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INT - CINCSPAC EARTH OFFICE - WARM-LIGHT AFTERNOON (COMIC)
("LONESTONE'S TWIN" IN EXAGGERATION for the outer story)
CMDR DAVE, in galaxyship admiral attire, writes at his desk:
LT KYLER, young, mussable white-blond hair, in galaxyship commander attire,
enters, delivers an eyes-only message in a red cover,
then rapid-fires informations and explanations regarding the
first-ever black-hole as it approaches Earth:
[NB: suck-in, means, suck-air-in - a comical effect sounding raspy,
chest lifting, filling: wide-eyed]
CMDR
(busy writes)
LT
(abrupt-enters)
Sir!
(urgent: push wind to empty)
This eyes-only report just came-in from the Max Planck Hans Boethe
Cisco Boon-Palms Institute for the Association of Gamma and X-Ray New-Technology
Telescopy at Kamioka Town, Gifu Prefecture, Japan, Chubu Region - on the
Mil-Star stealth super-sat-net crypto-web local-hub.
(long suck-in)
Sssehrrr!
(to full-in)
(breathes relief)
CMDR
Yes - and what does it say?
LT
Sir - I can't say: It's for eyes, only! Sir!
CMDR
(hand to take)
Then, let me, see, it!
LT
Yes, sir - Sir!
(hands report)
CMDR
(peruses)
When was this first discovered?
LT
(long-explains)
Earlier this morning - inadvertently, Sir: The Intel Sexium Engineering
X-Team in San Diego, was screen-room testing several units for side-lobe
specification of tera-hertz spectrum electro-magnetic interference on the
clock-wave, when, they detected a leak at 1-point-0-4 tera-hertz. They
quickly deduced its extra-terrestrial nature and origin, and reported it
to the Institute. The Institute discovered that it was actually emanating from a
black-hole traveling in our direction at 3-point-75 parts-per-million shy
of light-speed; And the 1-point-0-4 tera-hertz radiation was the relativistic
Doppler shifted wavelength of natural hydrogen at 21-centimeters, near the
hole.
(concludes)
It was detected at 1 light-day distance, and is due to pass our solar
system tomorrow morning, Sir!
CMDR
I thought you said this is for eyes, only!
LT
Yes, Sir - I'm reciting from photographic memory, Sir!
CMDR
Oh - I see.
LT
Yes, Sir!
CMDR
Why was this not seen before?
LT
(ambiguous)
The, black-hole, Sir!?
(continues)
The Institute also confirmed with a previously unregistered sighting
submitted from one of our astro-skip out-posts, that it had been first
observed at 1 light-year distance, but then deemed unlikely to actually
approach our Earth: its directionality was only remotely approximated.
(adds)
The light-speed confirmation copy of that out-post sighting arrived
this morning, as well.
CMDR
Lieutenant: What is the a priori likelihood they'd missed reporting it?
LT
Fairly high, sir: Our Milky Way galaxy halo is rife with hundreds of millions
of black-holes flung-away by supernovae on the star-disk since our galaxy
formed 10 billion years ago: and there's not enough gas and dust now to
stop them in ten-to-the-14th cubic light-years of space vacuum: Every so
often one passes through the star-disk again: one in 70 million years traverses
our local stellar group. What was unusual about this one was its speed,
sir - but these, too, have been discovered frequently, recently.
CMDR
The galaxy's missing mass - how did we accomplish our science-analyses
so quickly?
LT
The relativistic head-light effect essentially focused all radiation from
the black-hole in our direction. And we used our ultra-fast super-mil-net
connection, with Intel's proto-Sexium 9 giga-hertz array, Sir! These utilize
pico-wave transmissions between I-C's, Sir!
CMDR
Where does a fast black-hole originate? A supernova kicks-out its remnant
neutron-star, or black-hole, but at a tenth of a percent of the speed of
light.
LT
Yes, Sir: We figure that in-falling gases pass behind the moving black-hole,
fusion there, and the energy and ejecta propel it forward: It came from
when the cosmos began: The first black-holes appeared when the cosmos was
still dense with hydrogen gas plasmas, and as it must have spawned in a
supernova event, that would have been about 30 million years after the
initial cosmic big-bang, when super-giant star production was maximum.
The black-hole has no large frontal drag, and accreting fusion-derived
kinetic momentum must have exceeded the ambient-gas acceleration-drag,
and, after tens of millions of years more, it reached light-speed, Sir!
A statistical fluke must have flung it so close to our solar system: it
will probably not happen again in billions of years, sir.
CMDR
(to self)
Wow - Einstein's twin is real!
LT
Yes, Sir: and coming to visit Earth, presently, Sir!
East-meets-west, at the speed of light, Sir!
But, Sir:
(puzzles)
While I appreciate the facility of accelerating to the speed of light,
till the whole breadth of the cosmos appears to shorten-up - it makes feasible
sub-light travel across the whole cosmos, more reasonable than for short
distances merely between stars - ...
CMDR
(nods, inserts)
Yes, indeed - but with astro-skipping, that's a moot scientific point,
Lieutenant. |
LT proceeds to explain his theory on the white-board,
simultaneously disheveling his hair with his free hand to a famous disheveled look:
LT
Yes, Sir: But, I am puzzled, sir:
(steps to whiteboard)
Going back to our first detection at 1 light-year distant: Their velocity
being relativistic with a space-time factor of inverse root-shy-square
velocity equaling 3-hundred-65:
(draws and writes)
If we monitor 1 year of their time-dilated 1 day, then according to
Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, they monitor 1 year of, our, time-dilated
1 day - not that they'll crack any of our secrets, sir, but:
They must also notice of us, as we did them, that, our, local stellar
frame has been Lorentz-Fitzgerald contracted, by that same factor of 3-65
- and we appear to be a pancake approaching them at light-speed!
Now:
(begins to excite-dishevel)
At the instant they passed our out-post, it transmitted a light-speed
warning to us: At 1 light-year in our space-time frame, it took a year,
our time, for that warning to reach us, this morning: and they'll arrive
tomorrow, one day later, moving just slightly slower.
Now this is consistent in that: to them in their frame, our light-year
advanced out-post is only 1 light-day before us - due to that relativistic
contraction of linear distance - so, they traverse to our Earth in one
day, plus a hecta-hesit, their time, while we see them as traversing 1
light-year in a year and a day, our time:
Thus their 1 day seems to us, to take our 1 year!
However now:
(near bursting)
Suppose they immediately upon passing our out-post, began transmitting
a hello-beacon at us, at 1 flash per hesit - then, by time they arrive
tomorrow, they'll have flashed their hello-beacon about 40 thousand times:
at which point they pass us, and stop flashing.
(stressing)
Now, suppose we, in anticipation of their cordiality, immediately were
to keep count of every flash: In our time frame, they'll be sending a hundred-10
per, our day: it'll take a year, our time, to observe their 40-thousand
flashes they transmitted in their, 1 day - though in actual practice their
hello-beacon arrives at Earth only today until tomorrow, and we'd be counting
their 40-thousand flashes in, 1 day, our time:
(inserts point-of-view, dazes)
It's amazing that Einstein's theory un-does Doppler shift, as it is!
(points-taps pen on board)
Okay: But - how can we appear to them to count their 40 thousand flashes,
when, in their 1 day, they observe barely 1-point-1 of our time-dilated
hecta-hesit - and in point of fact, their beacon-signal arrives only in
our last 3 milli-hesits?!
(exasperates)
In their view, we are slow, to be counting them as slow!
(confronts [Einstein-hair])
We'd be counting 13 mega-flashes-per-hesit - not impossible for our
equipments, but, how do we explain this to them, when they arrive, tomorrow?!
The tortoise has out-relativized the hare!
We couldn't have done it!! It should take us a year!!
We don't even know whether the theory is correct!!
(non-sequitur challenges)
Do we appear to be a solar-orbiting wave-function?! Sir!
CMDR
(nonchalant)
Don't stop thinking about tomorrow, Lieutenant.
LT
Yes, sir!
(relieves)
Thank you, sir:
(relieves)
I needed that!
(wipes brow, frets)
I hope missing a detection doesn't start World War 3:
I'm only the Lieutenant on watch, sir!
CMDR
General Relativity has your answer, Lieutenant: They catch-up on our history.
LT
(puzzles)
What history, Sir?!
T-V satellites broadcast science-fictions, murder mysteries, and news-media:
not high school history!
CMDR
(surprises self)
Wow: We could be re-living dinosaur dreams of freedom, as we fall-in
toward the central black-hole of our cosmic universe.
(sterns to Lieutenant)
Take that as a warning, Lieutenant!
LT
(sincere)
Yes, Sir!
I've always wondered what the cosmos was really like in the dinosaur
days: And whether there were people in the cosmos when the cosmic background
radiation was at room temperature: It must have been a space-traveler's
balmy delight! Sir! |
HOLD
SCROLL EPISODE CREDITS for the [outer-story]....
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