With this concept I want to introduce the idea which marks the starting point of my novel. Be warned, this concept will get a little heavy on the theoretical side. So let’s start:
As you know, in this novel 2 worlds or planets exist. Between them exists a rift which imprisons Gaia and Deirdre fighting against each other.
So “where” is this other world? My answer would be: in another dimension. But what’s important here is the mathematical definition of the word “dimension”. It would be the easiest to imagine a 3-dimensional coordinate system. Any point in this system is defined through 3 characteristics: his distance on the x-, y- and z-axis. For instance one point could be (1,2,3) meaning 1 unit on x, 2 units on y, and 3 units on z. So if you expand this system to the fourth dimension, you need more information to define a point. Let’s call this new information a. So now a point is defined by (x,y,z,a). What you could do now is find a point that’s at the same place in 3 dimensions, but differs in the 4th dimension. (1,2,3,1) and (1,2,3,2) for instance.
So now you have it. Our planet and Thyrsis are at the same point in 3 dimensions, but their location differs in one or more dimensions. Because with string theory it’s possible to have up to 26 dimensions ;) But that would go too far. Also the idea is that all other planets and objects in our universe exist in all dimensions simultaneously. So for a person on Thyrsis the universe looks exactly the same, but his position is shifted in dimension judging from ours. Still with me? Good!
So now you have 2 planets, separated only by one dimension. The question is now: How does my physicist Dr. Stone find out about this other planet? This is where the problems start….
Somehow this planet has to interfere with our plane if Dr. Stone has to be able to find it. The only force that is characteristic for such a large mass an also the only one that has the required range is: gravity. So somehow he has to be able to measure some gravitational influence created by the other planet. But this influence also mustn’t be to strong as it would alter our gravitational field and therefore would have been detected much earlier. What immediately comes to mind are gravitons. A single graviton has not enough influence to alter our gravitational field, but it could well show that it’s not emitted from our planet. As not much is known about gravitons, and detection of single gravitons is physically impossible, I’m inclined to scrap this idea. But what about gravitational waves? These waves are nothing other than coherent states of gravitons, similar to light waves (where photons are the particles). There even is an experiment conducted in space at the moment called LIGO, which should be able to detect strong gravitational waves. The problem is, gravitational waves emitted by a system as small as sun and earth (mass and quadrupol moment wise ;) ) are far too weak to be detected. Again, this seems like a dead end.
So that’s where I’m a little bit stuck at the moment. There would always be the possibility to take the, what I like to call it, “Star-Trek-Approach” to SciFi, meaning to say “it just works, zero”. But I get stomachache thinking about pulling this kind of move, when everybody who has internet could disapprove my story without a problem. I tried interviewing a gravitational physicist about this kind of things, but let’s just say that it was a disaster….
To summarize this chapter: I’m searching for a way to give Dr. Stone a “hint” for the existence of another planet connected to ours. This hint hasn’t to be particularly strong or coherent, but it should stand a first-glance-examination. If that is accomplished, everything else falls into place just fine. ;) The problem is not that I haven’t got a idea how to accomplish this, but the ideas I have are not feasible from a physical standpoint.
So If anybody of you has an idea to give my thoughts a new direction, you would save me quite some hours tearing my hair. ;)