Smarter
Page 20
Try the next in the series, Lieutenant (an Ell Donsaii story #3)
Author’s Afterword
This is a comment on the “science” in this science fiction novel. I have always been partial to science fiction that posed a “what if” question. Not everything in the story has to be scientifically possible, but you suspend your disbelief regarding one or two things that aren’t thought to be possible. Then you ask, what if something (such as faster than light travel) were possible, how might that change our world? Each of the Ell Donsaii stories asks at least one such question.
“Smarter” asks, what if some genius actually worked out a way to understand the incredibly weird world of quantum mechanics? If you’ve never pondered the double slit experiment, you should. It’s guaranteed to make you cross-eyed. Then there’s the phenomenon of quantum entanglement where entangled particles that are physically separated by long distances have some properties that make them seem to still be in contact with one another. Although entangled particles react instantaneously (faster than light) across this apparent connection, it is not thought to be possible to send information this way—but what if it was?! What if the reason these particles act like they’re still connected is because they actually are, just through another dimension that we can’t perceive. Then maybe we could send information through that dimension!
If it were possible, it would be very difficult to work out how to do it but the benefits of figuring it out would be huge!
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the editing and advice of Gail Gilman, Elene Trull and Nora Dahners, each of whom significantly improved this story.