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From Twitter 04-07-2010
Apr. 8th, 2010 03:05 amTweets copied by twittinesis.com
Apr. 8th, 2010
Quick fiction
Apr. 8th, 2010 02:06 pm"Congratulations," the man in uniform said, "you've just re-invented the time machine."
If he hadn't appeared from nowhere as soon as I soldered the last circuit, I wouldn't have given him much credence. Men in loud neon violet tunics out of Captain Scarlet, complete with the Lapels that Ate Louisville, fail to inspire confidence in me as regards their authority. But he had showed up in a flash of colored lights and a loud air displacement, and anyone able to do that deserves the benefit of the doubt.
"Thanks," I said. "It was pretty simple once I re-examined the math on space-time and got rid of all those annoying infinities. When you get infinity as an answer in any equation, it either means your math is wrong or you're asking the wrong question. Infinity is impossible in this universe."
"Well spotted," the stranger smiled. "I also congratulate you on solving the energy threshhold."
That had been trickier. The numbers on the energy required to displace oneself in the temporal dimension were not infinite- merely absurdly large, as in "more energy than exists if all matter in the universe was converted to pure energy." But the re-worked math that disproved the time travel paradox had also opened an avenue for me which, to protect my future patent, I will keep secret.
"Thanks. So, what are you, a time cop?"
"Close. I'm a member of the Temporal Travel Safety Authority. I'm here to give you the usual safety talk, point out the dangers of time travel, how to avoid them, and hand you a chip for easy..." He looked around the workshop. "Um, maybe I'd better send you a book later. Seems it's at least fifty years before you'd be able to access a chip."
"I have a Kindle."
"A what?"
"Never mind. And if I break the rules of the road, you write me a ticket, right?"
"Well, no." The time traveler shrugged. "I have no enforcement powers whatever."
"Excuse me? You mean I could go back in time, kill my own grandfather, Hitler, and Sid and Marty Krofft when they were all children, probably destroy the universe by paradox, and you wouldn't do anything?"
"You should know it doesn't work that way," the time traveler replied. "Your own math shows that paradox is utterly impossible. The universe works around it. It doesn't need us to enforce the laws of metaphysics."
"So what are you here for, then?"
"Mainly to protect you from your own stupidity."
"Come again?"
"Let me explain. If a paradox threatens, the universe simply makes it impossible to commit the act that creates the paradox. If you tried to kill your grandfather before he conceived your parent, your gun would jam, or you'd hit someone who had no significant effect on your life anyway, or you'd do something whose complications would result in your grandfather not being where you thought he'd be, or so on, so forth. You can only do things in your own past that are either necessary for, or compatible with, your personal history playing out more or less as you experienced it."
"Okay... so where's the danger?"
"The universe pushes back harder the more a person persists in trying to make a paradoxical change, or the more radical the change is. Drowning Hitler, or giving the Aztecs smallpox vaccine, gunpowder and iron-forging in the twelfth century, those are major changes- and the universe reacts accordingly. Catch on?"
I wasn't sure I believed it, but the math... "Reacts how?"
"Different every time. As you'd guess, most people who invent a time machine have a purpose- usually a mad scheme to conquer the world, or to put right what they feel went wrong, so on. They ignore our warnings, and they try to put the scheme in action. The universe eliminates the threat." He smacked his fist into his palm to make the point. "After that, there's nothing left for us to arrest or rescue or anything. We just go in after the fact and clean up any mess that might be left behind."
"So I can't change the past."
"You can't change your own past. You can only change stuff that history shows you changed anyway, with a few minor exceptions. Most responsible time travelers use their devices for historical study, tourism, or to retrieve antiques, artifacts, books and the like just before they would have been destroyed, that sort of thing."
"So I've just built a Disney fun ride, is what you're saying."
"A very educational Disney ride," the time traveler nodded. "You could call it It's a Bloody Deadly World Full of Evil Bastards After All, do the grand tour of Ramses, Alexander, Octavian, Attila, the Khans, Tamurlane, the Borgias, Ivan the Terrible, Selim II, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm II... all the usual suspects."
"Well, that's no help," I grumbled. "What's the point of time travel if you can't change things?"
"I didn't say you couldn't change history," the time traveler said. "Just that you can't do it in your own history." He opened a panel on his belt buckle and punched a couple of buttons. "I'll send the book along in a day or two. Good luck."
Flash. Gone.
I thought about what he said for a minute. I couldn't change my own history. Nothing that in any way shaped how I was conceived, born, raised, educated. Nothing that I knew, up to the moment I built the time machine, could be changed.
In my history.
Fine. I'd find somebody else's, and change THAT.
I put away my tools, then went to my computer and began looking over the traditional equations that explained why travel to alternate-probability dimensions was impossible. There were potentially a googolplex of those- one for every single probability, no matter how minute, different from the mainline.
Yep. Chock full of infinities.
As I got out pencil and notepad to do some number-juggling, I wondered: how long until I got a visit from the Interdimensional Travel Safety Authority?
If he hadn't appeared from nowhere as soon as I soldered the last circuit, I wouldn't have given him much credence. Men in loud neon violet tunics out of Captain Scarlet, complete with the Lapels that Ate Louisville, fail to inspire confidence in me as regards their authority. But he had showed up in a flash of colored lights and a loud air displacement, and anyone able to do that deserves the benefit of the doubt.
"Thanks," I said. "It was pretty simple once I re-examined the math on space-time and got rid of all those annoying infinities. When you get infinity as an answer in any equation, it either means your math is wrong or you're asking the wrong question. Infinity is impossible in this universe."
"Well spotted," the stranger smiled. "I also congratulate you on solving the energy threshhold."
That had been trickier. The numbers on the energy required to displace oneself in the temporal dimension were not infinite- merely absurdly large, as in "more energy than exists if all matter in the universe was converted to pure energy." But the re-worked math that disproved the time travel paradox had also opened an avenue for me which, to protect my future patent, I will keep secret.
"Thanks. So, what are you, a time cop?"
"Close. I'm a member of the Temporal Travel Safety Authority. I'm here to give you the usual safety talk, point out the dangers of time travel, how to avoid them, and hand you a chip for easy..." He looked around the workshop. "Um, maybe I'd better send you a book later. Seems it's at least fifty years before you'd be able to access a chip."
"I have a Kindle."
"A what?"
"Never mind. And if I break the rules of the road, you write me a ticket, right?"
"Well, no." The time traveler shrugged. "I have no enforcement powers whatever."
"Excuse me? You mean I could go back in time, kill my own grandfather, Hitler, and Sid and Marty Krofft when they were all children, probably destroy the universe by paradox, and you wouldn't do anything?"
"You should know it doesn't work that way," the time traveler replied. "Your own math shows that paradox is utterly impossible. The universe works around it. It doesn't need us to enforce the laws of metaphysics."
"So what are you here for, then?"
"Mainly to protect you from your own stupidity."
"Come again?"
"Let me explain. If a paradox threatens, the universe simply makes it impossible to commit the act that creates the paradox. If you tried to kill your grandfather before he conceived your parent, your gun would jam, or you'd hit someone who had no significant effect on your life anyway, or you'd do something whose complications would result in your grandfather not being where you thought he'd be, or so on, so forth. You can only do things in your own past that are either necessary for, or compatible with, your personal history playing out more or less as you experienced it."
"Okay... so where's the danger?"
"The universe pushes back harder the more a person persists in trying to make a paradoxical change, or the more radical the change is. Drowning Hitler, or giving the Aztecs smallpox vaccine, gunpowder and iron-forging in the twelfth century, those are major changes- and the universe reacts accordingly. Catch on?"
I wasn't sure I believed it, but the math... "Reacts how?"
"Different every time. As you'd guess, most people who invent a time machine have a purpose- usually a mad scheme to conquer the world, or to put right what they feel went wrong, so on. They ignore our warnings, and they try to put the scheme in action. The universe eliminates the threat." He smacked his fist into his palm to make the point. "After that, there's nothing left for us to arrest or rescue or anything. We just go in after the fact and clean up any mess that might be left behind."
"So I can't change the past."
"You can't change your own past. You can only change stuff that history shows you changed anyway, with a few minor exceptions. Most responsible time travelers use their devices for historical study, tourism, or to retrieve antiques, artifacts, books and the like just before they would have been destroyed, that sort of thing."
"So I've just built a Disney fun ride, is what you're saying."
"A very educational Disney ride," the time traveler nodded. "You could call it It's a Bloody Deadly World Full of Evil Bastards After All, do the grand tour of Ramses, Alexander, Octavian, Attila, the Khans, Tamurlane, the Borgias, Ivan the Terrible, Selim II, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm II... all the usual suspects."
"Well, that's no help," I grumbled. "What's the point of time travel if you can't change things?"
"I didn't say you couldn't change history," the time traveler said. "Just that you can't do it in your own history." He opened a panel on his belt buckle and punched a couple of buttons. "I'll send the book along in a day or two. Good luck."
Flash. Gone.
I thought about what he said for a minute. I couldn't change my own history. Nothing that in any way shaped how I was conceived, born, raised, educated. Nothing that I knew, up to the moment I built the time machine, could be changed.
In my history.
Fine. I'd find somebody else's, and change THAT.
I put away my tools, then went to my computer and began looking over the traditional equations that explained why travel to alternate-probability dimensions was impossible. There were potentially a googolplex of those- one for every single probability, no matter how minute, different from the mainline.
Yep. Chock full of infinities.
As I got out pencil and notepad to do some number-juggling, I wondered: how long until I got a visit from the Interdimensional Travel Safety Authority?
Quick fiction
Apr. 8th, 2010 02:06 pm"Congratulations," the man in uniform said, "you've just re-invented the time machine."
If he hadn't appeared from nowhere as soon as I soldered the last circuit, I wouldn't have given him much credence. Men in loud neon violet tunics out of Captain Scarlet, complete with the Lapels that Ate Louisville, fail to inspire confidence in me as regards their authority. But he had showed up in a flash of colored lights and a loud air displacement, and anyone able to do that deserves the benefit of the doubt.
"Thanks," I said. "It was pretty simple once I re-examined the math on space-time and got rid of all those annoying infinities. When you get infinity as an answer in any equation, it either means your math is wrong or you're asking the wrong question. Infinity is impossible in this universe."
"Well spotted," the stranger smiled. "I also congratulate you on solving the energy threshhold."
That had been trickier. The numbers on the energy required to displace oneself in the temporal dimension were not infinite- merely absurdly large, as in "more energy than exists if all matter in the universe was converted to pure energy." But the re-worked math that disproved the time travel paradox had also opened an avenue for me which, to protect my future patent, I will keep secret.
"Thanks. So, what are you, a time cop?"
"Close. I'm a member of the Temporal Travel Safety Authority. I'm here to give you the usual safety talk, point out the dangers of time travel, how to avoid them, and hand you a chip for easy..." He looked around the workshop. "Um, maybe I'd better send you a book later. Seems it's at least fifty years before you'd be able to access a chip."
"I have a Kindle."
"A what?"
"Never mind. And if I break the rules of the road, you write me a ticket, right?"
"Well, no." The time traveler shrugged. "I have no enforcement powers whatever."
"Excuse me? You mean I could go back in time, kill my own grandfather, Hitler, and Sid and Marty Krofft when they were all children, probably destroy the universe by paradox, and you wouldn't do anything?"
"You should know it doesn't work that way," the time traveler replied. "Your own math shows that paradox is utterly impossible. The universe works around it. It doesn't need us to enforce the laws of metaphysics."
"So what are you here for, then?"
"Mainly to protect you from your own stupidity."
"Come again?"
"Let me explain. If a paradox threatens, the universe simply makes it impossible to commit the act that creates the paradox. If you tried to kill your grandfather before he conceived your parent, your gun would jam, or you'd hit someone who had no significant effect on your life anyway, or you'd do something whose complications would result in your grandfather not being where you thought he'd be, or so on, so forth. You can only do things in your own past that are either necessary for, or compatible with, your personal history playing out more or less as you experienced it."
"Okay... so where's the danger?"
"The universe pushes back harder the more a person persists in trying to make a paradoxical change, or the more radical the change is. Drowning Hitler, or giving the Aztecs smallpox vaccine, gunpowder and iron-forging in the twelfth century, those are major changes- and the universe reacts accordingly. Catch on?"
I wasn't sure I believed it, but the math... "Reacts how?"
"Different every time. As you'd guess, most people who invent a time machine have a purpose- usually a mad scheme to conquer the world, or to put right what they feel went wrong, so on. They ignore our warnings, and they try to put the scheme in action. The universe eliminates the threat." He smacked his fist into his palm to make the point. "After that, there's nothing left for us to arrest or rescue or anything. We just go in after the fact and clean up any mess that might be left behind."
"So I can't change the past."
"You can't change your own past. You can only change stuff that history shows you changed anyway, with a few minor exceptions. Most responsible time travelers use their devices for historical study, tourism, or to retrieve antiques, artifacts, books and the like just before they would have been destroyed, that sort of thing."
"So I've just built a Disney fun ride, is what you're saying."
"A very educational Disney ride," the time traveler nodded. "You could call it It's a Bloody Deadly World Full of Evil Bastards After All, do the grand tour of Ramses, Alexander, Octavian, Attila, the Khans, Tamurlane, the Borgias, Ivan the Terrible, Selim II, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm II... all the usual suspects."
"Well, that's no help," I grumbled. "What's the point of time travel if you can't change things?"
"I didn't say you couldn't change history," the time traveler said. "Just that you can't do it in your own history." He opened a panel on his belt buckle and punched a couple of buttons. "I'll send the book along in a day or two. Good luck."
Flash. Gone.
I thought about what he said for a minute. I couldn't change my own history. Nothing that in any way shaped how I was conceived, born, raised, educated. Nothing that I knew, up to the moment I built the time machine, could be changed.
In my history.
Fine. I'd find somebody else's, and change THAT.
I put away my tools, then went to my computer and began looking over the traditional equations that explained why travel to alternate-probability dimensions was impossible. There were potentially a googolplex of those- one for every single probability, no matter how minute, different from the mainline.
Yep. Chock full of infinities.
As I got out pencil and notepad to do some number-juggling, I wondered: how long until I got a visit from the Interdimensional Travel Safety Authority?
If he hadn't appeared from nowhere as soon as I soldered the last circuit, I wouldn't have given him much credence. Men in loud neon violet tunics out of Captain Scarlet, complete with the Lapels that Ate Louisville, fail to inspire confidence in me as regards their authority. But he had showed up in a flash of colored lights and a loud air displacement, and anyone able to do that deserves the benefit of the doubt.
"Thanks," I said. "It was pretty simple once I re-examined the math on space-time and got rid of all those annoying infinities. When you get infinity as an answer in any equation, it either means your math is wrong or you're asking the wrong question. Infinity is impossible in this universe."
"Well spotted," the stranger smiled. "I also congratulate you on solving the energy threshhold."
That had been trickier. The numbers on the energy required to displace oneself in the temporal dimension were not infinite- merely absurdly large, as in "more energy than exists if all matter in the universe was converted to pure energy." But the re-worked math that disproved the time travel paradox had also opened an avenue for me which, to protect my future patent, I will keep secret.
"Thanks. So, what are you, a time cop?"
"Close. I'm a member of the Temporal Travel Safety Authority. I'm here to give you the usual safety talk, point out the dangers of time travel, how to avoid them, and hand you a chip for easy..." He looked around the workshop. "Um, maybe I'd better send you a book later. Seems it's at least fifty years before you'd be able to access a chip."
"I have a Kindle."
"A what?"
"Never mind. And if I break the rules of the road, you write me a ticket, right?"
"Well, no." The time traveler shrugged. "I have no enforcement powers whatever."
"Excuse me? You mean I could go back in time, kill my own grandfather, Hitler, and Sid and Marty Krofft when they were all children, probably destroy the universe by paradox, and you wouldn't do anything?"
"You should know it doesn't work that way," the time traveler replied. "Your own math shows that paradox is utterly impossible. The universe works around it. It doesn't need us to enforce the laws of metaphysics."
"So what are you here for, then?"
"Mainly to protect you from your own stupidity."
"Come again?"
"Let me explain. If a paradox threatens, the universe simply makes it impossible to commit the act that creates the paradox. If you tried to kill your grandfather before he conceived your parent, your gun would jam, or you'd hit someone who had no significant effect on your life anyway, or you'd do something whose complications would result in your grandfather not being where you thought he'd be, or so on, so forth. You can only do things in your own past that are either necessary for, or compatible with, your personal history playing out more or less as you experienced it."
"Okay... so where's the danger?"
"The universe pushes back harder the more a person persists in trying to make a paradoxical change, or the more radical the change is. Drowning Hitler, or giving the Aztecs smallpox vaccine, gunpowder and iron-forging in the twelfth century, those are major changes- and the universe reacts accordingly. Catch on?"
I wasn't sure I believed it, but the math... "Reacts how?"
"Different every time. As you'd guess, most people who invent a time machine have a purpose- usually a mad scheme to conquer the world, or to put right what they feel went wrong, so on. They ignore our warnings, and they try to put the scheme in action. The universe eliminates the threat." He smacked his fist into his palm to make the point. "After that, there's nothing left for us to arrest or rescue or anything. We just go in after the fact and clean up any mess that might be left behind."
"So I can't change the past."
"You can't change your own past. You can only change stuff that history shows you changed anyway, with a few minor exceptions. Most responsible time travelers use their devices for historical study, tourism, or to retrieve antiques, artifacts, books and the like just before they would have been destroyed, that sort of thing."
"So I've just built a Disney fun ride, is what you're saying."
"A very educational Disney ride," the time traveler nodded. "You could call it It's a Bloody Deadly World Full of Evil Bastards After All, do the grand tour of Ramses, Alexander, Octavian, Attila, the Khans, Tamurlane, the Borgias, Ivan the Terrible, Selim II, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm II... all the usual suspects."
"Well, that's no help," I grumbled. "What's the point of time travel if you can't change things?"
"I didn't say you couldn't change history," the time traveler said. "Just that you can't do it in your own history." He opened a panel on his belt buckle and punched a couple of buttons. "I'll send the book along in a day or two. Good luck."
Flash. Gone.
I thought about what he said for a minute. I couldn't change my own history. Nothing that in any way shaped how I was conceived, born, raised, educated. Nothing that I knew, up to the moment I built the time machine, could be changed.
In my history.
Fine. I'd find somebody else's, and change THAT.
I put away my tools, then went to my computer and began looking over the traditional equations that explained why travel to alternate-probability dimensions was impossible. There were potentially a googolplex of those- one for every single probability, no matter how minute, different from the mainline.
Yep. Chock full of infinities.
As I got out pencil and notepad to do some number-juggling, I wondered: how long until I got a visit from the Interdimensional Travel Safety Authority?