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Modern Physics & Magic: A Few Words
This originally appeared on the Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal RWA chapter blog.
I’d like to take a few minutes today to talk about modern physics and magic (or magick, if that’s your preferred spelling).
Now I know you already think I’m crazy, but hang on for a minute. Because I have a few words that I think you might find interesting.
The first one is “Fields”
Specifically, the electromagnetic fields of protons and electrons. They’re why we perceive matter as solid, even though the average atom is mostly empty space.
The not-empty part is a nucleus of protons and neutrons with some number of electrons wandering around at various distances and configurations that can be predicted via quantum mechanics. The number of electrons depends on the number of protons in the nucleus and the ionic state of the atom.
Molecules are atoms linked together with more empty space between, but they can also merge the fields of their individual atoms to create even stronger fields.
If you’ve ever tried to stick two “North” ends of bar magnets together (or ridden a mag-lev train), you have an idea of what I’m talking about. The closer together you get the magnets, the stronger the fields become.
What happens when you can negate the EM field of matter? You walk through walls and sink though floors, unless you can also negate a gravitational field and fly. Magic.
The second word is “Phase”
When light bounces off a surface, the wave (light is both waves and particle streams), the phase of the wave is shifted by 180 degrees. Now, if you mix two waves of opposite phases, they cancel each other. From this we get noise-canceling headphones and the possibility of invisibility.
But wait, there’s more.
If you expand the thought to quantum phases, you can end up with the multiverse – different realities that could exist alongside ours, but instead of having possible electron spins of Up and Down, their quantum phase has electron spins of Left and Right.
What happens when two universes occupying the same space but with different quantum phases experience quantum phase drift? Maybe we start seeing things that aren’t really there. Almost like ghosts.
The third word is “Entanglement”
Say you have a pair of big particles, like electrons (or even as big as microdiamonds, according to some people), that interact and are then separated.
Now the electrons have a description that is indefinite in terms of stuff like position, momentum, spin, and even polarization; when they interact they adopt opposite spins. Until you look at one to determine its spin, you don’t know what it is. And if you change the spin of an electron that is entangled, you can change the spin of the electron it interacted with, even if that other electron is at the other end of the universe. Magic.
Those are only three of the words that link modern physics to magic. If you want to know some of the others, I’m teaching an online workshop in August through FF&P that explains the concepts without going into the math.
Footnote: The math is weird; it doesn’t use numbers because pretty much nobody knows what the numbers are. Einstein, in his general relativity derivation, divided by zero at least once, which was found by someone else. And he still came up with his famous equation relating energy to mass.
In closing, I want to leave you with a few more words, these from Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the science fiction writer (which is a bit like calling Einstein the patent clerk). This is Clarke’s Third Law, written as a footnote to Clarke’s Second Law in the essay “Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination” in the collection Profiles of the Future (added, I believe, in the 1973 edition): “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
And, lastly, the Roberts (that’s me) corollary to the Third Law: “Why choose?”
RWA National Conference
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: life, publishing, writers conference
Comments (4) I had planned to go — purchased a plane ticket, paid for the conference, reserved a hotel room, the whole thing. I even went shoe shopping (shudder). Then Spooky Man’s new medication didn’t show up.
Spooky Man is one of the world’s youngest Vietnam veterans — he turned 17 in early February 1975 and enlisted the next Monday. He was barely out of boot camp and training to be a tank gunner when the conflict ended. He has a service-connected disability rating of 60%, some of which is due to PTSD (I’d say why, but it’s classified), for which he takes antidepressants.
His VA psychiatrist recently changed his medication because it was becoming less effective, and then upped the dose the week before the RWA national conference. And then the new medication didn’t show up. It still hasn’t shown up and I am not amused (for god’s sake, the regional VA medical center is across town; it’s not like it had to come from Seattle or something).
I wasn’t about to leave town with him in this state. So I canceled what reservations I could and ate the other costs, because my husband, my life partner, having a crisis is more important than an event that will happen again next year. It’s sad that I wasn’t able to meet and connect with people I follow on Twitter or know via e-mail listservs, but I think they would understand that my family’s health comes first.
For what it’s worth, I cheered all the Golden Heart and Rita winners as they were announced on the RWA tweet stream and even teared up a little when Brenda Jackson received her lifetime achievement award (which was much deserved).
And while I was on the computer that night, I wrote rough cuts for the Newtonian, Einsteinian and Quantum Mechanics lectures for the online class I’m supposed to teach (Modern Physics for Writers), starting August 6th.
Luckily, the new shoes will still fit next year.
OMG I have a cover
Muppet flail!
And here it is:
Boots
This is a rant about female footwear, so if you’re a guy, you probably want to tune out and come back later. What the [bleep!] is going on with women’s boots? Seriously, I don’t get it.
I haven’t owned a pair of boots since my Noconas (purchased at age 13) wore out about 7 years ago. I’ve been shopping recently (RWA national convention is coming up soon), which is never a good time for me. I’m also in the 0.1% of the female population that doesn’t like shopping for shoes. Need a pottery wheel or a hand-weaving loom? Power tools? Major (or minor) appliances? I’m your wing-woman. Shoes and clothes? Uh, can’t we just get it online?
Part of the problem is that I have definite ideas of what I want. It’s not a gathering expedition for me so much as hunting. And then they never have exactly what I want, so I have to decide amongst the “good enough” stuff. It’s tough to decide between three or four things that aren’t what you really want (and you know what you really want).
And I sure as [bleep!] don’t want 99% of the boots I’ve seen in the last couple of weeks. They have slick soles (because we don’t ever wear boots in inclement weather for extra traction, do we, ladies?), they have ridiculously high heels that taper down to almost nothing on the ground (ditto last parenthetical aside), and they have zippers ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE SOLES! ARRGGGHH!
Okay, I think I have my blood pressure down now.
The point of a boot is to give extra traction on less than-ideal-ground and provide protection against, say, snow/water (or something ickier; I grew up on acreage with livestock, remember) at a higher level than a shoe. Got that? HIGHER sides, BETTER traction. Or you might as well wear (and destroy) the cute shoes.
Consequently, any boot with a zipper that extends below the ankle bone is useless. And a boot with a 3″ stiletto heel and a slick leather sole? Please. Yeah, I’m talking to you Chinese Laundry. And you, Alexander McQueen.
If I catch someone wearing that outside a building when there is one cloud in the sky, I will be required by common decency to smack her until she gets some sense back into her head. Or at least kick her in the ankle, right over the bone where it really stings for ten minutes or so.
Yeah, I’m fixated on ankles this week. And I’ve got an attitude right now; not a good one, either. I don’t care if they’re considered “fashion” boots — they’d better be functional first. A good pair of leather boots costs almost as much as Manolos, so if they’re not functional as boots, well, I understand Manolos also have a good resale value. Just sayin’.
Spooky Man wants me to get combat boots from a military surplus store, but there are a couple of problems with that. One, he’s biased toward anything camo (I think it’s on the Y-chromosome), and two, military footwear laces up. I don’t want a pair of boots that take 20 minutes to put on but can be worn for three days without untying.
I think I have it narrowed down to three possible brands: Merrell, Justin, and Frye. Nobody high-fashion (unless you count the Justin cowboy sister-brands Tony Llama and Nocona), but people who have been building functional boots for a good while.
God help me, I also need a new pair of heels to go with my dress for the Rita awards ceremony. Think anyone would notice if I wore boots?
Not the best birthday gift
Spooky Man took away my laptop. Actually, he sent it to the shop to have the hard drive replaced with a solid-state drive. SSDs are quieter, faster, require less power and generate less heat, so it’s a thoughtful gift.
Except it requires me to spend five days without a computer at home. During vacation days when I was planning to do a lot of writing. Insert frustrated noise here.
I did get a few thousand words written with a pen and a notepad (I tried writing on an Ipad, too, and it was awful — virtual keyboards are ridiculously inaccurate for real typing), but it wasn’t the 7-10K I was hoping for.
So I’m currently behind where I want to be on the works in progress. What else is new?
I think I’m going to be spending a few extra hours at the day job this week, borrowing the keyboard for a — ahem — side project, at least until I get my New! Improved! laptop back.
“The Valmont Contingency” Excerpt in a week
FYI, this is the last week you’ll be able to read the excerpt from The Valois Contingency.
Why, you ask?
Because, on my birthday, I’m putting up the excerpt of the finished manuscript “The Valmont Contingency” instead. And while the current scene still introduces Our Heroine, it’s been changed…some. (insert evil grin here)
The rest of the story will be available on October 1st. With a little luck, I’ll get a cover before then.
Shar-Pei Tidbit
Spooky Man reminded me today that Chinese Shar-Pei’s are not a breed the Idaho prison system uses for its guard dog program.
One of the K9 folks once told him, circa 1994, “They’re great barkers. They sound ferocious.” (heavy sigh) “But they’re just too damned happy to actually bite anyone, even with training.”
I like that in a companion dog.
Doggie Issues
After three months of working with Penny to: 1. learn her name (or at least acknowledge that we were calling her), 2. stop going potty in the house, 3. stop running off every chance she got, 4. stop chasing and/or obsessing over any cat she saw outside the house, and 5. stop dominance-humping Hank (yes, she did, and it was every bit as Euw-worthy as you think), we gave up and took her back to the shelter.
We had tried everything, including a shock collar that let us taser her when she tried to run into traffic or kill one of her feline family members. The collar worked while it was turned on, but it made everyone miserable and she reverted to bad behavior as soon as it was removed — or even turned off.
We filled out the shelter paperwork properly, warning her new people that she’s not house-trained, not food motivated (first dog I’ve ever come across who had to be forced to take a cookie), and would do best with no cats in her family. Telling the truth was good: she had a new home in about a week.
Then we walked back to the car and discovered a new wound on Hank’s face, maybe half an inch from his eye. (Note to self: we are not good terrier people and must never try to adopt one again.)
I’m perfectly happy with one dog.
Spooky Man, of course, met a woman at his latest Dr. appointment who does Shar-Pei rescue from California shelters (apparently Shar-Peis are the new Pit Bulls in California), and he is now awaiting a four-month-old puppy named Belle. She’s blond and adorable — wrinkles everywhere.
I don’t know how to get it across that I don’t really want another dog. Spooky Man seems to think it made Hank happy to have a playmate. All I saw was that it made Hank bleed. Every day.
On the other hand, I’ve never met a Shar-Pei who wasn’t an incredibly happy dog who liked everyone, so I’m sure it will turn out fine, and I’ll have an adorable wrinkly blond puppy in a few weeks (she just had her eyelids tacked, so she has to recover from the procedure before traveling).
Knock wood.
Vital Records vs Public Records
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Stray thoughts, Totally Off Topic
Leave a comment The “birther” thing came up again recently. I don’t really know why, because you can get a copy of that birth certificate on a coffee cup. One of my colleagues at the day job has one.
The whole controversy makes me twitch, because a significant number of people in the U.S. seem to think they have the right to possess a copy of the birth certificate of a perfect stranger. This tells me they have no clue that a vital record isn’t a public record, and they do not have any right to an unrelated citizen’s vital information.
My mother worked for the Idaho Bureau of Vital Statistics as a microfilm technician during the 1970s and 1980s. She converted century-old records of births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and adoptions to the hi-tech record-keeping medium of the day.
As a result of mom’s esoteric job, I learned the difference between a vital record and a public record. A vital record is proof of identity. Nobody has the right to get a copy of my vital records but me or a first-degree relative. And both I and any first-degree relative have to prove identity by submitting a photocopy of government-issued ID, both front and back (and pay the fees), first.
The Idaho Bureau of Vital Statistics has no sense of humor, no good faith, and no direct contact with the public. You have to make a record request by mail, fax, or internet form (via a 3rd-party company that charges almost as much as the certificate fee).
Period.
This is the case even for presidential candidates who otherwise give up all rights to privacy. (By the way, neither presidential candidate for the 2008 election was born in the continental U.S.; John McCain was born on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone. Interesting trivia.)
Okay, this is where the political references stop, because the reasoning behind the confidentiality goes far beyond politics.
You can use a birth certificate to establish a new identity; you only need a birth certificate to get a Social Security number (I certainly had no other ID when I was six — mom got SSNs for all three of us; I needed one so she could put the car-accident settlement in a savings account). With a birth certificate and a Social Security number, you can get a driver’s license, a passport, and a life.
Posing as a family member to request the birth certificate of a person who died in childhood was a thriving activity in the 1970s. Most of the staff of the Bureau back then was devoted to researching every request to make sure it wasn’t fraudulent.
The confidentiality of vital records protects everyone born, adopted, married, or divorced in the United States. So be thankful there’s a difference between a vital record and a public record. It keeps Coneheads from ruining your credit.
Marketing: When is it squicky?
Writers have heard for years they have to brand, they have to be “discoverable” and they have to market, Market, MARKET their own work because nobody else is going to do it for them.
I’m here to say there are times and places to turn it off. For example, I belong to the Romance Writers of America professional organization, which costs me US$95 per year. I belong to several chapters within that organization, including a couple of special interest chapters, which all charge US$20-US$30 per year in dues.
For any individual listserv, I’m pretty much paying US$50 a year for the privilege of getting e-mails. At least two of the chapters I belong to have a promo/marketing problem on their listservs/Yahoo groups. Frankly, it smacks of personal injury attorneys handing out business cards at a Bar Association meeting. Squicky.
I work closely with sales and marketing people in my day job (pretty much, I am the marketing communications department at my small company), so I deal with message, urgency, and spin — a lot. I know all the tricks, and I don’t like it when they’re used inappropriately.
So what do I mean by promo/marketing? This:
- “I just posted to my blog about (insert subject), so click this link to read it.”
- “I entered this esoteric contest you’ve never heard of and I’m blatantly soliciting votes.”
- “Congratulations!” or “I commented on your blog!” (followed by a 20-line signature that includes multiple book covers and an author blurb) — this one looks particularly desperate, which is extra squicky.
Basically, marketing is anything that demands an action from me: give you blog traffic; give you support; give you more attention than your words merit; buy, buy, buy your book(s). Greasy-leer, sweaty-palm, used-car-salesman-with-matching-white-belt-and-shoes squicky. Note: Not all used-car salesmen are squicky. I’ll bet you know the ones I mean.
What’s not squicky?
Class is never squicky. Write thoughtfully about interesting topics and have a discreet link in your signature (that is four lines, maximum, with no graphics) and I’ll probably click it and read about your books.
For example, if your new blog post is so fascinating you want to promote it, post it to the list as well as your blog. Discuss it with your colleagues, using full sentences and words (textspeak on an email list is definitely more squicky than classy).
Be polite. Be interesting. Have ideas. I know, that takes time and we don’t have time because we’re on the social-media-marketing hamster wheel. So get off the wheel; it’s probably the leading cause of squick. I’m a lot more likely to tell my tribe about your new title if I know you as classy, thoughtful, polite, and interesting.
Even if it’s a humorous YA vampire mystery romance I’m most likely never going to read (sorry, YA vampire romances aren’t my thing, even if they have funny mysteries attached), I have friends who love that premise and would also love to find a new author. Just not a squicky one.
