Tue, 04 Oct 2005
This is a first draft of a science fiction story I’m writing. I hope you enjoy itChapter 1
“So, after spending 12 years and 400 billion dollars you’re telling me it doesn’t work!? What the hell are you guys trying to pull?” Dr. Arron Shefield was the directory of the International Space Agency (the ISA ). At over 6 feet tall and weighing nearly 300 pounds he was an imposing man. The scientist and engineers at the agency often referred to him as “The Beast” (although never to his face). Shefield was the kind of guy who “got things done” and it was well known that his bark, as terrifying as it could be, was nowhere near as bad as his bite. “No! No! It works Mr. Sheffield. It’s just that our potential targets are … well … limited” “Sit down and explain to me why this time machine of yours ‘almost works’. Then tell me why I shouldn’t have you tarred and feathered and fed to the press. Geez-Oh-Petes! If the news feeds get a hold of this our funding will be jeopardized for years. They’ll need a scapegoat and you’re looking good in that position right now.” Dr. Michael Palmer was a brilliant scientist, theoretical physicist, and project leader for the time shifter “device”. He specialized in time theory and entropy. But right now his only thought was on how to explain to “The Beast” why his experiments weren’t failures. That, and to leave the office with his head still attached. “Well sir, the time shifter does work. And, as you know, we’ve succeeded in sending small objects forward in time several weeks. We’ve even sent a small rubber ball back in time. In fact, that one surprised us because it just showed up at the target site at one of the Moon base labs. It had a microchip in it with a message from me explaining when and where we sent it. We just had to make sure that we followed up and sent that ball, with the embedded microchip, back to the right place at the right time.” “Yes, we discussed the interesting paradox that would occur if you decided NOT to send that object back in time. So you’re telling me it works. So what’s the problem?” “The time shifter works on a difference of potential energy in the universe. Over any set amount of time the third law of thermal dynamics says that matter will tend to go from a more organized state to a less organized state.” “Much like my office staff. But please continue.” Dr. Palmer almost allowed himself a smile. Did The Beast actually just crack a joke? He thought he’d better continue.” “Yes, sir. But the third law also states that it takes less energy to go from an ordered state to a more chaotic state than it does to go from a chaotic state to a more ordered state. For example, it’s easy to toss a deck of cards into the air and scatter them, but it takes a lot more energy to gather the cards once they’re scattered and put them back in order.” “My office staff comment was intended to show that I understand. You don’t have to dumb it down for me, just tell me what the problem is.” “Yes sir. I’m sorry sir. Well, it turns out that as the mass of the object we want to send through time increases, the difference in potential energy required to move that mass through time increases exponentially. In fact, the rate of increase is, well, quite dramatic.” “How dramatic?” “From any one point in time to another there is a difference in potential energy. This is because the universe is slowly tending towards chaos. Stars use up their fuel, radioactive material decays, and so on. At any point in time there’s less energy available than there was at any point in the past. It turns out that the amount of energy it takes to send a tiny rubber ball forward or back in time requires at least a few weeks of entropy to occur. That difference in the universe’s potential energy across those two points of time is what drives the time shift device. We were quite surprised when we realized that we couldn’t send a small mass forward in time a few minutes. But we could send it a forward few weeks. The difference in energy over a few minutes wasn’t enough to push the mass through time. It took the difference in energy of a few weeks to push that mass.” “Dr. Shefield leaned back in his chair and turned it towards the floor to ceiling windows of his 25th floor office. His body language was unambiguous. All conversation would stop while he processed this information. Dr. Shefield’s great worth to the ISA was that he had the ability to take a small amount of data and from that spore of information derive the ultimate success or failure of a project with astonishing accuracy. The brain of the beast was processing and nobody in the room was about to interrupt it. After a minute or so Dr. Shefield spoke, almost whispered, his conclusion. “So. We’ve spent 400 billion dollars on time shifting research with the hope of sending a space ship and 2 crewmen through time to observe the past and the future. The theory works, we have experimental data that shows it works in practice. The question is how much energy is required to push the mass of that ship through time. And once they’ve move in time they need to get back. I’m assuming that the difference in potential energy from time point A to time point B is the same as from B to A.” “Yes sir” “So the ship would appear to us to simply vanish, and then re-appear a few seconds later at the same point.” It wasn’t a question. It was more of a statement. Dr. Palmer risked answering anyway. “That’s right sir. In fact, there’s no real reason to even have a gap of a few seconds. Once the ship is gone it can come back to the launch point at any time afterwards. The only reason for the gap of a few seconds is for safety. We don’t want the ship coming back before it’s actually left.” “Not a problem” barked Shefield. “The ship can’t leave late because it didn’t leave late. It’s the paradox issue again. Maybe it would be better to say : If the ship left late then it would know not to come back before it left.” “That’s true sir.” “So what we have is a calculation of mass to entropy. If a ten gram object needs at least 3 weeks of entropy to push through time then how much time will a 100 gram object require?” Amazing, thought Palmer. He’s cut through all the crap and figured out the root of the problem before I finished my presentation.. “According to our calculations a 100 gram object would require about 2.4 years of entropy.” Once again the room went silent. But this time The Beast’s eyes never left Dr. Palmer’s. Again, the beast whispered: “Damn.” “Palmer, you weren’t kidding when you said it was exponential. Let’s see, the ship, the 2 man crew, the supplies, the test equipment and the time shifter device to get them all back home weighs approximately 10,000 kilos.” Shefield started tapping out numbers on his desk calculator. “That can’t be!” “Dr Shefield, if the calculation that you just did matches ours you’ll notice that it’s slightly more than the total age of the known universe. “Yes, that’s exactly what I got. So that’s what you mean when you said our target is limited.” “Exactly. We obviously can’t send the ship to a point before the Big Bang.” “For a couple of reasons” Shefield interrupted. “First, we don’t know what the universe was like before the big bang. I’m not about to lose the ship and it’s crew by beaming them into the void.” It was true, thought Palmer. The beast does have a heart. “But the other reason is that there’s no potential energy. Before the big bang our theories say there was nothing. So there’s a lack of potential energy. It’s kind of like plugging in a lamp with one of the wires cut. You have energy on one wire and nothing on the other side. So the light bulb doesn’t light up.” “That’s exactly correct sir.” “So we’re left with the other end of time. Now, we can’t send them to the end of time when all the planets have crumbled, all the stars are black and every proton and electron has merged into a neutron because then we’re left with the same problem. If there’s no energy left in the universe then we’re back to the lamp with the broken wire problem. So we need a long enough time span to produce enough difference in potential energy to push the ship through time, but not too much time or they end up with no potential energy at their end and no way to get back. So I guess the question is: ‘How far before the end of time can we send these guys?’” “A few weeks sir.” “A few weeks?” “Yes sir.” This time the pause only lasted a few seconds. It only felt like hours. “Well, then you better get on it Palmer. Get yourself fitted for a space suit.” “What! ?” Palmer cried “You want ME to go? But … but … I’m a scientist, I work on theories and design. I’m not an explorer.” The beast grinned an evil grin. “Do you know of a better way to guarantee this project succeeds?”This story is from the
[/geek/scifi] department
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