Time, Physics, and Metaphysics. A Parody.

by Louis B. Shalako

c2010

All Rights Reserved

Max Planck said at certain levels, for example at very short distances, or very high temperatures, under all sorts of unusual conditions; the regular laws of physics just don’t apply anymore.

While most believe that time cannot be changed, sometimes cause and effect don’t mean much because effects sometimes happen before their causes. It is generally believed that the universe is infinite in time. It has lasted forever and will go on forever.

As a philosopher, I find myself defining my terms with ever-greater precision. So one has to ask, what is the difference between infinity and forever?

There are those who believe in creation by God in six days. Some scientists have speculated about a continuous creation. Stephen Hawking described time like an anaconda, one that has swallowed a pig. He likens us to microbes, as if humans were e. coli in the belly of the pig—no matter how far we look, no matter which direction, we will never see anything more than the inside of the belly of the pig. He even speculates that the anaconda might swallow several pigs in succession, each of them traveling down the body of the serpent. It has been speculated that time might run backwards if and when the universe begins to contract back to its point of origin.

No matter what you know about a system today, you have no way of predicting what it will be like tomorrow.

Was the universe created by vacuum fluctuations, where particles appear out of nowhere, and then subside, and energies go back to a zero state, with the universe going on unchanged?

Some speculate there are multiple dimensions in space-time. My favourite is the fifth dimension, but some believe there are nine, eleven, or even twenty-six dimensions, and in truth the likelihood is that there are an infinite number of dimensions.

If a particle appears from ‘nowhere,’ and then disappears again, where did it come from? Where did it go to? Did it come from ‘null-space?’

There is no such thing as empty space. It has been supposed there is some kind of universal frame, a vector rigging field which pervades all of space. The term neo-ether has been used to describe the invisible something that fills the universe. We have to accept the notion that something exists everywhere. Some kinds of data remain forever unknown, for example the proofs of the existence of God. The ontological argument is that God cannot be proven not to exist; so therefore He must exist.

If you put a slot in a bead, and make a moebius strip out of paper, and put a dot of ink on the bead, and then thread the bead onto the strip; you will note that after one revolution the bead is rotated 180 degrees. In order for the bead to return to its original position and orientation, it must go twice around the loop. A geometric circle has 360 degrees, for an electron it apparently has 720 degrees.

A force is that which makes things do things. There are so far only four known forces in the universe. These are the electrical, of which magnetism is a manifestation; then there is gravitation, which is different from magnetism. Then there are the weak and strong nuclear forces. It is theorized that all these forces existed as one super-force in ‘Planck time’ at the moment of creation, which is described in event terms at something like 10 to the minus 54 seconds after the Big Bang.

With the Planck force, there would be more energy than you can safely imagine.

Wormholes have been described and accepted theoretically by scientists. They are about 10 to the minus 33 centimetres in diameter; with a duration of 10 to the minus 43 seconds. You can create a wormhole by heating a volume of space to 10 to the 27th degrees Kelvin or compressing some matter down to the black hole or neutron star densities.

(Don’t try this at home.)

Heisenberg stated the ‘uncertainty principle.’ It is a statement of probabilities, and uncertainties. You know the electron must be there, but you can never say where it will be at any given point in time.

According to the Feynham diagrams, when a particle goes from point A to point B, it splits into two and one of them must being going into a separate universe. Essentially what he’s saying is that a particle can be in two places at once—something even a ghost can’t do. A diagram of all possible paths the particle may take looks like a girl’s braid of hair. Just as when you sprinkle iron filings around a magnet, revealing magnetic lines of force, it has been postulated that there are temporal lines of force.

If you follow the lines of force—i.e. timelines, no problem. If you cross the temporal lines of force, energy builds up and a puncture is made in the fabric of time. At some point there is too great an imbalance in the system, but reality heals the wounds made in itself.

An object crossing time lines builds up potential as it moves. The pull of an object snapping back to its own time would release a huge amount of energy in the space-time continuum or matrix. Hence the mass limitations, which permits only very small objects such as the particles mentioned in the vacuum fluctuations part of our theory. Time is subjective, perhaps even imaginary. Time is closely linked to our perception of it, although many would tell you ‘there is only one moment’ is a fundamental truth. This is the ‘past is gone, the future never gets here’ line of thought. Perception is reality, truth very often depends on who you ask—or who is asking.

If you burn 100g of matter, you may well end up with 10g of ash, and release 90g of gasses, which should be confirmed by Avogadro’s Law. If you put 100 Newtons of energy into a system, you shouldn’t get any more than 100 Newtons out of it. A body at rest tends to remain at rest unless some external force acts upon it.

Does time follow the laws of conservation? One might assume that it does, however, if we know anything at all about the universe, is that ‘anything is possible.’

This may be written as a corollary of Murphy’s Law; “If anything can happen, it probably will eventually,” in a universe where nothing is impossible. If we believe that the universe sprang forth from a singularity, either time existed before it, or it was created at that moment. Also, was space created at this time? Or did it exist previously, therefore giving the new universe somewhere to expand into? If space existed previously, what existed outside of the point of singularity?

If time sprang forth from the singularity, there is no such thing as a parallel universe, they must all be on a slight angle from each other, although there might be an infinite number of alternate universes. Each of these would be reality to an observer encapsulated within them. At one time, philosophy and mathematics were closely linked, but they have tended to drift apart. In a world of increasing specialization, no one has the ‘big-picture overview.’ This is indeed unfortunate.

A friend of mine once went to the library and took out a book on metaphysics. He returned it a day later, and the librarian asked him what was wrong with it.

“The damned thing’s all about religion,” he told her.

Recently Stephen Hawking postulated that the universe might have come into being without help from God. Yet a news report in the last year or two noted that scientists, I think this was at CERN, were looking for 'the elusive God-particles,' which may help to account for the breakdown in conventional physical theories at the quantum or nanoscpoic level.

What if time exists in discrete, 'quanta' or particles, particles which share some of the characteristics of a wave?

Is time a dotted line, and if so, what happens in the gaps?

(Editor's Note: Compiled from sources. Louis really isn't that smart.)

Aliens Better Think Twice Before They Land In My Backyard!

by Louis B. Shalako

c2010

All Rights Reserved


Ever since the late 1940’s, there have been a large number of UFO reports by individuals who appear to sincerely believe that they have witnessed alien spacecraft. (Refer to Project Blue Book, or the million UFO videos on youtube.com; etc.) They're, 'firmly convinced' they've had a real experience.

Some have claimed abduction. A few photos exist which, while not exactly defying analysis, cannot be clearly proven as hoaxes.

It is not my intent to state with certainty whether or not alien spacecraft have indeed visited our lovely planet.

There is little doubt that people have, on occasion, seen lights in the sky that cannot be readily identified. And it’s true that some photos and amateur films are quite provocative.

It should be noted that what one wants to see often appears and, of course, those who are capable of taking things on faith have a predisposition to believe with little material evidence.

I myself have seen things in the night sky, which I could not immediately identify. Having a reasonably good imagination, it was enough to make my hair stand on end.

Later, I decided it was probably tundra swans, lit from below by the lights of the cty. It seemed obvious that they were traveling at 40 knots; at an altitude of maybe 1,000 feet, and not a squadron of UFO’s in echelon formation, doing 120,000 mph 90 mlles up.

Yet I can’t say for certain that they were swans either – really just pale, amorphous blobs that seemed to flicker and shimmer in their silent path o’erhead, going north in early spring.

My point is this: If in fact aliens have visited this planet and are in the process of studying our culture for scientific or other reasonable purposes, then let them do it properly. They should send an embassy to the United Nations and establish their credentials. They should reveal themselves if their purposes are legitimate and honourable. I suggest this for their own safety and convenience. (Ours, too.)

Because otherwise, as far as I'm concerned, it's war. We have the right to know who's on our planet.

Identify yourselves and your place of origin.

What is your business on this planet?

Do you have anything to declare?

Are you bringing any meats, fruits or vegetables, or exotic animals onto the planet?

How long are you staying? How much money are you carrying?

We have the right to know these things, I can assure the reader of that.

Honestly, the aliens are better off to cooperate.

Because until then, if I can’t sleep one night, get up at three a.m. and see a bunch of bleepin' aliens traipsing around in my backyard, I swear I'm gonna pop a God-damned arrow into one of them. No questions asked. They're there at their own risk. They've been studying us long enough to know better, that's what I'm saying.

One night back in 1998, when I was living in Port Franks, Ontario; I saw three lights in the southern sky, about ten degrees above the horizon. First, one appeared. Then another behind it, and then another. The group slowly spread apart, then the delta formation stabilized. The trio of bluish-white dots cruised across the night sky in a northeasterly direction, covering about sixty degrees of the sky, then silently faded out. The whole process took maybe 20 to 30 seconds.

What really ticked me off was the thought of them up there looking down at me…and laughing.

Yep. If I ever get my hands on one of them little guys (or if you prefer, 'gals.') I’m gonna throttle them.

The body of an alien could be worth billions. Then I’d really be somebody.

And it’s all nice and legal. There is no law against murdering aliens for profit, is there?

I mean let’s face it. Aliens were not created in God’s own image and obviously they have no souls to worry about. I’m just, 'a good capitalist.'

Marconi.

From the Emperor Pakal's tomb, Palenque, Mexico. (Wiki)


by Louis B. Shalako

c2010

All Rights Reserved


Guglielmo Marconi sent the first wireless trans-Atlantic signal way back on December 12, 1901. While the signal was no doubt pretty low-powered, that radio signal, encoded in Morse, is still traveling at the speed of light, out from the solar system and into the universe.

Marconi stands a pretty good chance of being the first human being to contact an alien race.

When you consider that his signal has been going along for about a hundred and ten years, an alien species may have already gotten it.
Bearing in mind the brief nature of his experiment, and the fact the Earth rotates, and the historic date and time are recorded, it must be possible to construct or model the, ‘footprint,’ of potential vectors where his radio waves may or must have gone. I visualize it as a cone, one that is ‘spinning’ with the rotation of the Earth for a brief moment.

On youtube there are about a million ‘UFO’ videos, and this means nothing in terms of ‘evidence.’ The very nature of video is that a seagull can look like a UFO under certain conditions of light, atmosphere, and other factors. Three-dimensional maneuvers captured on a two-dimensional screen can easily look ‘aerodynamically impossible’ to a witness who is uninformed about aerodynamics, and perhaps optics and the electronic reproduction of images as well.

Lights videotaped at night, (or digitally photographed,) are nothing more than lights filmed at night.

Regarding this photo (Wiki) from the Emperor Pakal’s tomb in Palenque, Mexico, Erich von Daniken, author of, ‘Chariots of the Gods,’ suggested that the figure might be in a spaceship, on a voyage to the stars. At the time I read the book, maybe at about age 14, I kind of saw what he was getting at. The power of suggestion can be strong, and young people are impressionable.

When I look at it now, I don’t see the Emperor in a spaceship.

I honestly don’t know what I’m looking at here—but I’m pretty sure it’s not a spaceship.

What I think it is; is a complex iconography, a kind of picture-language, and it probably does signify a celestial journey.

First of all, it is a question of interpretation, and secondly, it is a question of interest. Erich was interested in selling books, and popularizing ‘mysterious things,’ is actually a kind of education.

Editor's Note: This image may have been more convincing in B & W, which is how it appeared in the book to our recollection. Also, Marconi received the signal in Newfoundland, presumably an assistant actually sent it.

Selling to foreign markets.

Selling to foreign markets in the midst of a recession can really help to hone your skills as a writer. As a professional, you need to learn how to do your own detective work.

I attended ‘Genrecon,’ which was held at the Sarnia Library on April 25, 2009. It was my first convention, and I learned a lot. Established authors talked about marketing, rights, selling short genre and literary fiction. Among the authors who attended; Jean Rae Baxter, Vicki Delaney, Gord Rollo, Dennis Collins, Douglas Smith, Sylvia Hutchings, and others.

We learned, “If you need to sell a quart of milk, don’t sell the whole cow, or worse, give away the whole farm.”

Gord Rollo explained it this way: “If a small, regional publication plans on publishing your story once, and perhaps archiving it on their website, what do they need the film rights for? Why would they need foreign-language rights?”

Seller beware: know what you are selling, and what they are buying. Otherwise some other person may sell your film rights, and without anything spelled out in the contract, you may have a hard time proving a case. Ignorance of the terms of your contract is not a defense, nor is it an 'out.'

And the key thing to remember is that you just never know—but TV and film producers have to get their ideas from somewhere, and they read magazines just as much as anyone else. I don’t care if they read it in the bathroom.

Aurora Award-winning author Douglas Smith talked about selling, 'reprint’ rights. Once your story has appeared and the rights have lapsed again, you can re-sell the story an unlimited number of times, although some publications don’t accept reprints, and the price or value of a reprint is less than a brand-new, first-time original story. You can also sell it at the exact same time in a hundred other languages. Recently Mike Resnick set a personal record, having sold a story thirty times. Douglas Smith also set a personal record, by selling a story on the sixty-fifth submission! His advice is, ‘Never give up on a story.”

But as he pointed out, “You can pick up an extra few hundred dollars from any given story. That adds up to real money after a while.”

Douglas has been published in twenty-four languages and in twenty-nine countries at last count. So when I learned that he had a website, with a market list, I logged on to www.smithwriter.com and had a look.

Now, this is a foreign-language, reprint market, but I just wrote a few details down, went through my files, and found a small number of science-fiction stories, and started submissions by e-mail. None of these particular stories had ever appeared in English. And I began to write up every dumb little idea that I had for science-fiction, fantasy, psychological horror, or some stories which could be described as, ‘speculative fiction,’ and I suppose some stuff which defies description.

If I had an idea for a poem, I wrote it up as best I could. After a while, with a few e-mails going back and forth, I learned about other market lists. At the time of this writing I have four or five stories awaiting translation.

I have not been published as a science-fiction author in Canada, but I suppose I might as well keep trying! Sooner or later, someone around here will give me a break—I’m an internationally-renowned author after all, with a pretty good little cult following.

Now when I submit a story to a publication, I have something to put in the cover letter. I have foreign-language credits, I’ve had science fiction published, poetry, an essay; as for what’s next, I just don’t know. But I’m sure it will be something just a little bit edgy. Something out there in the badlands of the human psyche.

Something that grabs the reader, (or better yet, the editor,) by the throat and never lets them go until they’ve read my story. I want them to talk about it the next day as they’re sitting around the coffee shack wishing they were lucky enough to have time to write. Just for the record, I fell flat on my face over four hundred and eighty-plus times to get those stories out there.

Luck has nothing to do with it. Writing for foreign markets is challenging. You have to think of the foreign editors. Take out slang, contractions, colloquial expressions, folk sayings, anything that makes the translator’s job harder. What you end up with is nice, tight copy that doesn’t make your English-speaking readers work too hard, because they don’t have any time to waste either.

Only one of the stories that I’ve placed actually pays any money, but it’s something to build on. What a huge burst of self-confidence!

Other science fiction, fantasy and horror market lists include ww.duotrope.com; as well as ‘The Market List,’ which I found had a few dead markets, then there’s Gareth D. Jones’ list in the U.K. For science fiction, humour and other genre markets, try www.ralan.com.au for an extensive set of listings. I’ve stumbled across a couple of smaller lists as well online. The SF Site, which is Canadian, has a market list as well, and I mined through that.

One spark of inspiration hit me so far. By taking out sex, gory violence, swearing, and religious controversy, I can open up my work to a much wider potential audience. This probably applies more so to my short stories rather than the novels. Essentially I looked back and thought about all the really good books I read when I was younger. Andre Norton, Robert A. Heinlein, and Roger Zelazny, Poul Anderson, Larry Niven; these are good writers with very little of what you might call, ‘erotica,’ or language, or excessive blood and gore. When they deal with religion, they do it symbolically. They sold a lot of stories as well.

The best advice is, “Figure out who your audience is.”

My own personal perspective is interesting. I did get a contract from one publisher, and they were buying 'all rights in all languages.' It was a long contract, for five years, and an automatic renewal for three years. By coming out with new editions, they could have essentially owned that book for the rest of my life.

Think about what you are doing, before you sign any contract.

One year ago, I had never had a sci-fi story accepted anywhere, and now I've been published in English, Spanish, Dutch, Estonian, and Greek.

For that I can thank Doug's Foreign Market List, and presumably, a little effort on my part.

Good luck and good hunting.

The Great Internet Rush of 2010.

by Louis B. Shalako

c2010

All Rights Reserved


It’s been pretty compelling over the last couple of weeks to see the rush of people self-publishing their works.

In some ways it reminds us of the great Oklahoma land rush of a previous century; or even the California gold rush.

What spurred this sudden flurry of self-publishing was a number of credible reports, in which commentators speculated on the future of the mainstream publishing industry. In light of the burgeoning growth of e-books, and the number and variety of new platforms, at first glance, it looks like traditional publishing may be in trouble. E-book market share is growing by leaps and bounds. At some point the business model reaches a ‘tipping-point,’ where the capitalization of further production is simply gone.

The old-fashioned model had the author submitting a work, and then the editor would send it back. The author would re-write it, and send it in again. This process would go on and on for anything up to a year and a half, maybe even longer. Nowadays, people can write something and post it later that day, on Amazon, or anywhere for that matter. They get up to a 70 % commission or royalty on their work, which is impressive compared to a more usual 10-15 %. If you have your own site, after costs, you get to keep 100 % of the money. That's pretty hard to ignore.

It is not unusual for commentators to blame the industry for its own problems, some of which may have arisen from short-sightedness, or more likely recession-based cash flow problems.

But the sight of all those people staking out their ground and making their claims is nothing if not interesting.

In the gold rushes of history, people who came in a little too late often found the ground was all staked with claims, and so they would sell eggs for four dollars each—this was back in 1849—and some of them did a lot better than the people who just dropped everything and took off on the first available ship.

Preparation is the key to success. Also, a little editing can go a long way.

For that reason, we here at Shalako Publishing would like to reassure readers that our e-books will adhere to the highest literary standards, and will conform to the currently-accepted, standard e-book format.

We will sell no wine before its time. We are in the business of creating enduring works of art.

That sort of thing absolutely cannot be rushed.

-louis