Friday, January 6, 2012

Time Cloaks

News Article 1

And if that article is confusing to you (as it was to me, slightly), you can try reading this more precise one:

News Article 2

Alright Science-Fiction-aires. What does this mean for our stories? Possibly quite a lot, but the thing I don't understand is how they are masking entire events with the breathing room of a millionth of a millionth of a second. Last I checked, that's a pretty brief amount of time. So how can, using the example in the first article, an art heist possibly be masked using this device as it is now? The scientists who inspired the entire project himself said that the machine would have to be "18,600 miles long" in order to mask time for just one second; that's not discreet, and even Danny Ocean couldn't pull off an art heist in one second.

Though the concept is very cool, sadly the thing that confused me most was the way the article was written.

And this is a good point for science fiction as well -- you can have the greatest premise in the world and still have no readers if your medium (your writing style) does not convey it in a way that is understandable and captivating.

These articles do not explain the science well enough, in my point of view. I'm having a hard time imagining how to use this machine in a story since I do not understand how it works. And the example used (the art heist) is more confusing than helpful, seeing as how it doesn't match up with the mathematics that they took the time to discuss (in fractions the human brain can barely understand as it is).

My solution?

Find a comfy chair and puzzle about it.

Think, think, think, think.......

-L
Feed the Grumbies!

3 comments:

  1. This is one of those time travel things that just doesn't make sense to me. From the article, it sounds as though they merely interfered with the travel of light from the source to whatever device was observing the light, whether it be a camera or someone's eye. So does that mean I create a time cloak everytime I blink? How does blocking or redirecting light change the passage of time?

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  2. As for the device's size constraint, don't forget that the first transistor was rather large too.

    From this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Replica-of-first-transistor.jpg

    To this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3340170/Worlds-smallest-transistor-is-the-size-of-a-molecule.html

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  3. Nominated you for the Liebster Award!

    http://caitlynmitchell.blogspot.com/2012/08/liebster-award.html

    ReplyDelete