Quantum Crazed & Crusader Challenged

Image via Wikipedia

It's not just me who thinks we live in a warped universe. ;)

In honor of Rachael Harrie's First Crusader Challenge , I'm including the following about myself in today's post:

· one lie
· one interesting quirk
· one annoying habit
· one of my best character traits
· one of my favourite things in the whole world.

It's her fault for the bloviating/ fuliguline business, btw. :)

So, in 300 words or less, allow me to bloviate with my reasoning behind our hop into the rabbit hole of quantum physics:

I've been doing a bunch of reading lately about the multiverse, the many-worlds interpretation, M theory, and even dream analysis...because I'm linking it all to the fortunetelling aspect of my gipsy/djinn characters. However, reading the experts only gives me a headache, trying to unravel what they're explaining. I decided on reading some fiction instead.

To start, I picked up Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith and Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card. Both books were enough to keep me puzzled for a couple of days, pondering time paradoxes and parallel universes. Equally engrossing plotlines kept things rolling through though, with bite sized bits of how the theories work laced into the chapters.

Here’s my sci-fi/fantasy secret: I find these books enjoyable because they help me think outside the box, instead of following the norm in fuliguline fashion. One of my favorite things in the world is a book with a premise that makes me think. I have a habit of analyzing things for days after I put them down. I examine the individual blade of grass, and how it fits into the grand scheme, instead of just looking at the big picture. Ask my kids – it’s annoying – and yet they’re right there with me, watching Stargate for the millionth time, postulating how other myths might work in the series. Perhaps I’ve stumbled onto my best character trait, infectious curiosity… Now if I could pass on the quirk of rolling a toothpast tube properly, I'd be a happy woman indeed. :)

Unrelated celebrating:

The Science Channel has purchased the rights to Firefly! Read what Nathan Fillion says about that here.

And the winner of a signed copy of Across the Universe by Beth Revis is...

K.O. - The Insect Collector

...with Harput castle! So Friday's post will be about her castle.

Congrats!

Related Articles:

• Sarah Fine - Marbury Lens: The Bounds of the Real
• Matthew Rush - Andrew Smith Interview
• Is Relativity Hard? (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
• The Multiverse, Quantum Immortality and the Meaning of Life (scitechexplained.com)

Ghost Words



via kristinjustice @ Flickr



The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

- Omar Khayyam

I read a terrible, can't-believe-people-read-this-stuff genre novel (which shall remain nameless) last week. It was full of sterotypes and poor descriptions. But as with every book, I found a great passage. The scene tied into the above verse, and it hit me two ways.

First:

Been wishing I could recall some of my words lately, but no luck. Those three queries I sent last week? Wasted. Two Rs and the other says 4-6 weeks before I'll hear some more silence. Got a twisted feeling in my gut. You know, the one that makes you want to hurl. Maybe the MS wasn't right for them, but then again, my query stinks.

I suppose it's because I spent the last year working on my MS, and not enough time working on the query. Guess I'm trigger happy now. But thanks to my writer friends (Matt and Leigh), I realized my mistake before I was too deep in words of no return. We all learn, but I've also got plenty of doubts about the MS lingering upstairs with the rest of my demons. No amount of tears will bring the queries back...so move I on. My new task is simple: SIMPLIFY.


Second:

In this day of digital cuts and deletions, words can be cancelled from the record, wiped from the hard drive, etc. (Especially when you want to preserve them, it seems!) But Omar Khayyam speaks the truth too. I see it with my own scenes. I write them, edit them, and somehow when a beta reads them...some of those original words manage to reveal themselves. My "ghost words" come back as little blue edits or red comment bubbles, safely restored to me in the margins. Aaaaand we're back to the Multiverse idea.... Two roads...ahh...that's another poet!

Aside:

A Ghost Word is a word suggestive of a non-existent opposite. Wikipedia example: Aftermath = Beforemath

Wikipedia also says: A ghost word is a word that has been published in a dictionary, or has been adopted as genuine, as the result of misinterpretation or a typographical error.

The most famous example in English (and many other languages) is "scapegoat" which is a mistranslation of the word Azazel (In Hebrew: עזאזל) originated by William Tyndale in his 1530 Bible, and appropriated in the King James Version of the Bible (Leviticus chapter 16) in 1611. Confounded by the word, Tyndale had interpreted Azazel as ez ozel - literally, "the goat that departs"; hence "(e)scape goat." According to the Talmud, Yoma 67b, Azazel is a contraction of az (harsh) and eil (strong) and refers to the most rugged of mountains. This identification is supported by Rashi, the great Medieval grammarian, who interpreted Azazel to be the name of a specific mountain or cliff over which the goat was driven[1]. According to R.H. Charles, it was called so for its reputation as the holding place of the fallen angel of the same name[2]. Modern scholars generally reject Tyndale's interpretation and favor one related to a fallen angel/evil demon interpretation. Today in modern Hebrew Azazel is used derogatorily, as in lekh la-Azazel ("go to Azazel"), as in "go to hell".

Every book has something worth remembering! What new ideas did you pick up from your last read? :)

Speaking of Ghost words...I'm changing the blog schedule, so there's no post on Thursdays. I'm fixing a query, starting to outline another WIP, and running out of steam! Plus, I figure I'll actually have some time to visit other blogs more often!

Many Worlds Interpretation

Image via WikipediaWikipedia:

Many-worlds is a postulate of quantum mechanics that asserts the objective reality of the universal wavefunction, but denies the reality of wavefunction collapse, which implies that all possible alternative histories and futures are real —each representing an actual "world" (or "universe").

Can someone help me make sense of this jibberish?

Sounds like the storylines in my head, if I think about it. I can take my MC down different paths, or retrace and try another. I'm sure most writers will agree that it's a really neat feeling. However, I'm more interested in the Pandora/Narnia type parallel universe for my novel.

I have a way for my MC to occassionally eavesdrop between the parallel universes, because I want the reader to keep track of time and consequence. But is it necessary? I wonder... Storyline A didn't need storyline B, until I created the opportunity. Yet I have three saved versions of my novel, so they do exists sided by side on my bookshelf.

Just babbling today...

Related articles

• Victor Stenger: The Myth of Quantum Consciousness (huffingtonpost.com)