Read Online Spinspace: The Space of Spins (The Metaspace Chronicles Book 2) by Matthew Kennedy - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Matthew Kennedy
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bellows. I guess she must be exceptionally sensitive to the Gifts.”
“Indeed.” Xander. “I confirm your own sensing, that she is capable. As I said, you did well there. Name your reward.”
“I'd like a lesson in spinspace , please.”
“But you're still working on pathspace .”
And I expect I will continue to do so. As you continue to exercise your pathspace , spinspace , and tonespace . But just as you are open to learning new spaces, so I am open to learning more than pathspace .”
Xander considered it. “All right. Have a seat. I'll be right back.” He went into his inner storeroom and emerged with a box of artifacts.
“The lessons from now on will have a recognizable form,” he said. “First, I'll show you what can be done. Then I will try to teach you how .”
The first thing he set up looked like a potter's idea of a pet volcano: a black tapered cone, fat end down, and a circular stand with a spike sticking up. Xander dropped the tapered cone over the spike and let it there. The outside of this artifact was black and striped with white. He thought the white was circles until he saw it from above and realized it was all one white spiral that wound from a point on the circumference of the bottom all the way to the top. A soon as Xander released it, the cone began to turn.
When the cone got up to its idling speed he saw the purpose behind the white spiral. You couldn't see the motion of the black cone, but when it was turning the white spiral would climb or descend the cone to show the rate of rotation. The cone, in other words, was a s pinometer.
It is such an unlikely artifact that Lester has to ask “Where did you find that?”
“We didn't. I had an artisan make this for me. The only useful thing it does is provide a handy target for practicing your control of spinspace .”
“But I don't know anything about spinspace .”
“It's time to talk about it,” said Xander. You remember what I said about pathspace? ”
“That every point in space has paths passing through it that control the motion of matter and energy? Yes. Why?”
“Because now you have to step into a larger view of reality. The pathspace you have learned is only one of many ways to think about space. Each way has its own advantages. From pathspace you have learned about invisibility and swizzles. Now it is time to learn a new way.”
“What do you call the larger view of space that has all of these useful aspects to it?”
:”I call it metaspace ,” said Xander. The general term 'space' is already used to refer to simple, 3-dimensional coordinate space. Configuration space has also been used, to refer to the infinite number of ways space can be populated by objects.”
“I don't see the difference between coordinate space and Configuration space.”
“Let me give you an example,” said Xander. “Suppose you froze time and wrote down the coordinates of every human being on the planet at that moment in time. At that point you might say that the configuration space is the same as the coordinate space, other than the fact that you have chosen to highlight the coordinates of humans.”
“Sounds pretty much the same to me”, Lester agrees.
“But in reality,” Xander continued, “we have only defined a huge family of configuration spaces. For example, add the coordinate of religion. Immediately, there are an infinite number of variations possible in the configuration space. For example, we could have a planet full of Catholics, in which every one of the frozen humans is a member of that religion. Or we could have a planet full of Buddhists. For every major religion, you could imagine a configuration space in which every human belongs to that religion.”
“But that would be as meaningless as saying they all have red socks on,” said Lester. “It doesn't add much information to the picture.”
“Correct,” said Xander. “All of these
“Indeed.” Xander. “I confirm your own sensing, that she is capable. As I said, you did well there. Name your reward.”
“I'd like a lesson in spinspace , please.”
“But you're still working on pathspace .”
And I expect I will continue to do so. As you continue to exercise your pathspace , spinspace , and tonespace . But just as you are open to learning new spaces, so I am open to learning more than pathspace .”
Xander considered it. “All right. Have a seat. I'll be right back.” He went into his inner storeroom and emerged with a box of artifacts.
“The lessons from now on will have a recognizable form,” he said. “First, I'll show you what can be done. Then I will try to teach you how .”
The first thing he set up looked like a potter's idea of a pet volcano: a black tapered cone, fat end down, and a circular stand with a spike sticking up. Xander dropped the tapered cone over the spike and let it there. The outside of this artifact was black and striped with white. He thought the white was circles until he saw it from above and realized it was all one white spiral that wound from a point on the circumference of the bottom all the way to the top. A soon as Xander released it, the cone began to turn.
When the cone got up to its idling speed he saw the purpose behind the white spiral. You couldn't see the motion of the black cone, but when it was turning the white spiral would climb or descend the cone to show the rate of rotation. The cone, in other words, was a s pinometer.
It is such an unlikely artifact that Lester has to ask “Where did you find that?”
“We didn't. I had an artisan make this for me. The only useful thing it does is provide a handy target for practicing your control of spinspace .”
“But I don't know anything about spinspace .”
“It's time to talk about it,” said Xander. You remember what I said about pathspace? ”
“That every point in space has paths passing through it that control the motion of matter and energy? Yes. Why?”
“Because now you have to step into a larger view of reality. The pathspace you have learned is only one of many ways to think about space. Each way has its own advantages. From pathspace you have learned about invisibility and swizzles. Now it is time to learn a new way.”
“What do you call the larger view of space that has all of these useful aspects to it?”
:”I call it metaspace ,” said Xander. The general term 'space' is already used to refer to simple, 3-dimensional coordinate space. Configuration space has also been used, to refer to the infinite number of ways space can be populated by objects.”
“I don't see the difference between coordinate space and Configuration space.”
“Let me give you an example,” said Xander. “Suppose you froze time and wrote down the coordinates of every human being on the planet at that moment in time. At that point you might say that the configuration space is the same as the coordinate space, other than the fact that you have chosen to highlight the coordinates of humans.”
“Sounds pretty much the same to me”, Lester agrees.
“But in reality,” Xander continued, “we have only defined a huge family of configuration spaces. For example, add the coordinate of religion. Immediately, there are an infinite number of variations possible in the configuration space. For example, we could have a planet full of Catholics, in which every one of the frozen humans is a member of that religion. Or we could have a planet full of Buddhists. For every major religion, you could imagine a configuration space in which every human belongs to that religion.”
“But that would be as meaningless as saying they all have red socks on,” said Lester. “It doesn't add much information to the picture.”
“Correct,” said Xander. “All of these
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