Quick Fire Questions (A Place to Ask and Answer)

[Jo Zebedee]

Perfect, thanks Aber and Ursa.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

@springs -- It seems bears know all about paper blowing in the wind.

@Hex -- You could have that happen, but it ruins your travel-between-alternate-universes plot when it all blows up in your face. As for 11 dimensions, try this link to Cosmos magazine (you might have to go to page 2 or 3 to get what you want, the article starts off about the physicist, not the physics):

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/features/print/99/fish-out-water

 

[Vertigo]

Parallel universes?? Stop me when I start making this up: they're less than a millimetre away from us, but if two collide they cause a Big Bang. Um. So I'm assuming that the collision happens in a different dimension from the millimetre of space that separates us? And there are 11 dimensions?

Okay -- so if you accessed a parallel universe, would that = a collision and cause a Big Bang?

It sounds like you are describing the membranes (or just branes) in M-theory. In which case let me put in a disclaimer here - all I know about m-theory is really what I've picked up from tv documentaries

So given that, here's a couple of thoughts.

Firstly I think m-theory is pretty vague and very incomplete and a long long way from universal acceptance.

I don't think you are talking parallel universes with branes. Different maybe but not parallel. Parallel universes usually seems to imply an infinite number of universes where each "decision" creates more alternate parallel universes.

I believe one of the ideas coming out of m-theory was that possibly the big bang was triggered by two branes "touching".

I don't think you want to get too worried about the separation between the branes as I think it would not be in one of our familiar dimensions. So describing it in millimetres is meaningless. I suspect that only viewing it in our three dimensions means the branes would effectively be sharing the same space (which could be useful for your application).

I am not too sure what the physics are on different branes.

 

[Hex]

Thanks, DEO and Vertigo. Sounds like I need a brane.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Over-rated.

 

[Ursa major]

But Springs! Isn't there a song in Gone South (Specific) along the lines of "There Ain't Nothing Like a 'Brane!"


(Or was that from a Zombie musical...?)

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Might have been rocky horror; you need a brane to make a man.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

A zombie is the only type of man who is only interested in a woman for her brrraaaiiinns!!

 

[Alex The G and T]

The Scarecrow of Oz also expressed a musical yearning for a brane.

 

[Warren_Paul]

The Scarecrow of Oz also expressed a musical yearning for a brane.

I never knew the scarecrow wanted to study theoretical physics...

 

[r_j_dando]

I feel like I've spent hours trawling through Google for the answer to this, and nothing helpful is turning up. So help, please?

England, 1920s - if you were lower or middle class, what games would you play in a pub for betting purposes? (I'm mostly thinking card games or dominoes, but I don't know about how popular mah jong would have been during that era) I originally had them playing poker, but I can't find anything online to substantiate that as a popular game among those classes. I've thought of whist, brag, rummy, cribbage...but I don't know for certain, and it's ringing my authenticity panic bells ;-)

 

[Ursa major]

I never knew the scarecrow wanted to study theoretical physics...

Perhaps, when he first began to move, he relied on strings. (It's a theory....)

 

[Abernovo]

r j dando, just a thought, but perhaps pub skittles and shove ha'penny? I know they're old pub games, but not how old. Best I can do.

 

[Hex]

Hi there -- this site might be useful: http://www.tradgames.org.uk/features/pub-games.htm

(sorry if you've already encountered it!)

 

[Vertigo]

RJ depends on the pub and the bar; the separation between lounge bar and public bar used to be much stronger (not sure if they were called that back then). In the posh pubs and/or lounge bars probably no games, just intellectual discussion, maybe bridge or whist. In the public bars dominoes and crib'(bage) and darts of course. I remember in my earliest days of visiting pubs (very early 70's) those three dominated.

Oh and Hex; apologies for mentioning membranes or branes. It was inevitable that would get leapt on by our illustrious brethren.

 

[Hex]

Not to ask for much, but...

I'm looking for a vaguely plausible energy source that will be: small, safeish (capable of being used in a domestic environment, even if by fairly unscrupulous people), and sufficiently powerful to hold open a gateway to another dimension/parallel universe...

@Vertigo -- you know, I think we were innocent in all that. They did it to themselves.

 

[Glitch]

@Hex - Could you plug it into an electrical socket ?

 

[Vertigo]

Batteries Hex. There are huge amounts of research currently going on in battery technology, look at the difference in the size and duration of mobile phone batteries in the last ten years. True, some of that is about how the device uses the battery (low power screens, sleep modes etc.) but a lot of it is about the development of batteries. As we are obliged to move away from fossil fuels this effort is set to continue unabated for powering pretty much anything that is mobile; from cars to phones. I suspect that we have barely scratched the surface of where battery technology will go in the future.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

sorry another quick one, being a pest at the mo. Is there any reason why a clock wouldn't work in a space ship? And if there is is there another way they could tell how long had passed?

 

[Interference]

Perhaps a pendulum clock might have some limitations, but they'd certainly be using space-worthy clocks on board. Besides, everyone has a time display on their mobile phones these days.