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Or: A most ingenious paradox!
(For part 1: Physical Plausibilities)
This is the biggest question for my NaNovel, I suppose. Theories to explain the physical world around us can come or go. Technology, magic: it’s all indistinguishable in the end.
But paradox is eternal.
Perhaps I’m being a little melodramatic. All right, I’m being totally melodramatic. Writing this novel so quickly is throwing off my whole sense of subtlety.
The point under consideration is this: how the heck can exchanging information with the future work? You ask a question of the future, get an answer back, and change what you’re going to do, which changes your answer to the question, and… aaaaaarghgh!
But I think I’ve actually worked out a pretty neat solution to the paradox dilemma.
As I was informed a few weeks ago, when I started my inquiries, it’s not so much that what the itty-bitty-bits of the universe do at a quantum level that’s still under debate. It’s what the behaviour of those itty-bitty-bits means. We’ve got well-established and tested mathematical formalism for what particles/waves are doing on the fundamental level … but there just isn’t any one compelling interpretation to tell us what they’re doing when we’re not looking at them, what they’re doing where we can’t see them, or why they’re doing it. Instead, there’s a whole list of them. Hopefully I haven’t completely warped the whole thing too far out of shape. :)
First, let me chat for a minute about my understanding of the way quantum mechanics started, and a few of the recognised interpretations.
( I won’t go into the details of the two-slit experiment )
( The Copenhagen Interpretation )
( The Many Worlds Interpretation )
( The Transactional Interpretation )
( At last! The tack my story takes! )
Now, to the larger questions:
Why did I write all this when I could be NaNoing, and I have bigger, plot related problems to worry about, like the most emotionally charged scene I have so far being the one where my protagonist's girlfriend breaks up with him in the middle of brushing her teeth?
Why am I at all worried that I may not reach 50,000, given I can ramble like this?
And why, when I gave him the perfect opportunity for exposition, standing in front of year eight science class touring the premesis, did my protagonist put on a movie to explain it all, and then stop listening so he could eavesdrop on two schoolboys in the back row giggling about breasts? How did this happen? And would it really matter if I broke the rules just once to go back and fix it up? [/rhetorical]
*cries*
PS: I'm on 14,968 words. Must... write... thirty... two... more... words...
(For part 1: Physical Plausibilities)
This is the biggest question for my NaNovel, I suppose. Theories to explain the physical world around us can come or go. Technology, magic: it’s all indistinguishable in the end.
But paradox is eternal.
Perhaps I’m being a little melodramatic. All right, I’m being totally melodramatic. Writing this novel so quickly is throwing off my whole sense of subtlety.
The point under consideration is this: how the heck can exchanging information with the future work? You ask a question of the future, get an answer back, and change what you’re going to do, which changes your answer to the question, and… aaaaaarghgh!
But I think I’ve actually worked out a pretty neat solution to the paradox dilemma.
As I was informed a few weeks ago, when I started my inquiries, it’s not so much that what the itty-bitty-bits of the universe do at a quantum level that’s still under debate. It’s what the behaviour of those itty-bitty-bits means. We’ve got well-established and tested mathematical formalism for what particles/waves are doing on the fundamental level … but there just isn’t any one compelling interpretation to tell us what they’re doing when we’re not looking at them, what they’re doing where we can’t see them, or why they’re doing it. Instead, there’s a whole list of them. Hopefully I haven’t completely warped the whole thing too far out of shape. :)
First, let me chat for a minute about my understanding of the way quantum mechanics started, and a few of the recognised interpretations.
( I won’t go into the details of the two-slit experiment )
( The Copenhagen Interpretation )
( The Many Worlds Interpretation )
( The Transactional Interpretation )
( At last! The tack my story takes! )
Now, to the larger questions:
Why did I write all this when I could be NaNoing, and I have bigger, plot related problems to worry about, like the most emotionally charged scene I have so far being the one where my protagonist's girlfriend breaks up with him in the middle of brushing her teeth?
Why am I at all worried that I may not reach 50,000, given I can ramble like this?
And why, when I gave him the perfect opportunity for exposition, standing in front of year eight science class touring the premesis, did my protagonist put on a movie to explain it all, and then stop listening so he could eavesdrop on two schoolboys in the back row giggling about breasts? How did this happen? And would it really matter if I broke the rules just once to go back and fix it up? [/rhetorical]
*cries*
PS: I'm on 14,968 words. Must... write... thirty... two... more... words...
