The Word Cloud

16 Comments

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  by mike 6 months ago

  How was this problem solved in Dr Who? When David Tennant starred, with the girl who had a nice smile and big teeth,- about all i can remember - she continually phoned home to her mother who lived in a housing estate in South London. But, perhaps, i am not remembering the programme correctly.
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  by CJ 6 months ago

  I have no idea - not a Dr Who fan, I am afraid! One thing I know is that she can't phone home; she has to be cut off in order for the story to work - she needs all of her previous support network taken away from her to force her to grow up and take responsibility for herself, and there is nothing in the way of a network for the phone to work, either (the society she ends up in is based around what England was like during Napoleonic times - it's not 100% historically faithful, but that's the level of technology I am working with). For the purpose of the story, I am leaning towards the phone will switch on but won't allow her to make any calls at all, but am torn about the battery life. On one hand, having it track Earth time is a nice conceit, but I don't know if that is possible. Then again, since travelling to alternate realities isn't something people do everyday, would anyone know for sure?!
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  by Wrathnar the Unreasonable 6 months ago

  1) 1 Arkenian year = 16 days and 16 hours on Earth.
  
  2) The battery would last for its normal duration from your character's POV, cos in order to display photos it would have to use power at its normal rate, whatever universe it was in. So it would run out in a couple of Arkenian days.
  
  3) If travelling to the parallel universe would make the phone stop working, then it would also make your character stop working! If your character can survive the transition undamaged, the phone should too.
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  by CJ 6 months ago

  Wrath - I knew you'd sort it out for me! You are the bestest!!
  
  One other question - what would the time display be? Would it track Earth time, or would it go a bit squiffy? In this case, I am guessing Earth time cos that's what its internal memory would do... but I am fully prepared for being wrong!
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  by Caducean Whisks 6 months ago

  Or put the other way around, one Earth year = 22 Arkenian years; and one Earth day = 0.06 Arkenian days.
  Mike's completely right that Rose Tyler's (that's her name, Mike) phone worked in Doctor Who. They also work in subsequent Doctor Whos.
  If you need it not to work, couldn't you get round the problem by having the battery almost flat before she goes to Arkenia? Perhaps she receives one puerile text and then that's it?
  It's ironic isn't it, with all that super technology and bouncing our words up to satellites and back that most of our texts are twaddle?
  I agree with Wrath that if she survives the transition, then her phone does too. From my vast experience of these things :)
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  by Caducean Whisks 6 months ago

  Oh - just seen your next post, Ely. Re the passage of time, I feel that the phone and her should be consistent - i.e. if she's aging at Arkenian rates, then her phone should be subject to the same body clock. If she's aging at Earth rates, then the phone would still be on Earth time. From more of my vast experience of these things :)))
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  by AlanP 6 months ago

  Wrath about has it, but I would suggest the possibility if you need it that the phone could be affected while the human could continue. Humans are much more tolerant of electromagetism and X Rays, for example, than electronics equipment. Your phone could have its memory wiped quite reasonably although the "hard wired" stuff, such as the clock would continue. The way to think about time in the phone is that it doesn't track earth time. It simply keeps time, which is set to be earth time. So it will carry on keeping time as it did.
  
  Interestingly your battery could pick up a bit of charge in the transition too, although not a lot.
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  by AlanP 6 months ago

  You could make the clock keep different time, but in order to do that you would have to muck around with the Physics of your universe. That might be a bit tricky.
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  by Malcolm 6 months ago

  It's not necessary to mess with the phone. The phone on Dr Who worked because the Dr tweaked it with his sonic screwdriver (which we know can do anything required of it). I'd see the phone working just as it did in this universe. It would remain set to the same time but would track time at the Arkenia rate. Your MC would see no difference to is operation in either universe.
  
  While in Arkenia, assuming no networks there, it simply wouldn't be able to pick up a signal.
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  by Tony 6 months ago

  The point is, Elisia, you are writing SciFi here. You can make the phone do whatever you want it to, provided you give a reasonable-sounding explanation. If you want her to lose contact then it's perfectly reasonable for her to conclude that there is no network coverage where she is. (If she just gets one message and then no more, that would have to be the batterey going flat - OR, perhaps there IS coverage at the one spot where she 'entered' the new universe. You could use that later if she ever needed to make or receive another message; she could find herself back at that spot and discover, by accident that her phone worked.) For that, the batterey would have to last a long time. She figures it out thus: say battery last 2 weeks back home. 2 'home' week equates to nearly 1 year in Arcania, so she finds her battery lasts a year (is that long enough?). No need to explain the physics of it, any more than you explain how time passes much more quickly in Arcania.
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  by AlanP 6 months ago

  Okydoke. The clock keeps time based on the oscillations of a small crystal in its works. The number of times per second it cycles is related to the size of the crystal matrix and also the speed at which electricity propogates through it. That speed of propogation is proportional to the speed of light, still assumed to be a maximum and therefore a benchmark. "Time" can pass differently in Arkenia due to relativistic effects between it and our universe, which will not affect the speed of light in a vacuum. Although it might affect the mass of the crystal and the dimensions of the matrix, perhaps. So if the clock is to keep different time then the speed of light has to be different in Arkenia.
  
  On the other hand it is fiction and if there's a sonic screwdriver to hand, anything can be.
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  by CJ 6 months ago

  This is all good stuff, and it really helps. I was going to go with the 'can't find a network' thing, but apart from that, the phone works as it always did - she might not be able to send or receive anything (due to having no network), but she can access photos etc normally.
  
  The time thing was simply a conceit - I wondered what the display would read when Alicia checked her phone (Earth time or Arkenian time). It's only a tiny thing, but I like to cover all bases and close as many plot holes as possible, even if they don't really impact on the story as a whole. I've been the subject of much nerd-nitpicking in the past, and I have no wish to go there again!
  
  Thanks, everyone! (And I am amazed I actually managed to write this relatively coherently, since Emily's fun new game consists of kickin mummy's arm as hard as she can (she is lying next to me). And now she has made me turn on 'overwrite', and I have no idea how to change it back again!! Bugger!)
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  by Caducean Whisks 6 months ago

  If you're on a PC, the 'overwrite' key is on a toggle with 'Insert'. Press it. If on a Mac - no idea.
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  by CJ 6 months ago

  Thanks, Whisks - I'm on a new notebook computer, and all the functions are all shortened; there's nothing on the insert button at all to even hint at that function. Now I know - you learn something new every day!
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  by AlanP 6 months ago

  Ely, with regard to your PC, its works and its buttons. I have found that there is nothing that cannot be googled or binged. It's all out there and someone has bothered to write it up.
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  by spike1 6 months ago

  Here's my take on it...
  1: time: time is relative no matter where you are but usually there are only imperceptible differences. IF time runs 10x faster where you are compared to your previous plane of existence, then all time runs that quickly, the software in the clock will track local time no matter where you are because there's no signal for it to update its clock from earth time signals.
  2: even if a signal came through the rift from earth, it would suffer a frequency shift because of the time difference. If time is moving slower on earth than in arkia then it would be red shifted to such an extent that the phone wouldn't recognise it as a valid signal. Think trying to tune a radio, which is all a mobile phone is. IF the frequency's wrong, you're not going to pick up any radio stations.
  3: passing through the portal buggers the phone... As mentioned earlier, this is a distinct possibility. EMPs can take out all the electronics in an entire city without affecting the living creatures in it. X-Rays can corrupt electronic memory while not adversley affecting the person.
  4: battery life. The battery would run for as many days as it normally does in local time, but as she has no signal, she could A: switch it to aircraft mode to preserve battery strength. And B: turn off the phone when she ISN'T looking at photos. THen the phone battery should last for a CUMULATIVE 2 days, which might be stretched out for a month or two depending on how often she turned it on.