NationStates Jolt Archive


God called; He wants His computer back

Ilaer
12-02-2007, 22:07
Just a short story I wrote and wanted to show to the world. Tell me your opinions, hmmm?



God called; He wants His computer back
Daniel Rhodes-Mumby


We’re sorry. We didn’t mean to. But then, is that a good enough excuse, considering that we’ve just destroyed the entire Multiverse in one go?

It had taken us ten years. We’d set out at the start of 2013 with one aim in mind: the construction of a computer with infinite power. Crazy, I know. But for some reason the thought was so irresistible; we just couldn’t help but try.
Of course, the rest of the world didn’t know. We decided we’d had enough ridicule after the fiasco with teleportation the year before; it was lucky we’d been trying to teleport something to Pluto rather than from; as it were, the only consequences were the destruction of the ninth planet. I mean, at least we left the moon! Or half of it, at least. But it’d have still managed to stay orbiting the Sun for another thousand years or so; that’s good enough, right?
Anyway, we’d decided that this time we wouldn’t announce our intentions first; just that we were planning a ‘revolutionary new technology’ with the power to ‘utterly change the way we view the Universe’. People still made fun of us, but at least they didn’t know that we were trying the theoretically impossible.
The first problem we ran into was power. A device with infinite computing power would need some major energy behind it; we considered ‘borrowing’ the Martian colony’s entire power supply (we were on Earth at the time, but we’d managed some four years previously to invent a method of ‘beaming’ power from one place to another through the usage of some strange and otherwise totally useless properties of light, and it could quite easily have been adapted) but then realised it wouldn’t just need that; it would, in fact, settle for no less than a truly infinite source of power. Unfortunately, that’s not something that most people have to hand, so we first had to find a way of achieving it.
Our first thought stemmed from an ancient design for a perpetual motion machine; brought up to date with the latest technology, obviously. Unfortunately, we still ran into the problem that you can’t change the laws of physics (at least, not at the time you couldn’t); you can’t get out more than you put in.
It was then that we realised we had no need for a perpetual motion machine; we could just use matter. We reasoned that Einstein’s famous E=MC^2 implied something revolutionary; there couldn’t be a distinction between matter and energy, not ultimately: matter must be made up of energy rather than just storing it.
And since we needed nothing more than energy, we should analyse it for any clues there might be in how it made up matter; we should look at the ways in which it existed in the physical Universe, and how much there was.
What we found amazed us.
By breaking matter down further and further we eventually reached quarks; go even further and you reach resons; further still and you find the constituent particles of energy itself.
And it didn’t stop there. We didn’t continue any further with practical experiments; people were already complaining about the blackouts caused by our borrowing of the global electric grid to power our particle accelerators (seven of them, each requiring some nineteen thousand terawatts of energy). We carried on mathematically, using equations that, in many cases, we’d had to devise ourselves.
What we found didn’t just amaze us; it stunned the entire scientific community.
Energons (rubbish name, I know, but we couldn’t think of anything else) were infinitely divisible.
And that wasn’t all. Divide a single energon and you get more energy (in the sense of Joules) than you get from an entire molecule of matter normally.
Divide the resulting particles (second-level energons) and you get more energy than you did from the original energon.
Divide third-level energons and you get more energy than you did from the second.
Carry on dividing and it’s the same all the way down. With each iteration you get a constant increase in the amount of energy released during the division (we calculated it; it’s roughly 3.54 times the previous). And the division itself takes less and less energy each iteration; even at the beginning it’s less than half of what you get out.
And energons are infinitely divisible.
We’d done it. We’d finally done it. This was seven years after we’d started work on the concept of an infinitely powerful computer, and we’d finally found the key to making it work. Hell, we’d found the key to all of mankind’s energy problems forever. It was a clean and, obviously, amazingly and increasingly efficient process. We could power an entire planet just by dividing to the two hundred and sixty first-level energons; it was the Holy Grail of physics and power generation.
We kept it quiet at first. We didn’t want anyone to figure out our main project; after all, there aren’t many things that require an infinite amount of power to do.
This took seven years. The remaining three were spent on designing the computer; we had to worry about how to actually go about making use of our infinite power supply.
After a lot of work (I’ll spare you the details) we finally did it. We constructed the first infinitely powerful computer. It could have done anything you told it to do; it could even violate previously immutable laws of physics. Tell it to create matter from nothing and it would have done it. Tell it to accelerate something not just to light speed but past it and it would have done it.
We finally revealed our work to the rest of the world; at first they were more interested in the energon revelation and its applications. We spent a year just touring the colonies and showing them it; we hadn’t revealed the practical method of achieving it, but we had built machines capable of doing it, which we then sold for insane amounts of money.
Finally, after a year, interest turned to the computer. We’d never run it before, not even to test it, and we were asked to show its capabilities in front of the world. We organised a huge meeting in London, booking a park capable of holding thirty thousand people, and we arranged a huge webcam network so that the entire world could see it.
We switched it on; it was using only small amounts of energy since it wasn’t actually working on a task, and we showed everyone the command prompt that came up. We then asked for a task for the machine to do, chose a hand from the ones that sprang up, and entered the relevant command. It was to calculate the entirety of pi.
A ridiculous task, perhaps, but also harmless, so we told it to do so.
As soon as we pressed Enter, something unexpected happened: the Universe was destroyed.
And, as we were later to learn, so too was the Multiverse.
It turns out we’d neglected a vital detail: optimisation wasn’t necessary. We’d designed it to use more than one energon as a base if it needed more power at any one moment; sadly, we neglected to take into account the fact that at any one moment, of which there are an infinite amount in every second, there would never be enough power, no matter how quickly or far down you split the energons; this was working at an infinite number of operations even in the period of Planck’s Constant, for heaven’s sake!
It basically consumed every particle, ever, all during the same instant.
So here we are, standing in a crowded afterlife, with God glaring down at us and every life-form that has ever existed threatening to make life – or death, as the case may be – a very painful experience indeed for our little group of scientists.
Now let me make it clear: it wasn’t the calculation of pi specifically that caused this; it would have done it if we’d asked it to add 2 to 2. We just needed to limit the computer to use no more than one energon for power by limiting it to an unimaginably large, but finite, number of operations per moment.
As it is, we didn’t.

We already said sorry, right?


Most of the science in this is absolute rubbish (as an amateur physicist I can say that with confidence) but it's interesting anyway so that's all right.
And yes, that is my real name below the title. So what? It's not that strange and I'm not paranoid enough to hide it...

Ilaer
Vetalia
12-02-2007, 22:12
So it's like the evil twin of Asimov's The Last Question? Interesting idea.
Vetalia
12-02-2007, 22:13
Also, interestingly enough, the first commercial quantum computer is supposed to debut tomorrow.
Ilaer
12-02-2007, 22:14
So it's like the evil twin of Asimov's The Last Question? Interesting idea.

Well, it didn't do it on purpose. :D
Technically it's not violating any of Asimov's Laws of Robotics since it wasn't programmed to obey them.

Oh dear... I seriously doubt that that quantum computer will work or even be a practical solution to anything. There are just so many things that could interfere with it...

Ilaer
Vetalia
12-02-2007, 22:16
Well, it didn't do it on purpose. :D

Technically it's not violating any of Asimov's Laws of Robotics since it wasn't programmed to obey them.

Actually, what happens in the story is that scientists construct a computer to try and figure out how to reverse entropy to prevent the death of the universe.

The computer finally figures it out long after mankind has been absorbed in to the machine and says "Let there be light", reversing entropy and creating the universe anew.
Ilaer
12-02-2007, 22:20
Actually, what happens in the story is that scientists construct a computer to try and figure out how to reverse entropy to prevent the death of the universe.

The computer finally figures it out long after mankind has been absorbed in to the machine and says "Let there be light", reversing entropy and creating the universe anew.

I feel stupid now. I have got read those books someday...

Ilaer
Dinaverg
12-02-2007, 22:21
Teehee, that was silly. The first thing I thought of was how my computer overheats...
Vetalia
12-02-2007, 22:22
I feel stupid now. I have got read those books someday...

Ilaer

It's a short story, actually. If you want, Google it and you can find a copy to read. It's really good.
JuNii
12-02-2007, 22:23
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I like it. :p
Dinaverg
12-02-2007, 22:39
Hmm...

You should get someone to make it into a webcomic! *nodnod*
Damor
12-02-2007, 22:45
I'm not fond of the writing style that much. Perhaps it's the first person perspective. Or that it reads like an average forum/blog post..
Vetalia
12-02-2007, 22:47
I'm not fond of the writing style that much. Perhaps it's the first person perspective. Or that it reads like an average forum/blog post..

Well, it probably is a first draft.
Lydiardia
13-02-2007, 01:36
Well, I liked it..

For me, the basic tennant of science fiction is that even if the science is fictious, it should make sense.. Yours did. So, that made for a good story :)

You should make it longer though..
Greyenivol Colony
13-02-2007, 02:07
If the universe was destroyed instantaneously, would we believe it?

I mean, I can imagine people just getting on with their 'lives', oblivious to the fact that they are dead.
Exomnia
13-02-2007, 02:32
Interesting. Good story. But the physics is a little bit too bad for me to fully to enjoy it.
Ilaer
13-02-2007, 17:42
Teehee, that was silly. The first thing I thought of was how my computer overheats...

Possibly my favourite post thus far. :D I mean, there's no difference whatsoever between the entire multiverse being destroyed in one instant and your computer overheating, right? *nods*

It's a short story, actually. If you want, Google it and you can find a copy to read. It's really good.

I shall do that. Thank you for telling me. :)

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I like it. :p

I'm glad you did. :)

Hmm...

You should get someone to make it into a webcomic! *nodnod*

O_o
I doubt it's that good.
Although I can imagine a series being one, actually.

I'm not fond of the writing style that much. Perhaps it's the first person perspective. Or that it reads like an average forum/blog post..

Meh, I couldn't think of any other way. I'm fairly good at writing in many styles, so I can tell you it's not my norm, but I really believe that it suited the content.
I could write another one in a different style if you want?

Well, I liked it..

For me, the basic tennant of science fiction is that even if the science is fictious, it should make sense.. Yours did. So, that made for a good story :)

You should make it longer though..

I tried at one point but it just got a bit strained.

If the universe was destroyed instantaneously, would we believe it?

I mean, I can imagine people just getting on with their 'lives', oblivious to the fact that they are dead.

Humans don't like bad news. I can imagine them trying to continue as well.

Interesting. Good story. But the physics is a little bit too bad for me to fully to enjoy it.

Bad as in wrong or bad as in complicated?


Overall, I'm quite glad with the response I've received. I may even post other pieces of work I've written. :D
Thank you all for your posts! :)

Ilaer