Time Travel Paradox

Hi Guys,

Thought I'd take a short break from editing to post about one of the many time travel paradoxes out there. I find these things fascinating by the way, even though they fairly much establish that no meaningful form of time travel will actually be possible.

This paradox which I encountered through my time on the philosophy forums, isn't the classic killing your grandfather one, or the butterfly effect. It's the violation of the laws of conservation of mass and energy. (Sounds boring doesn't it - but it may still be the most telling damnation of time travel of them all.)

In essence we have all heard the old saw, energy can neither be created nor destroyed only transformed. And of course the same applies to matter, and thanks to Einstein we now know that matter can be converted to energy. Regardless what all of this means is that if in the universe there are x tons of matter and y joules of energy, the total of the two cannot change. There will always be x plus y in total. (No maths I promise.)

Time travel violates this law directly. In essence it says that if you live in a universe with x plus y and someone goes back in time, then suddenly you have less matter and energy in the present, and more in the past.

Ok, so that's the boring stuff part of the paradox. It seems minor even if it breaks the law if an eighty kilo man with so many joules of energy suddenly vanishes from now and arrives a hundred years ago. It's just a law isn't it? Well no.

To understand this problem let's look at it in an extreme example. So say we have one destination in the past where people want to go, and of course the crucifiction stands out for both the religious and the non. Now I get in my machine and travel back two thousand years. A little more then eighty kilos (I refuse to say how many more) of me leaves 2012 and arrives at year 0 AD. And of course because I've learned my ancient tongues and am wearing the right clothes no one notices me. Harmless right?

Not.

I go back from 2012. But so too does someone from 2013, and someone from 2014 and someone from 2015 - I think you get the picture. Now assuming that mankind continues sending one person back to Calvary every year and our civilisation survives another thousand years, that's now another thousand people wandering around that hilltop, all trying to pretend to be locals. But these as you will guess are extremely conservative figures. Assume now that once the machine is invented more then one person wants to go back each year, and then allow for the fact that the Earth will hopefully survive, with people on it, though they may not be entirely human, for the next billion years, and they all want to visit that one hill at that one time.

That's hundreds of billions of people, and getting back to the conservation laws, hundreds of billions of tons leaving the future one by one, and arriving at one time and place. A hundred billion tons is a small mountain, and the heat energy alone given off by so many people - well have you ever been to a rock concert in the cold night air and felt somewhat warm? Under that sort of weight the ground itself would start to fail and if they all jumped at once, it would shake too. If they cried out, the sound would be deafening. In short it would be a disaster.

But now take a more extreme example. The big bang. Scientists tell us that it began very, very quickly, a matter of a few seconds. And from it we know the entire universe was created. So now we have an event that people from every race and every world over all say thirty billion years of the life of the universe would want to visit. (In their spaceships naturally since there would be no air.) Can you imagine what the effect of trillions or more, spacecraft and passengers all arriving at one spot at the exact same moment would be?

I can't. Unless of course that was the cause of the big bang itself?

Anyway, just some random thoughts. I should get back to editing.

Cheers,Greg.

Sidetracked again!

Ooops! I've been a bad bad boy.

I was supposed to be editing Pawn as you know, but somewhere along the way I got side tracked, and instead created a new cover for Maverick.

I liked the old one, it seemed moody and magical and woodsy which was what I was aiming for. But I did get some feedback that it was too dark and hard to make things out. So hopefully this new one is more appealing.

As usual the three photo's used in it are from the Photo Morgue, I used Paint and Photoscape to edit the details, and then the magical effect is from a program I found on line called Dreamlight Photo Editor.

Still it's back to editing now.

Cheers, Greg.

A New Year Has Begun - Let's Hope It's A Good One.

Hi,

First, happy new year to you all. And let's hope that despite all the horror stories, 2012 is not the end of the world!

For me it's started off well. I got a great review for All The Stars, for which I am as always grateful, and despite my natural inclination to gluttony, did not over indulge (too much) over the holiday period. Moreover Pawn has gone through its first draft, and is now seventy two thousand words long, despite the fact that I was supposed to be pruning it. Another couple of weeks and it should be on the virtual bookshelves.

I have to admit that I'm still staggered by the speed with which the book has flown off my fingertips and on to the keyboard. I've never written so much, so quickly. But I did some googling, and despite  my belief that it's been a sprint, it's still quite slow compared to some. I did find one man who wrote a ninety six thousand word novel in two weeks, he had to to achieve his publishing deadline, and Michael Moorcock was said to be writing a book every ten days at one point in his writing. Apparently I'm really just a slowpoke.

Anyway, I must return to my writing, but I'll leave you all with this New Years thought.

"May you live as long as you want to,
                                    - and want to as long as you live."

Cheers, Greg.

Merry Christmas

First up, seasons greetings to all of you out there. And I hope that Santa is kind to you all, as you are kind to others.

For me, my Christmas present to myself is the completion of Pawn, 60k words in two weeks. I can't believe it's actually done already. But of course, now comes the less enjoyable part of writing, editing. So my hope is that Pawn will be published at this stage, early in January, and maybe if I really pull finger, Alien, in February.

And since I'm in a festive mood, a little hupour for the season. (Stolen I freely admit from another website).





One Christmas, a long time ago, Santa Claus was getting ready for his annual trip; but there were problems ...... everywhere.

Four of his elves were away sick and the trainee elves did not produce the toys as fast as the regular ones. So, Santa was beginning to feel the pressure of being behind schedule.

Then, Mrs. Claus popped in to tell Santa that her mother was coming to stay for Christmas; which stressed him even more.

After a while, he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two had jumped the fence and run away, heaven knows where to.

Then, when he began to load the sleigh one of the boards broke and several large toy-bags fell to the ground, scattering their contents all over the place. Needless to say, Santa was not in the best of moods.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang and he went to the door expecting another problem. But when he opened it, there was a little angel with a great big Christmas tree that she had brought especially to cheer him up.

The angel greeted him very cheerfully, "Merry Christmas Santa Claus. Isn't it just a wonderful day? I have a beautiful tree for you. See, isn't it just the loveliest Christmas tree you've ever seen? Where would you like me to put it?"

Thus began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas tree!





Cheers, Greg.

Writing Furiously

Hi,

Just a quick update. In my last post you may remember that I said I had started on a new book inspired by the Micael J Bird miniseries 'The Aphrodite Inheritance'. I started writing that book 'Pawn', on the ninth of December, and as of this evening it's 46k and probably only has another 10k to go.

At this rate I expect to have the first draft completed by the end of this week (even with Christmas), and will start editing after that. I can't believe the speed with which the words are flowing off my keyboard or the way the ideas are flowing, but I'm extremely happy about it since I haven't felt this inspired in months.

My goal is to have it published in January, and then hopefully, return to all the other projects I have been meaning to finish. Wizard at Law 2 and Alien will be finished within the next few months, even if my fingers are only a few milimeters long by then. In the meantime, here is a copy of the draft cover and a short blurb to maybe wet your appetites.

Pawn is the tale of Rufus Hennassy, a normal enough man, minding his own business and trying to live a quiet life, when the ancient Greek gods, Aphrodite and Moirae start interfering in his life, turning it upside down in the most improbable of ways. As an entire galaxy of villains including his own family, try to kill him, all of course in the name of trying to find the stolen Rembrandt - Aphrodite in the Roses, the gods themselves go to war around him, with surprising consequences. And in the end the fate of all, the mortals and the gods themselves, will rest in his hands. The pawn will become the kingmaker, or breaker.

Cheers, Greg.

Busy Few days!

Hi,

Just to let you know that I haven't been completely bone idle these last few days. Yes I have been busy trying to set up this blog, and since I have the computer skills of your average five year old (monkey), that has taken some of my time away from writing. But I have been working at that too.

Alien, my next sci fi book is written and going through the rewrite / edit process. Wizard At Law Book Two: The Shimmering, is half written and I'm still struggling away at it. And Shavarra, my next fantasy is about eighty percent done.

Unfortunately for my writing I also just got a set of dvd's in the mail - The Aphrodite Inheritence, a miniseries from Britain 1979 that I remember watching as a kid with my father, and so naturally I had to watch that. Great story, some of the acting is a little stilted, and some of the people are actually wearing flares. Every time I saw that it just kept shocking me. But regardless Michael J Bird created a great story and it inspired me to start a new one myself. At the moment its about five or six thousand words long, it's called Pawn, and I'm really pleased with it so far.

So there may be some further delay in getting my next book out. (If I was a woman I could claim I was multi-tasking, but unfortunately as a man all I can really say is that I'm making a hash of things!)

I also started work on the cover for Shavarra, and if everything works correctly, it should be attached or part of this post. (Naturally I'd welcome any feedback on it.)

So that's where I am at the moment.

Cheers, Greg.

New Blog Host

Hi,

Just to advise those who read my blogs, because of problems with my old blog on Goodreads (it wouldn't link across to Amazon or Smashwords), I have set up a new blog here on Blogspot. I have transferred across my old blogs from Goodreads, so they can be read here.

Cheers, and be good or don't get caught,

Greg.