It’s been a long time since I covered types of editing on my blog (Editing Rant: Choose a Color ). I thought defining the types will help get the video ball rolling in the new year.
Blog
Geeking Science: Entanglement
Image courtesy of Cheezeburger
By the time most people have finished high school, they have been introduced to the Schrodinger’s Cat, a concept created by Erwin Schrodinger during a correspondence between him and another powerhouse physicist of his day, Albert Einstein, as they pounding out the implications of quantum mechanics.
Quantum mechanics doesn’t live in our normal space-and-time continuum, well, it does, but it breaks a lot of “rules” normal physics have. Kind-of like the rules of adults don’t apply to babies, the rules of molecules doesn’t apply to the parts that make up atoms. Smaller things always gets different rules. They are the baby – got to love them.
In Schrodinger’s Cat, it means if you shrunk down a cat to sub-atomic particle size and stuck it in a box with some poison, until observation happens a state of quantum superposition exists where the cat is both alive and dead.
Part of this is because quantum mechanics doesn’t happen is space-AND-time … it happens in space-time. Meaning some of the properties of time are indistinguishable / overlap with the properties of space. Think of how light is both energy and matter and can be bent by gravity. It’s like that, only different.
Humans love their boxes, and the universe is not a box.
Schrodinger’s Cat is an example of entanglement, where an link exists between particles which have become entangled. Scientists have been exploring the principle of quantum nonlocality – where two entangled particles will share rotation, momentum, and polarity even over the divide of space INSTANTLY, possibly over light years. Experiments have come back positive – not the light year distance, but pretty much what humans can test on Earth indicate this theory can be supported.
For science-fiction, what this means, is mankind may be able to create instantaneous communication. Using quantum particles and the nonlocality principle – combined with say, Morse code – messages can be sent over any distance WITHOUT possibility of interference or signal loss. Yes, limited to one location to another. But a network is possible – say fleet headquarters has dozens of arrays linked to ships throughout the galaxy – a single message can be sent out.
If this is possible, mankind won’t lose itself by scattering to the stars but remain a coherent whole.
But … ready for the kicker … remember space-time. Locality on the quantum level isn’t just in SPACE, but in TIME. The Crull article in the bibliography goes into it with deeper science from an experiment run in 2013 where it WORKED, but I’m going to just play with this from a sci-fi viewpoint.
Speculating this out, humans can communicate backward and forward through time with this principle. All one would need is the right technology similar to the network of one-to-hub communication in standard space already speculated above.
Maybe humanity won’t get time machines, but writers can play fast and lose with the science to make them “techno-babble” possible.
Still, I’m more enthralled with the means of really and truly communicating over light-years.
At one point, there was a question going around of which science fiction world is stronger – who would win, Star Trek or Star Wars?
A lot of people in my circle went with Star Wars. I immediately said Star Trek, not based on their weapons or the size of their ships, but the fact they had instantaneous communication. In most battles, that is the deciding factor – can you coordinate your people to arrive at the same time over vast distances? Star Trek could, Star Wars depends on the Force to be on their side.
Real world. though. We may be able to do Star Trek level instantaneous communication even before we put a colony on a world circling a different sun.
Geeking science!
Bibliography
Crull, Elise. “If You Thought Quantum Mechanics Was Weird, Check Out Entangled Time”. Science Alert.com. 2018 April 14. https://www.sciencealert.com/if-you-thought-quantum-mechanics-was-weird-check-out-entangled-time – last viewed 11/14/2019.
Editing Rant: Recommending Others
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
You may have followed my struggle in November during NaNoWritMo to catch up on the blog, including and especially the Author Spotlights. It was a struggle to create over thirty of them. So why do I do it?
Recommending Others.
This is part of the business.
In many industries, others in the business are competition. Publishing is much closer to farming than manufacturing in nature. The ground needs to be prepared and constantly taken care of to produce a product – in this case the audience needs “food” faster than a writer can prepare it by themselves. By recommending others, a writer keeps their audience in the reading mood and, at the same time, keeps themselves in the audience’s mind while waiting for the next “harvest” to come in.
Farmers who live near each other, or writers in the same genre or same convention circuit, trade ideas and techniques to produce the best product possible. They support each other, help each other to keep their environment healthy, and create a community.
Ways writers do this include providing blog tours, hosting writer groups, and talking other people’s books up during conventions. I personally do it through book reviews, author spotlights, other cool blog posts, attending a book club, and including a featured book on my video Editing Rants.
So if you decide to join this crazy industry, remember to talk up other authors and their books. It might be the connection you need with your audience.
WRITING EXERCISE: Do one thing to promote other people’s work today. Recommend a book on Facebook, talk up a book with a friend, write a book review, attend a book club, make a blog post, etc. Write in the comments below to give other people ideas. Include a link to what you did, if it is linkable.
Flash: Rafella de Sable (Part 1)
The old flashes have run out, so I am doing my old D&D and other roleplaying games. I created Lady Rafella de Sable for a D&D campaign in 2005 while I lived in Texas. We played one game. This is her background Part 1.
*** Rafella de Sable (Part 1)
To understand Rafaela’a history, you need to know about her grandfather. He is the Lord de Sablehart, and when he had inherited the line, it had been in a state of decline for a long time.
The present dynasty ruling the kingdom came into power because the heir of Argenthuse betrayed the old crown for the love of a woman.
As a thank you, the new King let the young man marry his elder sister and renamed him Duke de Sable in recognition of his close blood-ties to the crown and his betrayal of the old crown. The story of love faded in time; the story of betrayal so clearly shown in their name being changed to “Black Heart” stayed. Few were willing to trust the line in the political or business arenas. Slowly the glorious old line of Argenthuse, now de Sablehart, faded from lack of new contracts and contacts. In addition, the name is said to be cursed by the old dynasty for the betrayal. None remember the story of love, or that the heir had never sworn fealty to the old crown. The last of the Argenthuse had been sickened at how corrupted the court life had become, and made moves to protect his country.
All that is remembered is that this is a line of traitors.
The grandfather inherited the cursed, bankrupt title though he was the third son.
Over the years, the ducal lands were mortgage to maintain the lifestyle required of the title until eventually they had to be sold back to the crown. Though the title of Duke was never rescinded, once the lands were gone the family stopped using the title; they did not wish any indication that they were close family to the crown that had treated them so poorly. But they were still nobility, with a line that stretched back for four royal dynasties. Debt remounted until one Lord de Sablehart had to go to unreputable moneylenders. In his older years, he realized he could no longer borrow from Peter to pay Paul and informed his debtors of his state. The Guild took exception, as the old man still had family jewels, a country manor, a few townhouses – in the capital and elsewhere, and a number of other assets still visible. So they removed old lord and all but his youngest (and presumably, most malleable) son.
The new Lord de Sablehart understood the message, though saddled with death taxes as well as the backbreaking debt his father had been welching on.
He sold everything but an old townhouse in a backwater town to which he shipped the items that simply could not be sold – the family portraits, family-crested heirlooms (both the old Argenthuse arms – sable, a castle argent, and the new arms – sable, on side sinister a dagger impaling a heart argent) and the like. He had the moneylenders go through all the items until they agreed that nothing left was of any value except to him. Even the gems were removed from the old ducal cornet and the silver melted down. The townhouse had not been used in years, and had not been modernized with new amenities in over a hundred years. The roof leaked so bad that there were trees on the second floor.
Using this wretched building as a base, the young lad traveled with merchant caravans to other kingdoms using the only thing at his disposal, his training as a nobleman. His knowledge of etiquette, heraldry and languages held him in good stead was he tried to put coin in his pocket. On one such journey, he noticed a lady watching from the shadows. He discovered that she was the eldest of the royal house, but had been caught in a bed fire as a child. Badly scarred, no one with taste wanted the broken princess, and the family had too much pity to force her to marry any of the fortune hunters that sought out a quick title. De Sablehart saw the opportunity and spent a year courting the older lady. His family was cursed for the love of a princess; he thought it would be ironic if the fortune were restored because of the same.
His wife was appalled when she saw her new home, but her generous dowry paid for the basic fixing up. Being miserly from years of deprivation, de Sablehart only used enough make the building usable; he did not modernized any room but the kitchen. The balance of the money was invested in businesses in the area, including the Thieves’ Guild. Still hating them (though this was a different guild) for killing his father and brothers, de Sablehart’s sense of the ironic found cold comfort in them paying for his maintenance. His wife gave birth to four children, and the family line seemed to prosper.
Just when he thought he could make the next move to moving the family back to its old glory, the curse reared its ugly head in the form of Scarlet Fever. It took his precious wife (with whom he did fall in love and treated like the princess she was) and three of his children. One of his sons did survive, for the curse could not continue without the line existing, but the fever had damaged his hearing and maybe his personality for after that the heir never showed personal drive or initiative again. His father dictated his actions and Andre responded instantly and without imagination. The death taxes wiped out what little prosperity they had.
Forced to sell his share in all his businesses, de Sablehart went back to work – though this time he was deliberately sought out the solution of marriage for his son. And found it in ancient dukedom during his travels, making him wonder just how much the gods took personal delight in making his life perverse. Scarlet fever had touched that house as well, and the fever had stole all the wits from one of the daughters. Making certain his son and the brainless woman were caught in comprising situations that could only be interpreted as a romantic courtship, by those not aware of how little sexual drive either of simpleton adults had. When de Sablehart made overtures of consideration of marriage, the foreign coronet breathed a sigh of relief at getting rid of a major embarrassment.
The new dowry made the repairs to the house, bringing it up to the comfort of de Sablehart’s childhood, and the balance was invested to produce a maintenance income. Back on track, de Sablehart encouraged the two to produce offspring. It was not an easy task, but eventually the lady got pregnant and produced a daughter. Not something the Lord of the House wanted, as each daughter would need a dowry. The second try also produced a daughter and likewise the third. Refusing to give up, he hired a elven tutor to teach his granddaughters how to be ladies for that is the only asset they were to him. Items to sell off for money or politics. He paid special attention to the eldest, whom might end up being his heir. The upside for the girls is that the family curse does not seem to follow once their name is changed.
(Words 1208, first written for game 9/23/2005; first published 1/12/2020)
Other Cool Blogs: Pictures
Image acquired from the Internet Hive Mind