary. Most references casually explain that, for tachyons, m2 = - µ2, which is interesting, but not so informative as one would like. (The square root of a negative number is called an imaginary number. Imaginary numbers can be represented by the number i, which is called the imaginary unit. The imaginary unit i is defined by i2 = -1. For example, the imaginary numbers  -11 and  -36 can be represented as i 11 and 6i respectively.)

The Einstein-Feinberg Continuum is infinite in extent and consists of a packed array of 4-dimensional entities called Planck Sockets (PSs). Only one of these dimensions is spatial, the other three representing other principal properties of matter, such as duration. Because a Planck Socket is 4-dimensional, it possesses 48 two-dimensional surfaces, so each PS is in simultaneous contact with 48 other PSs. These represent the interactional channels of matter, energy and time.

There is a finite, hence calculable, probability that each Planck Socket will contain a Kaluza-Klein Entity (KKE). The value of this probability represents the notorious “vacuum energy.” Probabilistic permutations and combinations between Planck Sockets and Kaluza-Klein Entities also account for various statistical features of the universe, such as Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, entropy, and inertia.

The major engineering calculations involving AsMet primarily involve quaternion algebra and multidimensional statistical probability. It may be that the “dimensions” of Planck Sockets are best represented by the quaternion modulus l and linearly independent noncommutative integers i, j, and k. In quaternion algebra, li = il, but ij <> ji, etc. With regard to statistical probability, it is worth noting here only that the number of permutations of n objects, taken r at a time, is defined as P(n,r) = n!/(n-r)!.

Kaluza-Klein Entities are 11-dimensional “objects” which exist “inside” but are fully coincident with Planck Sockets. These 11 “dimensions,” not defined here, are sufficient to account for all the properties associated with matter and energy. The specific properties of a given KKE at a given “Planck instant” are represented by the “contact” of any 4 of the KKE’s dimensional “faces” with the PS’s four dimensional “surfaces.” This interaction is referred to as the KKE+PS association’s quantum aspect. P(11,4) = 11!/(11-4)! = 11!/7! = 39916800/5040 = 7920. It may be seen that each such A(KKE+PS), shorthand for the phrase “Kaluza-Klein Entity in association with a Planck Socket,” will have 7920 possible quantum aspects.

Technically, an “empty” Planck Socket may be viewed as a KKE+PS association whose quantum aspect is zero, and further, whose KKE has all its dimensional values set to zero. Thus, even spacetime itself may be treated mathematically as a fully packed array of KKE+PS associations. Philosophically, this permits the entire universe to be regarded as a single object whose properties are in some sense crystalline.

With each simultaneous evolution of Planck Duration (an individual property of a PS, one of its “dimensions”), there is a calculable probability that it will “snap,” that is, that its quantum aspect will spontaneously change. Note that there is no “universal program counter.” The self-contained Planck Sockets are not coordinated, hence are out of phase with each other, hence the term Asynchronous Metadynamics. Once again, the calculable probability that an “empty” PS will snap to a “nonempty” state accounts for vacuum energy (but also for the existence of the universe itself—this will ultimately be used to tie together the Big Bang hypothesis with Hannes Alfven’s plasma cosmology).

Planck duration is defined as the minimum determinable interval of time, corresponding to one of Einstein’s “time shells.” It may be thought of as either the minimum interval between two instantaneous events (the usual interpretation) or as the minimum duration of a single non-instantaneous event, it makes no difference mathematically. The fact that event sequencing between PSs is not synchronized accounts for the existence of relativistic time phenomena in macrocosmic spacetime (noting that even something so tiny and immaterial as a neutrino is still a macrocosmic entity).

Planck Sockets (and their associated KKEs) interact through adjacent “two-dimensional surfaces,” recalling that each PS interacts simultaneously with 48 adjacent PSs. The two “surfaces” are fully coplanar, meaning, in effect, that they are the same surface, and that the quantum aspect of each association is in direct contact with the quantum aspects of the other 48 associations. It is through this direct contact that interactions take place, since adjacent permutations interact as statistical combinations.

The number of combinations of n objects, taken r at a time, is defined as C(n,r) = n!/(n-r)!r!. The main difference between a permutation and a combination is whether order is considered (permutation) or not (combination). C(7920,48) = 7920!/(7920-48)!48! = 7920!/7872!*48!, which is, numerically, far beyond the resolving power of my Casio-fx statistical-scientific calculator. It is a fairly large number.

It must be understood that Planck Sockets are spatially “fixed.” Since they are in a fully packed array with a universe completely “filled” with Planck Sockets, they have nowhere to go. The illusion of motion is provided by the propagation of quantum aspect features between adjacent PSs. In its simplest case, the laws of probability mean that an isolated KKE will perform a random walk through the PS “space” surrounding it. For any given KKE+PS, there is a calculable probability that its quantum aspect will “zero out” and that one of the 48 adjacent PSs will spontaneously evolve a KKE. The fact of asynchronicity implies that a “moving” KKE may simultaneously “occupy” two or more PSs, or that it may be temporarily nonexistent. It’s also easy to see, from this, that the “moving” KKE is not real, that is, it does not cease to exist in one place and reappear elsewhere, nor does it somehow move from one PS to another. KKEs in different PSs are distinct entities, even when otherwise identical (an unlikely prospect, given the probabilities cited above). In fact, there’s no reason not to regard the KKE as a “characteristic” of the PS.

Simply put, the physical features of the universe are no more than the vector sum of probabilistic information waves propagating through the A(KKE+PS) background continuum. We must then understand that a “physical” object in the macrocosmos is a complex probability density, a sort of “mathematical cloud.”

Note that this is analogous to the propagation of an impulse down a nerve. All that moves is a wave of “electrical potential.” The nerves themselves, as well as the chemicals, etc., involved, go nowhere. Yet the information gets where it’s going and, in our brains, the vector sum of the propagating waves of electrical potential is customarily referred to as “thought.”

Rather than attempt to study the ramifications of this in detail (pointless without sophisticated mathematics—if I could do it, I’d also be hard at work polishing my Nobel acceptance speech), let us simply look at the AsMet interpretations of gravity, which is important to the technologies represented in
Acts of Conscience
.

For the sake of simplicity, let us represent the Continuum as a sheet of graph paper, each square being a Planck Socket. Coloring in a square will tell us it contains a Kaluza-Klein Entity (recalling that we’d need 7920 colors to represent the association’s possible quantum aspects). Let us assume that a circle of associations has formed, walling off a region of empty PSs. In effect, this “wall” constitutes an event horizon. The “inside” ceases to exist in that KKEs can no longer random walk into the region without being “absorbed” by one of the KKE+PS associations forming the wall, in effect being “absorbed” by the event horizon. This has probabilistic consequences.

The “wall” itself also corresponds to the vibrating superstring particles of the eponymous Superstring theory. In Holotaxial Dynamics (used variously in several of my previous novels), the “hole” in the middle of the superstring (the circle of A(KKE+PS)s here) is the throat of a hyperpipe leading to Platonic Reality. In AsMet physics, Platonic Reality corresponds to the probabilistic rule sieve that governs both the deterministic and nondeterministic behaviors of the associations.

The probabilistic effect of the “disappearance” of a portion of spacetime (the walled-off “empty” PSs) propagates outward through the Continuum, away from the superassociation, as an information wave.

Viewed in the context of Relativistic Gravity, the “hole” ceases to exist, because it can no longer interact with other associations, thus bringing the “wall” associations everywhere in contact with one another, altering their aggregate identities and thus how they interact with the Continuum “outside” the wall. Effectively, this creates a stress “slope” toward the vanished space, like a dimple in a sheet of rubber (to use a hoary analogy).

Viewed in the context of Quantum Gravity, the propagating information wave is equivalent to a gravity wave or, in Feynmann diagraming, as gravitons interacting with matter.

So. Now you know how to build an FTL starship and arm it with a teleport bomb projector. Happy hunting!

PS: Back in the day, because she seemed impressed by my ability to make up sophisticated and meaningful-sounding scientific jargon, and because I’m not quite so dumbstruck by pretty, sexy women as Gaetan du Cheyne, I showed a copy of this essay to Catherine Asaro. She seemed disappointed to find out I don’t actually know a damn thing!

eBooks to Come

What follows is a list of prospective eBook publications, a mix of reprint and new. The pricing schema for them is simple. Novellas, averaging 100 – 150 pages in length, will be $2.99. Full-length novels (usually more than 400 pages) will typically carry the original mass-market paperback cover price, for reprints, or $9.99 for new ones. Collections of short fiction will be priced according to length, somewhere in between. I intend to stick to that, come Hell or high inflation.

The Starover Universe

Hunting On Kunderer
, 1972 reprint novella.

A Plague of All Cowards,
1976 reprint novella.

This Dog/Rat World,
  unpublished 1978 novella.

Acts of Conscience,
1997 reprint novel.

A Last War for the Oriflamme,
new novella.

Loci of the Starover Universe,
new nonfiction.

The Portmanteau Universe

The Venusians,
with Michael Capobianco, unpublished 1964 novella.

Under Twilight,
with Michael Capobianco, unpublished 1978 novel.

The Silvergirl Universe

When We Were New,
reprint and new collection.

When We Were Real,
1999 reprint novel.

When We Were Lost,
reprint and new collection.