Curvature

Jim Stitzel

I dabble a little in a lot of things — writing, webcomics, gaming, photography, web design, music, and more. I write code full-time and words in the gaps in between.


"Explain what I'm looking at."

"Timestream 8496775816-AQZ-25.13.4. We pulled it from yesterday's archives when it was flagged anomolous."

"Meaning?"

"Look here. Grid 117, Segment 16, Node 135. See that curvature?"

"Yes. Explain its significance."

"Timestream curvatures aren't unusual. We see them when someone passes near a major gravity well. Black holes produce such events. Same with stars and Jovians."

"So what's unusual about this curvature?"

"The subject was traversing hard vacuum at the time, no known gravity wells in proximity."

"So--"

"There's more. This is just one branch of this timestream. We sampled other branches. Most, but not all, displayed similar curvatures. Again, no known gravity wells."

"Cause?"

"Unknown at this time."

"Then speculate."

"Best guess? A fourth spatial dimension impinging on the subject's timestream. We don't have the tools to confirm this hypothesis, of course, but it's our best guess for now."

"Ramifications."

"Honestly? No idea, but it's probably not good."


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Comments (3 so far!)

Robert Quick

Robert Quick

"I'm not a physicist, Jim!"

I like good science fiction and this has that tone. Makes we wish that the science fiction that gets made today was better. It's disappointing that shows and films that should be good, if not great, aren't. I guess we should be contributing to that but that's really neither here nor there. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think that even this moment is better than a lot of stuff coming out.

  • #3328 Posted 7 years ago
  • 1
In Nights Arms

In Nights Arms

I don't know how you'll feel about the comparison, but this totally takes me back to star trek and when they stumbled into something they totally didn't understand but somehow it always seemed plausible. Those moments that could make you wonder if stuff like this is actually possible.

  • #3332 Posted 7 years ago
  • 2
Jim Stitzel

Jim Stitzel

This story was actually inspired by a science journal article I read that talked about the possibility of there being a fourth directional dimension that we wouldn't be able to perceive or measure because we're by nature three-dimensional beings. I think the article talked about using time as a possible tool to measure this space but it's something we simply haven't the technology for at this point. The article was very theoretical, obviously, but it inspired this story as something that we might be able to measure in the future.

  • #3334 Posted 7 years ago
  • 0

Author's prompt text:

Four spatial dimensions, one time dimension

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