Would this break your immersion?

[Ayaka Di'rutia]

Does this world have a sun that rises and sets? I'm curious to know how the celestial part of this world works, as moving celestial objects implies a finite world rather than an infinite world. Would this world have an internal light source?

 

[fantastic]

Does this world have a sun that rises and sets? I'm curious to know how the celestial part of this world works, as moving celestial objects implies a finite world rather than an infinite world. Would this world have an internal light source?

Yes. The World is not much different. Just imagine our own Universe being stretched into every direction. It is simply different scaling. This is not exactly like that but I feel it is simple to understand.

Disregard the fact that such matter would have much greater gravity and would collapse and other physical laws that would make this unlikely.

Of course, people remain the same size. So do many objects in the universe. The Universe is not the same but it is similar, only bigger. Infinitely bigger.

You could say that this World does not take into account certain physical laws of cause and effect which makes it much different than our universe.

After all, changing something and saying everything else does not change much is unusual. One would expect that doing something like making World infinite would change many other things as a consequence.

One way would be to justify this with very complex laws of Physics and mathematical explanations, which would prove both difficult because I am not an expert, as well as inappropriate for the readers, at least I believe most readers would not appreciate it in a fantasy story.

Saying that it is infinite because it is a magical World is not my intention either. I still want my story to be consistent with science (World that is still like ours), except there would be special powers which would have their own consistent rules. And even then these powers would be a part of physical laws, only not yet discovered by majority of people on Earth.

And if I do neither, chances are that people will be bothered by this concept, which is not surprising. So in a way, I am wondering about how to do this. Whether to decide for this concept and not explain it or explain it extensively, tweak it in a more acceptable way or simply try to think of a better idea.

 

[WooHooMan]

Protagonists will have a huge distance to cover. And they will be very fast, making the distances such as on Earth seem very short.

Places unlikely to exist on small planets would be much easier and more probable to exist on an infinite plane that resembles Planet Earth.

Is a decillion miles (about 250,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times larger than Earth) too small? Because that number is MUCH smaller than infinity. You don't need to go either Earth-size or infinite, there's numbers in between that'll probably work.

Also, characters will be far too strong for ordinary planets. World infinite in size would prove much more durable.

I don't understand. What does world size have to do with a character's physical strength? Why wouldn't a finite world (even a very large one) be "durable" enough?

I understand what you are saying. But couldn't World building be focused on the discovered parts of the World?

The known universe is probably not infinite and there's plenty we've yet to discover. You don't need an infinite plane to allow for things to still be explored.

Well, this world is not exactly "Fairy Universe". It is still a World where people live, gravity works the same way, there are cities and other different places where people live. The differences other than the World being infinite plane (Infinite plane being the easiest way of explaining what it is like) are differences that one could expect such as in history, the way country is organized, culture and the number of people and places.

Referring to my earlier post, the only characteristic of a "fantasyland" is that it is not Earth. It can be identical to Earth but as long as it's established as a separate realm with some unique characteristic, it's a fantasyland.

It seems to me that you just really like the idea of an "infinite world" and you want to include it in your story. To the point where you're willing to ignore the impracticality of it.

Couldn't you just say "the world is huge" and leave it at that? You don't have to put a value to its size. Don't bring it up and no one will think about it. And if they don't think about it, their immersion will stay intact.

 

[fantastic]

Is a decillion miles (about 250,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times larger than Earth) too small? Because that number is MUCH smaller than infinity. You don't need to go either Earth-size or infinite, there's numbers in between that'll probably work.

I don't understand. What does world size have to do with a character's physical strength? Why wouldn't a finite world (even a very large one) be "durable" enough?

The known universe is probably not infinite and there's plenty we've yet to discover. You don't need an infinite plane to allow for things to still be explored.

Referring to my earlier post, the only characteristic of a "fantasyland" is that it is not Earth. It can be identical to Earth but as long as it's established as a separate realm with some unique characteristic, it's a fantasyland.

It seems to me that you just really like the idea of an "infinite world" and you want to include it in your story. To the point where you're willing to ignore the impracticality of it.

Couldn't you just say "the world is huge" and leave it at that? You don't have to put a value to its size. Don't bring it up and no one will think about it. And if they don't think about it, their immersion will stay intact.

I like the idea of infinite size of the World because it is very useful. But as you pointed out, there are many things to consider. That is why I am wondering and asking here for your opinion. I am not sure whether infinite size of the World would be even more difficult than simply finding some other way.

Having a huge world could work. But what would one think if it was said the World was huge? Would he think it is size of the Jupiter, Sun, Solar system, Galaxy, the Universe? It depends on the person reading.

Learning that his expectations were wrong could break him out of immersions.

On the other hand, try to explain the size would probably be as difficult as saying it is infinite.

But your points are certainly valid. I am just not sure so I try to obtain as many information to make a good judgement.

 

[WooHooMan]

I like the idea of infinite size of the World because it is very useful.

I don't see how an infinite plane is any more useful than a finite plane. It is absolutely impossible for anyone (even the writer) to explore the entirety of an infinite plane, so it might as well be finite. Like I said, it can be much, much bigger than Earth without going infinite.

How about you say that the full size is unknown. Even to you, the size is unknown. You can start at one point and build the setting outwards, making it as large as you need it to be (and I'm positive you won't need it to be infinite). Through this process, I think you'll be able to include what you'd like to include without breaking logic by insisting that your setting has no boundaries.

Having a huge world could work. But what would one think if it was said the World was huge? Would he think it is size of the Jupiter, Sun, Solar system, Galaxy, the Universe? It depends on the person reading.

Learning that his expectations were wrong could break him out of immersions.

I highly doubt any would guess the specific size of a setting. Most readers, I'd assume, would be more interested in the content of the setting rather than its size.
For example, when I read Lord of the Rings, I assumed Middle Earth was the size of Britain. I got through the entire trilogy thinking that it was as big as Britain. Then I found-out it was as big as Europe. I didn't care that I was wrong. I just felt like I learned something new about Middle Earth. And learning something new about a setting is always good.

 

[fantastic]

I don't see how an infinite plane is any more useful than a finite plane. It is absolutely impossible for anyone (even the writer) to explore the entirety of an infinite plane, so it might as well be finite. Like I said, it can be much, much bigger than Earth without going infinite.

How about you say that the full size is unknown. Even to you, the size is unknown. You can start at one point and build the setting outwards, making it as large as you need it to be (and I'm positive you won't need it to be infinite). Through this process, I think you'll be able to include what you'd like to include without breaking logic by insisting that your setting has no boundaries.

I highly doubt any would guess the specific size of a setting. Most readers, I'd assume, would be more interested in the content of the setting rather than its size.
For example, when I read Lord of the Rings, I assumed Middle Earth was the size of Britain. I got through the entire trilogy thinking that it was as big as Britain. Then I found-out it was as big as Europe. I didn't care that I was wrong. I just felt like I learned something new about Middle Earth. And learning something new about a setting is always good.

This is actually a great idea. The World that is huge enough for its size to be unknown. Whether it is infinite, or how big exactly does not matter. It is simply big enough for every content that needs to be included.

Thank you very much.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Simple problem in logic. You can't have a planet of infinite size and anything orbiting it. The orbit is of infinite size too. And the flat out simple logic is that you can never reach infinity by moving at a finite rate. So moons are out. They would never complete their first orbit - unless of course they travelled at infinite speed. As for the sun you have another problem. You may say that the planet orbits the sun and at first flush that sounds good. But the sun also has to be of infinite size. Otherwise the planet will outmass it and the sun will end up orbiting the planet and you're back at square one. Worse, if the sun isn't of infinite size how will the light reach every part of the planet? Because as the world gets bigger the sun get's smaller in comparison as does the halo of light it casts on the world.

To check this get a torch. Shine it on a wall at night and then keep increasing your distance from it. Note how the light gets dimmer and dimmer. Now instead of moving away from the wall, stand still and rotate the beam until it hits the most distant corners of the wall. Note that the beam still gets dimmer / more diffuse the greater the further away the halo gets from the centre of the building. It's simply because the distance has increased. And that's what happens if the sun is not of infinite size to match the world. The part of the world directly under the sun gets an intense sunbeam. But as you go further away from this point, the light gets worse and worse. Eventually you're in complete darkness, the sun is so distant from the part of the infinite sized world you're standing on that it looks like a star. And then it keeps shrinking as you keep going further away.

You cannot have objects of infinite size in physics. If you want an infinite world (though as I said previously endless is a better option) you need to stick to pure fantasy and ignore any basic cosmology.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Mythopoet]

You cannot have objects of infinite size in physics. If you want an infinite world (though as I said previously endless is a better option) you need to stick to pure fantasy and ignore any basic cosmology.

Which is something I would LOVE to see more fantasy authors do. Throw physics out. Invent your own metaphysics. Kick logic to the curb and DO THE IMPOSSIBLE!