When I read an Egan's book I cannot tackle it
on a purely literary level. Egan's fiction makes me think about things I didn't
know I wanted to think about. This is another one of those novels with a
mind-boggling universe.
Egan's world has far consequences:
The space won't be isotropic any more. Thus,
things would behave differently if you rotate them around the zz-axis and any
linear combination of xx and yy. The laws of the physics would behave
differently in the different (space) directions.
On the Noether theorem, the symmetries of the Universe have a deep connection to its conservation laws. The isotropy of the space results in the conservation of angular momentum. In a non-isotropic Universe, the angular momentum isn't a conserved quantity any more. Any effect will be instant around any direction, for which dx2+dy2-dz2=0dx2+dy2-dz2=0. It would effectively mean, that moving any point-like particle on such an axis, you get the same system. This would be a new symmetry, which would result in a new conservation law, which doesn't exist in our Universe. To calculate, which conservation law is it, is complex but it doesn't require much more math/physics skills as in high school.
Note: this all depends on if the (non-curved) space-time
of your Universe is still governed by the Special Relativity, as ours.
NB: Things would significantly change if you
calculate what happens with gravitation, too. Gravitation changes the
geometry of the spacetime, thus the distances wouldn't be calculated like
ds2=dx2+dy2-dz2-dt2ds2=dx2+dy2-dz2-dt2, instead you have a tensor (essentially
a table) for which
ds2=dr--??????gxxgyxgzxgtxgxygyygzygtygxzgyzgzzgtzgxtgytgztgtt??????dr--
ds2=dr_[gxxgxygxzgxtgyxgyygyzgytgzxgzygzzgztgtxgtygtzgtt]dr_
gn1n2gn1n2 is determined by the mass and
impulse distributions, it is essentially the General Relativity analogy of the
gravitational field. For small (much lighter as black holes) and slow (much
slower as speed of light) you get the Newtonian gravitation from it.
It is possible, that near strongly gravitational objects the space-time would be multidimensional again. I think this universe is so remarkable, because
most universes would not give rise to stars, planets, and intelligent life.
From my perspective, this may be one of the crappier universes I’ve ever read.
I personally think humans are a scourge. But the fact remains it required a
great deal of fine-tuning of physical constants to produce a universe with
stars, planets, and at least one intelligent life form. I am a true solipsist.
I believe everything we experience could be a virtual reality that the universe
we experience does not exist anywhere. Whereas, this is a distinct possibility,
I would not say it is probable. If our universe was just a dream, mathematics
would not be the helpful too it is. The universe would be more irrational. I am
certain the universe we see only exists in our minds. Real objects in our
universe do not possess the property of color. Our brains colorize the
universe. Moreover, we see large solid objects, when reality is quite
different. Every particle is in some manner of speaking is spread-out through
all of space-time. We only see a limited number of dimensions. We don't perceive
time as spatial dimension. The universe we see with our eyes is nothing the
universe that really exists. More than likely the universe is a
multidimensional complex field filled with colorless, odorless, tasteless,
silent multidimensional waves, branes à la String Theory or what have you. Your
body like most matter is mostly empty space spread-out over space-time…
There is no evidence anything infinite or
infinitesimal actually exists. More than likely space-time is finite, but
unbounded.
I believe micro-states increases with space-time
inflation, and decreases with space-time deflation. It is, therefore, space-time
inflation that gives rise to the 2LoT and the arrow of time. I believe the
number of micro-states decrease, entropy increases, matter and energy congeals
and unifies with space-time implosion that we could travel backwards in
"time" without revisiting Earth history. Time started at the Big
Bang, but there are many ways back to the Big Bang. Our past is only one of
those ways. All black holes lead back to the Big Bang, and the beginning of
time.
I imagined the nascent in the exact same
predicament as Buridan's ass. Buridan's ass was a perfectly logical creature
the starved to death between two equidistant bushels of hay.
From one assumption, I have been able to deduce
a large part of modern physics. I assume the universe is perfectly logical,
that the universe is not capricious, random, or arbitrary. I admit I can be
wrong. This is merely a working hypothesis on my part. If it is true, then the
universe had a near infinite number of equally good pathways it could have
taken. If the universe was not conscious, if it did not have free choice, how
could it choose one random path over a near infinite number of equally good
paths? I concluded that like electricity, the universe took every possible
pathway. Moreover, this is the only way Feynman's path-integral,
sum-over-histories solution to QED makes any sense. It is the only way it could
be true. Max Tegmark expands on this very concept, though he dismisses my
analogy to Buridan's ass.
My conjecture explains why there is so much
balance and order in our universe. According to it, the universe has to balance
out. The multiverse must have zero energy. It explains why for every action
there must be an equal and opposite reaction. It explains the laws of
matter-energy conservation, and all the other conservation laws. I believe the
universe is completely balanced, that there is a hidden symmetry, that the
universe is a perfect unity, that the universe is not capricious, random, or
arbitrary. Every scientific discovery with the exception of Borh's and Heisenberg's
interpretation of Quantum Mechanics supports my conjecture, that the universe
is completely deterministic, unitary, and holographic. "Entanglement"
is more evidence for my overly speculative, wild conjecture. The existence of
vacuum fluctuations would falsify my theory. Vacuum fluctuations and virtual
particles appear to exist. I predict they will disappear as our knowledge of
physics increases.
Bottom-Line: How about another 5-dimensional
universe Mr. Egan like you did on “Diaspora”, but this time using
5-fold-eigenvalues? Greg Egan keeps on producing SF like no
other. 5 stars for the physics, 0 stars for the story which is crap; rounded to 4 stars overall.
NB: Ah! It feels good to be back at reviewing
books…
SF = Speculative Fiction.
1 comentário:
Good to see you back in top form.
Of course, my take away was a 0star book for the plot. I'm trying to remember if I've read anything by Egan. His name sounds familiar, but with some many "Gregs" writing SF I get lost.
I just looked in calibre. I have not read anything by him.
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