{"id":4938,"date":"2019-04-29T05:00:11","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4938"},"modified":"2019-04-29T05:43:57","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T12:43:57","slug":"mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-iii-chapter-6-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2019\/04\/mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-iii-chapter-6-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Science of Discworld III’: Chapter 6, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the second half of the sixth chapter of Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Watch<\/i>, we discuss Einstein, relativity, and a Platonian world. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Science of Discworld III<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Do any of you ever get overwhelmed (in a good way!) by the thought of how much complicated, cool shit scientists think about? Something struck me while reading the second half of this chapter: holy shit, scientists think about so much ridiculous shit that my brain does not seem ready to consider. Which is not me insulting myself; my brain is much more attuned to the arts than the sciences. But seriously, traveling to observe the light from starts during a total eclipse? (Did the song also pop into your head right now? It did for me.) How do you even get to a point in your studies where that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something you want to do?<\/p>\n

Of course, this book, along with the other Science of Discworld<\/i> books, does a fine job of not only introducing many of these concepts to those of us who might not be science-minded, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a context<\/i> given to them. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much history discussed alongside the science, which is something I feel like I brought up before. Anyway: I loved that this whole chapter brought us along this journey. We started to talk about time and space through a discussion of science fiction and the inspiration for many popular, seminal works in the time travel genre. But here, in the second half, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re taken through the various theories about the fourth dimension and how space and time are understood by humans.<\/p>\n

Which is to say: not really? That is one thing I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m enjoy about these Science<\/i> books. Look how often the authors admit that we, as a general society, do not understand the universe we live in. Because we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t! We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re getting closer<\/i>, but even then, is there ever going to be a day where we just know it all? I think about how frequently we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen these books address scientific theories that last hundreds of years, only for something else to come along and explain it better. Space and time were a single \u00e2\u20ac\u0153entity\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in Victorian England. Then there were people like Charles Hinton and Havelock Ellis and THAT PARAGRAPH IS STILL THE BEST IN THE BOOK. (I felt every emotion in it. All of them.) And then Einstein, after the work of people like Poincar\u00c3\u00a9 and Minkowski, just fucked up our whole lives. Einstein\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work is still<\/i> being discussed and tested and elaborated on practically a century later. I also can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore that the concept of light-year changed our culture, too. How common is that term for those of us who grew up reading speculative fiction? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of a few things I understood with virtually no science education at a young age because<\/i> of science fiction. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how much that term has proliferated the world. So yeah, it does<\/i> make sense to me that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Einstein became an overnight celebrity.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d As I said on video, I never really had a true sense for what the reception was to him during his own time, but the dude changed EVERYTHING for our understanding of our place in the universe.<\/p>\n

That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty damn amazing.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway, this is less about the science itself, which I understood for the most part. I just really enjoy that we get to discuss the impact of the science, too! That being said: Barbour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s theories in The End of Time<\/i> make my head hurt. They were difficult to wrap my mind around, though I feel like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m working against myself here. As a human, I, too, have perceived time as passing. Some times slowly, other times way too quickly, but it seems to be there, right? But it very well could be an illusion given precedence because we humans feel it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s real. The whole snakes and ladders analogy helped me understand Barbour more (and also learn that the game had a different name in the UK than it does here!), but it also made me think Barbour is wrong about our universe being timeless. The authors make a good case that our universe is not like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153single-state Platonia,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but more of a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sequential-state Markovia.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d So, time is real, and we travel along it in one direction\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 for now. And maybe that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll change in our lifetimes! WHO KNOWS.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=6f9c-Sue4iA<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now up for pre-order!<\/a> It comes out on May 7, 2019.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"