∞ [ text ]

[fatespoken]

[ this was supposed to be private | completely hackable ]
What is the City?

A snowglobe encasing us in a realm of absurdities? Curses that change us into different shapes, a shift of temperament, mind control? Perspective is the determinant, but for them to be as common getting the daily paper in the morning, that has to at least be strange for the majority. But for every absurdity there is a constant. There's an ocean. Hydrogen. Oxygen. There's the forest. Carbon. You breathe. Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide. Half of us aren't dying of oxygen toxicity, so the air probably does contain other gasses. Nitrogen? Argon?

Then there's the sky. The moon, the sun, luminaries. These are all constants, at least for me, but the question is whether we're looking at stickers on a playroom wall or something authentic. It could be a mirage, normality used to taunt us, or even to placate us.

But the sun shines and I can't say I don't feel it.

According to one theory, there's a curvature to space-time. Objects follow special curves, the shortest distance between two points, which actually aren't curved at all. In fact, they're straight routes because spacetime itself is curved. When an object floats in space, whether a space shuttle or debris, it's traveling on that special curve--- a geodesic. When you drop a pencil, it momentarily attempts to travel in a straight line, but ends up following a geodesic (one that directs to the earth's core.) The path is thrown off due to the force of the earth pushing against the pencil. And so it hits the ground.

When I drop a pencil on the ground, or chuck my communicator at the wall in the City, it inevitably hits the ground. Therefore, there seems to be gravity in this City. If so, space-time must be curved. This curvature is caused by mass and so we know mass must exist in this City's universe, if we appeal to this theory.

If I set up a pendulum, will it swing? And if it does, does that mean whatever planet we're on rotates? Or is all a magic trick?

Are the stars stars, or are they wallpaper? Do they change positions every night? Are there planets if you gaze with a telescope? Is this universe heliocentric? Flat, Round. Homogeneous and isotropic? Homogeneous and anisotropic? Infinite or Finite?

If there are distant objects in this universe, would a Distance-Redshift Relation formula, or rather, Mattig's Formula even apply to measure distance? Who says red-shift even exists in this parallel universe, as strange as that sounds.

Or maybe it isn't a universe at all, and neither are we on a planet. What planet consists of a single City of this size? Unless the barriers are preventing us from seeing beyond this locale, and how they even work is the question. Maybe we're just in a pocket dimension, and to talk about the universe is pointless. Or we could say this place is purely magic. And by magic, I don't equate god and magic. It's not mass, it's magic. It's not gravity; it's only a magical imitation of gravity. Laws of physics don't apply in a place of absurdities.

Or can it? Are magic and nature so diametrically apart? Beyond the saying that magic is merely what's unexplained, couldn't magic be the causation for natural laws, never to be truly explained? Perhaps absurdities here are only direct interaction with causation?

Without magic, science wouldn't exist. And without science, magic wouldn't exist to the common fold.

A little vague, and not a logical equivalence. But it's the essence of the idea, beyond logic.

I have to say, I'm curious. But I guess I'll be starting with stick and stones. Maybe we've got that Ionian's counter-earth, or that other guy's epicycles and crystalline deferents. Or maybe we've got colliding orbifold planes or M-branes. Who fucking knows.


[ private to deities | not hackable ]

I want to trade for my horse back home.

[ / private ]



[ private to caspian | not hackable ]

I have a question to ask you.

[/private]


A simple answer for you deities:

E=MC²


[ooc: I have a sparse background in physics (astrophysics + cosmology = 0), while this character loves it like he loves alcohol. In other words, i- if any of my research is off, please to be mentioning it oocly. I've tried to put most of it in my own words, versus copypasta-ing.

... and obviously the deities can see his other, sort of weird essay on equivalence. Since everyone can. |D]