Musings about the laws of physics' assumed immutability

Who can know? When you get to that scale anything that capable would seem undistinguishable from gods. Perhaps in the end we will find all of this science vs magic and faith vs reason has always been two sides of the same coin. It reminds me of simulation theory which seems to be gaining prevalence. Is it true? I dont know. I am not sure how we would know.

What if in the matrix movie taking the red pill just shifted one to another matrix and not to what was real? Goes on and on.

 

Inceptrix?

 

but what makes them laws? some things we can accept as reality, and under normal circumstance they are perfectly valid, but even the theory of relativity which is very much applicable to much of the universe breaks down once you start crossing the event horizon of a black hole. There are other place I remember reading about where they are also questioning if it would apply. If we look at our physics correctly, they are all subject to change if you change the environment enough to invalidate the normal given concepts.

An advance race is unlikely breaking any laws of physics, they are just changing the how they operate in space time to do things that we don't yet understand.

There was an interesting article (I forget where it was) but it was talking about the 'warp' theory that was the basis for star trek, and what was interesting is that the current math that supports it says that a warp bubble would be more efficient if it is wider over longer. So instead of a long ship, you would want a flatter one...kind of like all the reported sightings of a 'flying saucer'. If the theory is true, then the aliens could be using a warp drive.

If only I knew all that math. Sigh

 

I think a physicist would argue that the laws have not changed, but that the inputs of time and space have. Put through the same machines they would still get predictable results.

Not sure if you really want a answer to the question, but they are law's because Newton said so. So far, he has not been sufficiently knocked out to think his 'laws' dont still apply. Everything in science is not really 'true' of course. Just what we think is true cause it seems to be and nothing has shown its not yet. It is fair to come and speculate about what if everything was different, but logic is still our best tool for trying to figure out what is true or not. And logic looks for things like laws to work off of. Maybe this is what the Eldritch gods know. That logic is not a useful tool, and we would all go insane trying to make sense of the unsensible.

But if that's true, I don't want to hear anyone say my plot does not make any sense anymore.

 

Newton called his laws, and Einstein called his a theory. The laws break down in space because they don't actually factor in time, while the theory has proven far more reliable until you hit the more exotic forms of space.

My point is some person says it's a law, then tell people it can't be broken. I remember something about bumble bees and helicopters breaking the 'laws' so the laws had to be rewritten to account for them. So maybe there are no actual 'laws of physics' just norms of physics that are completely accurate until you move to an environment which forces a new set of norms to be applied.

When it comes to fantasy, I really enjoy magic systems that are designed, and have a basis and rules. Sanderson has created many and I've enjoyed all of them, I even like the systems Rothfuss added, even though I'll die before he finishes the last book. Many other fantasy books just use magic as a way to do things to replace technology, much of which is never really made clear to the reader how things are made since the main characters who do magic never seem to create anything, or the magic effects them, over them really using it. To be honest, as long as the story is good, I tend to be very forgiving of the rest.

 

Its not that these things cannot be imagined, its that to have them tends to invite explanation, and in explaining them, they tend to drift more towards SciFi. I could make a world based on cubes (minecraft?), and to the creatures on it, they may never question how or why it works, but he reader would start asking questions. Magic is usually reserved for stuff that happens without scientific explanation.

It may be fair to say that Newtons laws are not comprehensive, but I don't think they will fail to apply. If I put a black hole in motion, does it not tend to stay in motion? The word law is just semantics. All things are mutable. I am not sure even Newton thought in light of better evidence, it may not stand up.

 

I found the article a bit vague and generic. It doesn't go much beyond "wouldn't it be cool if...".

As a physicist by training, I would have to go with "not possible*." With a big asterix in there. The laws of physics work the way they do. When they stop working it's either that something unknown is happening, or you've stepped out of the realm of applicability of that specific law. Also, do note that the "laws" of physics are just theoretical models that we use to predict what will happen in specific circumstances. No electron ever thinks "let's play around with the second law of thermodynamics." We just developed an aproximation that lets us show cause and effect and gives replicable results.

Just take Newtonian physics. Einstein and others showed the limitations of those laws. They fall apart when dealing with very large things, very high speeds, and on a very small scale. That doesn't mean they stopped working to predict what's going on when you're well within the boundaries of those laws, just that our understanding of physics was incomplete.

The same with dark matter. It's purely theoretical at the moment. It just happens to be the best thing we've come up with. It could very well be wrong, or maybe a sufficiently advanced race can manipulate it well enough, or any other option. But that just means our understanding of the universe is incomplete, not that you break the laws of physics.

As a writer, we break these laws all the time. Anything fantasy and many things SciFi breaks these rules in small and large ways. Magic is the obvious one of course. But how does hyperdrive work? Or even the jet-pack the Mandalorian uses? Where does the energy of a lot of stuff actually come from? How does a dragon manage to fly?

Of course, other genres are just as guilty of this, they're just less up-front about it. Whether it's the spy gadgets in a thriller, the monster in horror, or even the "rules" of a romance world. It's all made up by stepping outside the realm of real world physics.

 

Of course any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic. And it's a very thin line between what's technology and what's magic. Part of it is simply what tools are used to create an effect. If you can fly by stepping on a carpet then we'll call it magic, and if you do so by using rocket blasts out of your hands and feet then we call it technology.

Another part seems to be the powersource used. If some technobable is used to explain how something works, or even if it's just implied, then we call it technology. If it comes from somewhere else, or we ignore the principle of conservation of energy then it's magic.

 

To be fair, I have a very decent understanding of how technology works, but even I find printers to be mysterious objects. They do have a mind of their own, and it's usually an eldritch, evil mind, bent on making the life of it's servants (aka users) as miserable as possible.

Hm, now that I think about it, I still have this magical office setting in the back of my head somewhere. And this is a perfect fit for that setting...

 

People programming vcr’s was just another government lie, like bigfoot, the moon landing, and people who drank zima’s.