I want to write a sci-fi story about a moon that is -559.67 °F or even -100 Kelvin. A moon that is so cold and so dark that all light is instantly absorbed by the intensely powerful darkness. Should I ????
Tracy
[This message has been edited by tnwilz (edited April 16, 2007).]
Don't be afraid to go off the deep end, as long as you explain it.
Matt
But, one suggestion, before you go too far. Figure out what interesting things happen in that environment you envision. So cold and so dark... I don't quite get how the moon would be so dark that there is no light...starlight even...but, hey - it's your story. Make up the rules, just tell us what they are so we'll believe that you're not just inventing while you go.
tnwilz - Over my 50+ years I have spent an inordinate time fantasizing about "dark bulbs". I like to picture a light bulb and a dark bulb in opposite ends of a room, with pulsing concentric halos of light and dark coming from the respective bulbs and intersecting with each other (if you spend enough time staring into a mirror you will eventually see this effect, but you have to be patient). I wonder - what is at the spots where light and dark intersect?
I have a friend who is a scientist over at Western Digital who calls flashlights dark suckers so I know what you mean Think, lol. He took me to Yosemite Valley with his computer controlled telescope equipment a couple of years back. I mean whoa, yeah, that all looks randomly accidental - to a blind man. (Double meaning intended.)
You know I was actually musing an idea a few years back. What if a scientist found a way to break one of the laws of physics? Like creating a temp below absolute zero. Would it force open a window at that location into an alternate dimension where that new value works? A bridge of sorts to a dimension with different laws of physics, or at least different values? It wouldn’t surprise me to find that, that’s truer than fiction.
I think of dimensions as cell phone frequencies. They can have millions of cell phones because you have a simulated crystal in your phone that vibrates at an exact, minute fraction of a radio frequency and yet there is no bleed over into the next cell phone that is the tiniest of a fraction away from your frequency. Cell phone are just high tech walkie-talkies. They use the same type of radio waves as the radio in your car where you listen to your favorite radio station (probably rap music). Except they take the distance between, say 95.5 and 95.6, and divide it up into thousands of precisely tuned fractions and assign each fraction to a phone like the one you have. Take something as thin as paper and divide that by a thousand and you begin to get the idea. There are people who have almost the exact same frequency as you - almost. They talk of their lives and loves and losses and yet you hear nothing and remain oblivious that their world is only a microscopically thin membrane away from yours.
Does our dimension vibrate at an exact and precisely tuned frequency? What are we not hearing? What are we not seeing? Have you really seen every color that could exist? How would you know… if you’ve never seen it???
Tracy
BTW If you google “absolute zero” and look at wikipedia, you’ll read that matter does indeed display properties close to defying the laws of physics when approaching 0 K (like certain liquids becoming immune to friction or gravity known as superfluidity.)
Maybe the reason nobody called you on the -100 Kelvin, was that technically it is a valid term:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_temperature
I could be wrong, but I think I read somewhere that superconductive materials (under some conditions) begin to behave in a manner reminiscent to quantum mechanics. So, rather than break its laws, perhaps superconductivity exhibits reality to a greater degree.
[This message has been edited by ChrisOwens (edited April 17, 2007).]
quote:
I reject the idea that cold and darkness don't exist. Why? Because they are perceptable. True they have no "substance," or whatever, absense of heat, absence of light, but they are still valid concepts and therefore still exist.
Scientifically speaking, cold and dark don't exist. Cold is merely the absence of heat. Dark is merely the absence of light. What you are "experiencing" in cold and dark is the lack of heat and light. It's the way I can tell the difference between 30 degrees and 70 degrees. When you have any temp above absolute zero, you still have heat, it's just not a lot. Temps below freezing, or below zero, still involve heat. Just not enough for water to exist as water. The numbers we assign to temps are arbitrary.
When it comes to light, it is merely different levels of light that are visible to the naked eye. Even infrared and ultralight are light (radiation), you just can't see it. Even in pure, total dark; dark isn't real, it's just the absence of light.
But back to tnwilz's original post. Yeah, make up your science. We like to call it soft science fiction. Or even science fantasy.
Matt
quote:
See message 8 Spaceman. I was just prankin, but what do you think of the science of my real idea that I mention in message 8.
I don't think I would do it with temperature because that has a very precise definition. How do you slow matter beyond stopped? I would find some other thing to change in order to slip into another dimension. Maybe a change something less tangible, like the frequency of dark energy.
Your cell phone analogy is interesting if you think about CDMA (code division multiple access) because with that modulation scheme, you can have as many as 30 speakers using the same frequency simultaneously and separately.