And another story from Phase Space. It deals with the 'Zoo hyphothesis'. Fermi Paradox thing. Why aren't any aliens bla bla bla...
Someone is putting a barrier over the solar system, accelerating its timestream and see what happens.
M-Theory[]
| “ | It seems that the whole universe, atoms and people and stars, is generated from the wriggling of a membrane floating in 11-dimensional space. One of those dimensions is collapsed down, rolled up to a tube, and the way the membrane wraps itself around that tube generates the properties of the particles and forces we see around us.
This is the M-theory: the new theory of everything. The M, it seems, stands for ‘membrane’, but as far as I’m concerned it could equally be ‘mirrors’ as in ‘smoke and’. They teach this stuff in the high schools now. Science has come a long way since I flunked geometry. |
„ |
Well, seems pretty straightforward. This short story's universe is comprised of 11-Dimensions.
| “ | It seems that old membrane can wrap itself up in two ways. A single loop generates energy levels from modes of vibration, like a violin string. Or the membrane can wind itself around the tube many times, and the number of turns gives you energy levels, like coils around an armature. One wrapping mode describes the large-scale structure of the universe. The other mode describes small-scale energy structures, such as those of an electron.
But here’s the catch: when the tube is middle-sized, the vibration modes look the same as the wrapping modes. That means that the universe on very small scales looks the same as it does on large scales. This is called duality. For instance, electron charge by one description is equivalent to the size of things in another. |
„ |
Pretty familiar explanation of M-Theory (its like its taken from wikipedia honestly). Different kind of vibrations produces different things.
| “ | Anyhow that, as I understand it, is how the Bias Drive works.
A tiny piece of the universe is shrunk down and manipulated. Another piece, linked by duality, opens up behind the ship. It is a miniature Big Bang, a wave of space-time that pushes us forward. A little more precisely, the drive creates a localized asymmetric bias in the properties of space-time which generates a local propulsive gradient on the ship. It amounts to a rocket of infinite specific impulse. It was as if space-propulsion technology leaped forward a thousand years overnight. |
„ |
The short story's universe being 11-Dimensional universe is the reason why Bias Drive works at all. For context, the narrator is a guy who was drafted into space exploration. So he is a passenger of a spaceship. A spaceship using Bias Drive.
After Passing 'the Barrier'[]
| “ | The radio signals from Earth were reduced in frequency, as if red-shifted, and subject to excessive time delay, and reduced in magnitude. | „ |
Okay, we know that the area inside the Barrier is surrounded by time-manipulating bubble, so its obvious that once you get out, there'd be time delay in communication.
| “ | To cut a long story short: the magnitudes of the target stars were all lower than they should be. The angles between the target stars, when we managed to identify them, weren’t what they should be.
... Gurzadian developed his own theories. He said that as far as he could see space itself was distorted around us. He’d set up piezoelectric strain gauges to prove it to himself. It’s kind of flattening out, he said. There were stresses acting across Geezer’s cluster because of that—like tidal stresses. It was, he said, as if we were trapped in a bubble universe, which was collapsing around us. Ha ha. |
„ |
For context, 'Geezer' is the name of the spaceship. And there's the confirmation that they were indeed trapped inside bubble universe.
| “ | But the thing of it was, we could see something ahead. Something new.
Grey stars. Not Proxima Centauri, though. Not really stars at all, in fact. Just a scattering of grey lights around the sky. Gurzadian said they looked like quasars. He was scared. None of this made sense to him; he couldn’t figure out what we were seeing, what had happened to the stars. |
„ |
| “ | All I can see is grey light. Quasars.
Here’s what I think. I think I’m coming out the other side of the barrier that surrounds the solar system. I think I’m seeing the universe as it really is. Young. Still in its dark age, just as Gurzadian described it. We—the solar system—are stuck in some kind of M-theory bubble. What we see from the Earth, looking out through the enclosing barrier, is an image of a much older universe. But it isn’t real. It can’t be. I think this is all some kind of experiment. Somebody out there in the real, young, dark-age universe is fast-forwarding a chunk of space, to see how it all turns out. And we live in that chunk. |
„ |
| “ | Anyway that’s your resolution to the Fermi paradox, Gurzadian, old buddy. They were here all the time, all around us. Playing with us. I wonder what they think of us, | „ |
The conclusion :
Downstreamers tried their hand at resolving Fermi Paradox again. By playing around with Young-aged Universe. Bubbled a certain solar system to be fast forwarded it in time.
Well, this blog does basically nothing but maybe to solidfy that Manifold trilogy does have another quantifiable higher-dimensions.
And maybe adding Notable Techniques of :
- Barrier : Can surround solar system in a bubble universe to accelerate its passage of time.