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The Schwarzschild Defence

nature.com

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Re: The Schwarzschild Defence

#71

Post by hinkley »

KineticLensman wrote: post #57
unsupp0rted wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the guilty party wasn't guilty? Isn't that like putting someone in prison for life on the expectation that eventually evidence will come to light that it was the right call?

This is a major plot point in the stories, that and criminally bobbling someone to get them out of the way.

If you thought your accountant was about to become an informant, bubble him up.

Catch your crime boss enemy with his pants down? Bubble him and watch his empire unravel.

Someone sleeping with your wife? Bubble.

Re: The Schwarzschild Defence

#72

Post by jhbadger »

wardedVibe wrote: post #23

neat story, but since when did nature branch out to publishing short stories? roots about the website 2000?? https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?type=futures&year=200...

That's the most recent set, but they've had a long history of publishing fiction and speculation in addition to research papers. It's important to remember that Nature is a bit of an oddity among scientific publications (although its American equivalent Science is somewhat similar) in that it is really two publications in one -- the journal part where it publishes papers, and also a magazine about science where non-papers get published -- news stories, book reviews, obituaries of famous scientists, and yes, sometimes fiction as well.

Re: The Schwarzschild Defence

#73

Post by Shorel »

doctor_eval wrote: post #24
skrebbel wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds really interesting but I have absolutely no idea what you mean. Is the ball the same as the bubble? Why does someone go into it? Who is the “guilty party”?

I think - it was a very very long time ago when I read this - but a bad person can put someone into a stasis field without their consent. The stasis field is the shape of a perfect bubble or ball. IIRC it's also perfectly reflective. Anything inside the stasis field simply doesn't participate in time. Once Bob puts Alice into statis, the stasis ball is impenetrable, so the cops don't know if Alice was alive or dead w…

> However, they do know that the stasis bubble containing Alice will eventually open up and pop Alice back into the current time.

In the first book, IIRC, they did not know that, and in fact believed the spheres would last forever.

The spheres were used like nukes, in a very indiscriminate way. Whole armies were sphered in a short time.

Many years after, when the first sphere popped, they realized a new way of time travel just opened.

Re: The Schwarzschild Defence

#74

Post by hinkley »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #51
hinkley wrote: post #8

Vernor Vinge’s Peace War has balls of stasis, which you can’t see in to tell if the person trapped is alive or dead. So when they figured out how to calculate the lifetime of the bubble, they started putting the guilty party into a bubble timed so they both popped at the same time, which would quickly be followed by your court date if it turned out to be murder.

How would they determine the guilty party or would it be a case of putting all the suspects into stasis?

Well it’s science fiction not a model for the Rule of Law, so there’s some hand waving to get back to the story at hand. To prove a murder without a body today you need a lot of corroborating evidence. Bodies make everything easier.

He only goes as far as he does because his protagonist in the second book is a detective (and a victim).

Re: The Schwarzschild Defence

#76

Post by doctor_eval »

Shorel wrote: post #73
doctor_eval wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think - it was a very very long time ago when I read this - but a bad person can put someone into a stasis field without their consent. The stasis field is the shape of a perfect bubble or ball. IIRC it's also perfectly reflective. Anything inside the stasis field simply doesn't participate in time. Once Bob puts Alice into statis, the stasis ball is impenetrable, so the cops don't know if Alice was alive or dead w…

> However, they do know that the stasis bubble containing Alice will eventually open up and pop Alice back into the current time. In the first book, IIRC, they did not know that, and in fact believed the spheres would last forever. The spheres were used like nukes, in a very indiscriminate way. Whole armies were sphered in a short time. Many years after, when the first sphere popped, they realized a new way of time t…

Yes, I definitely remember that. Whole cities were carved out from the ground. And didn’t the bubbles also appear to be weightless? Or massless? And would float? I remember thinking at the time that they kinda reflect everything, including gravity, though the book probably had a better explanation that I don’t remember.

Re: The Schwarzschild Defence

#77

Post by vecter »

gorgoiler wrote: post #21
cyberax wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite. A fixed observer far away from a black hole sees that objects falling into the black hole become more and more faint, and move towards horizon ever so slower. In a classical situation with a good enough detector you can see the images of ALL the objects that fell into the black hole. But this is merely an optical illusion. Objects that fall into the black hole emit only a fixed amount of energy before they…

And if you fall in feet first you see your feet like a flatbed scanner scans an image. When you stand still on Earth, photons from your feet move at light speed into your eyes. When you fall feet first into a black hole, they emit stationary photons on the event horizon, which you cross at the speed of light. It’s all c to you though. (I’m halfway through Cox and Forshaw’s Black Holes: The Key to Understanding the Un…

> When you fall feet first into a black hole [...] which you cross at the speed of light.

I don't know where you're getting this but nothing with mass can reach the speed of light. And it's absolutely possible to cross the event horizon (of a very large black hole) without having any idea whatsoever. There would be no particular event to happen that would indicate to you that you did.

Re: The Schwarzschild Defence

#78

Post by FeepingCreature »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #67
FeepingCreature wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not how double jeopardy works. By all means, sentence Bob for kidnapping, stick him in jail, have him get out, put a tracker on him and forbid him to leave the country. Then, when Alice pops out and is dead, you just trial him again. It's a different crime! What's more, even if it was the same crime, it'd be material new information! (Quoth the ECHR: "The provisions of the preceding paragraph shall not preven…

Thats great, but the ball pops and its not Alice there. You jailed Bob for years for the crime he didn't commit. Are you happy?

If it's not Alice there, bubbling Bob was also an injustice.

Re: The Schwarzschild Defence

#79

Post by z2trillion »

doctor_eval wrote: post #76
Shorel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, they do know that the stasis bubble containing Alice will eventually open up and pop Alice back into the current time. In the first book, IIRC, they did not know that, and in fact believed the spheres would last forever. The spheres were used like nukes, in a very indiscriminate way. Whole armies were sphered in a short time. Many years after, when the first sphere popped, they realized a new way of time t…

Yes, I definitely remember that. Whole cities were carved out from the ground. And didn’t the bubbles also appear to be weightless? Or massless? And would float? I remember thinking at the time that they kinda reflect everything, including gravity, though the book probably had a better explanation that I don’t remember.

The bobbles retain their mass. There is a scene in the book where a bobble floats aways because it was created during the day, and at night the surrounding air cools enough for the bobble to effectively become a hot air balloon.

As far as I know, the book doesn't cover if the bobble retain their angular momentum or charge.

Re: The Schwarzschild Defence

#80

Post by pontifier »

z2trillion wrote: post #79
doctor_eval wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I definitely remember that. Whole cities were carved out from the ground. And didn’t the bubbles also appear to be weightless? Or massless? And would float? I remember thinking at the time that they kinda reflect everything, including gravity, though the book probably had a better explanation that I don’t remember.

The bobbles retain their mass. There is a scene in the book where a bobble floats aways because it was created during the day, and at night the surrounding air cools enough for the bobble to effectively become a hot air balloon. As far as I know, the book doesn't cover if the bobble retain their angular momentum or charge.

There's a vivid scene where they create a tiny bobble above a candle to catch the hot air.

I always wondered if creating a bobble around an off-center weight would allow you to kind of spin it by wobbling it.

There were some places where large pieces of land unbobbled without any relative movement, so maybe they were locked in their rotation somehow?

I really liked that book a lot.

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