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captrandom

THNKU, CPTRNDM

MAKE THE CAPT A SANDWICH GIVE THE CAPT YOUR FIRSTBORN RIDICULE THE CAPT CONSOLE THE CAPT BEAT THE CAPT IN PONG APOLOGIZE TO THE CAPT DO THE CAPT'S TAXES DANCE WITH THE CAPT RUB THE CAPT'S BELLY GIVE THE CAPT SOME DELICIOUS BLACK LICORICE HUG THE CAPT HAIL THE CAPT WORSHIP THE CAPT GO FISHING WITH THE CAPT LOVE THE CAPT

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captrandom · 1 year

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Brenda, the sheep would like a word with you.

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Scream VI

There's self aware media; then there's taking a flame thrower to the fourth wall. Both can be fun.

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Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind by Hayao Miyazaki

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captrandom · 1 year

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A History of Faster than Light Communications

One of the technologies taken for granted in science fiction and space opera is faster than light communication…or as scifi fans call it, an ansible. In reality, most communications are limited by the speed of light, so it takes a delay of a few minutes to send and receive messages even in a solar system. As 2001 pointed out, it would take 6 hours and back for a radio message to reach Saturn. A traditional radio signal sent to the closest star would take four years to arrive.

Isaac Asimov coined the term “ultrawave” or “hyperwave communications” in his Foundation novels in the 1950s, to refer to signals that propagate along “subspace,” a lower level dimension where travel is quicker. Only information can travel in subspace, but people and objects can’t. Jack Williamson mentioned “rhodomagnetic waves” in a few of his scifi stories, which function as a kind of intergalactic communicator, but also are the basis for a death ray, meaning in his universe, any ftl communication device can be rewired with a minimum of effort by a boffin into a lethal death ray.

In the 70s, Ursula K. le Guin popularized the term “Ansible” for this kind of communicator, instantly able to communicate regardless of distance. It’s this term that seemed to stick among fans and scifi culture, and most people with this device in their stories call it an “ansible” in homage to le Guin. Ansible communicators are just a part of scifi now, generic scifi worldbuilding, along with hyperspace travel, neuronic whips, space marines, and wisecracking robots. Many scifi writers have ansibles in their stories who are completely unaware of who originally coined the term and where.

For most scifi writers, instant FTL communication is just a plot convenience to move the story along. Even Asimov, who made overthinking things his M.O., didn’t spend any extra time thinking about it. But James Blish however, put a lot of energy into figuring out how a faster than light or instant communicator would actually work….and he came to the conclusion it would be a technology with enormous philosophical, and indeed, practically religious implications.

Here is what I mean by that. In his story “Beep” in 1954, James Blish came up with the idea of a Dirac Communicator, which is the usual instant, no delay ansible. But Blish reasoned that the only way instant faster than light communications could actually work without any delay is by sending a signal into a null-dimension without time, so every single message ever sent (past, present, future) is sent simultaneously in a timeless null point, with machines only able to decode the time-sealed relevant messages they receive.

If you stop and consider this, if a technology worked this way, it means that we live in a completely deterministic universe where all our decisions are made in advance. And as Blish was intelligent (and wiseassed) enough to point out in his 1954 story, it means that if faster than light communications actually work in the universe, that free will is an illusion, and that we actually do not have it. The universe is a watch proceeding on a predetermined pattern set at the moment of creation. An interesting conclusion to draw, all from a technology scifi takes for granted and sit in the background.

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captrandom · 4 years

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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?I hear always the admonishment of my friends: "Bolt her in, constrain her!" But who will guard the guardians? The wife plans ahead and begins with them.

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captrandom · 6 years

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