Halberdgardia
15-07-2005, 02:49
TOP SECRET INTERNAL GOVERNMENT MEMO
From: Airen Cracken, Administrator, Halberdgardian Space Agency
Re: Theoretical Neutron Star Supercomputer
Recently, some of our top astrophysics theorists and researchers came up with an astounding surprise in one of their routine supercomputer simulations of exotic interactions of various interstellar bodies of matter. The simplified version, without going into extremely complicated mathematics, is that they discovered a theoretical technique for manipulating space-time in order to create what may be the most powerful single computing system possible. They recently described their findings to me in a report summarizing the simulation, an excerpt of which is as follows:
"Once, a star with a mass thirty or forty heavier than Earth's sun had reached the end of its nuclear-burning lifetime, after several million years of profligate energy-expenditure. The star had exploded in a supernova, and in its heart, tremendous gravitational pressure had smashed a lump of matter within its own Schwarzschild radius, until a black hole had been formed.
"Next, two nearby red dwarves fell into an accretion disk around the black hole, feeding into the disk, raining stellar matter onto its light-swallowing event horizon.
"Once within the event horizon, particles continued to fall along particular trajectories, particular orbits which swung them around the kernel of infinite density which was the singularity at the black hole's heart. Falling along these lines, time and space began to blend into one another, until they were no longer properly separable. And--crucially--there was one set of trajectories in which they swapped places completely; where a trajectory in space became one in time. And one subset of this bunch of paths actually allowed matter to tunnel into the past, earlier into the black hole's history.
"This event, while mind-boggling, is actually perfectly within the realm of even twentieth-century mathematics for describing black holes and their properties.
"What happened was that light, energy, particle-flux, wormed along these special trajectories, burrowing ever deeper into the past with each orbit around the singularity. None of this was 'evident' to the outside universe since it was confined behind the impenetrable barrier of the event horizon, and so there was no overt violation of causality. According to the same mathematics referenced above, there could be none, since the trajectories could never pass back into the external universe.
"Yet they did.
"What the mathematics appeared to have overlooked was a subset-of-a-subset-of-a-subset of trajectories which carried quanta back to the birth of the black hole, when it collapsed in the supernova of its progenitor star.
"At that instant, the minute outward pressure exerted by the particles arriving from the future served to delay the gravitational infall.
"The delay was not even measurable; it was barely longer than the smallest theoretical subdivision of quantised time. But it existed. And, small though it was, it was sufficient to send ripples of causal shock propagating back to the future. These ripples of casual shock met the incoming particles and established a grid of causal interference, a standing wave extending symmetrically into the past and the future.
"Enmeshed in this grid, the collapsed object was no longer sure that it was meant to be a black hole. The initial conditions had always been borderline, and perhaps these entanglements could be avoided if it remained poised above its Schwarzschild radius; if it collapsed down to a stable configuration of strange quarks and degenerate neutrons instead.
"It flickered indeterminately between the two states. The indeterminacy crystallized, and what remained behind was something that we believe to be completely unique in the universe.
"The object settled on a stable configuration whereby its paradoxical nature was not immediately obvious to the outside universe. Externally, it resembled a neutron star--for the first few centimeters of crust, at least. Below, however, the nuclear matter had catalyzed into intricate forms capable of lightning-swift, to use a rather inadequate adjective, computation, a self-organization which had emerged spontaneously from the resolution of its two opposing states.
"The crust seethed and processed, containing information and data at the theoretical maximum density of storage of matter, anywhere in the universe.
"Below, the crust blended seamlessly with a flickering storm of unresolved possibility, as the interior of the collapsed object danced to the music of acausality. While the crust ran endless simulations, endless computations, the core bridged the future and the past, allowing information to channel effortlessly between them. The crust, in effect, had become one element of a massive parallel-processor, except that the other elements of its array were the future and past versions of itself."
Now, as you might imagine, it would take a massive amount of resources to create something like this. The tractor beams of a fleet of Eclipse-class Star Destroyers might have sufficient force to maneuver the requisite red dwarf (or dwarves) into position around the black hole, though this would be a massive expenditure of energy and money. Furthermore, it is currently unknown how the immense computing power of this phenomenon could be effectively put to use, although it has been posited that such a phenomenon could make possible the creation of a Sentient Intelligence (SI), one with unlimited autonomy, unlike our own RIs. Several recommendations have been sent to me in favor of the creation of an SI, but as the creation of such a cosmic supercomputer is a massive undertaking, and will have to be carefully considered before action is taken.
END MEMO
From: Airen Cracken, Administrator, Halberdgardian Space Agency
Re: Theoretical Neutron Star Supercomputer
Recently, some of our top astrophysics theorists and researchers came up with an astounding surprise in one of their routine supercomputer simulations of exotic interactions of various interstellar bodies of matter. The simplified version, without going into extremely complicated mathematics, is that they discovered a theoretical technique for manipulating space-time in order to create what may be the most powerful single computing system possible. They recently described their findings to me in a report summarizing the simulation, an excerpt of which is as follows:
"Once, a star with a mass thirty or forty heavier than Earth's sun had reached the end of its nuclear-burning lifetime, after several million years of profligate energy-expenditure. The star had exploded in a supernova, and in its heart, tremendous gravitational pressure had smashed a lump of matter within its own Schwarzschild radius, until a black hole had been formed.
"Next, two nearby red dwarves fell into an accretion disk around the black hole, feeding into the disk, raining stellar matter onto its light-swallowing event horizon.
"Once within the event horizon, particles continued to fall along particular trajectories, particular orbits which swung them around the kernel of infinite density which was the singularity at the black hole's heart. Falling along these lines, time and space began to blend into one another, until they were no longer properly separable. And--crucially--there was one set of trajectories in which they swapped places completely; where a trajectory in space became one in time. And one subset of this bunch of paths actually allowed matter to tunnel into the past, earlier into the black hole's history.
"This event, while mind-boggling, is actually perfectly within the realm of even twentieth-century mathematics for describing black holes and their properties.
"What happened was that light, energy, particle-flux, wormed along these special trajectories, burrowing ever deeper into the past with each orbit around the singularity. None of this was 'evident' to the outside universe since it was confined behind the impenetrable barrier of the event horizon, and so there was no overt violation of causality. According to the same mathematics referenced above, there could be none, since the trajectories could never pass back into the external universe.
"Yet they did.
"What the mathematics appeared to have overlooked was a subset-of-a-subset-of-a-subset of trajectories which carried quanta back to the birth of the black hole, when it collapsed in the supernova of its progenitor star.
"At that instant, the minute outward pressure exerted by the particles arriving from the future served to delay the gravitational infall.
"The delay was not even measurable; it was barely longer than the smallest theoretical subdivision of quantised time. But it existed. And, small though it was, it was sufficient to send ripples of causal shock propagating back to the future. These ripples of casual shock met the incoming particles and established a grid of causal interference, a standing wave extending symmetrically into the past and the future.
"Enmeshed in this grid, the collapsed object was no longer sure that it was meant to be a black hole. The initial conditions had always been borderline, and perhaps these entanglements could be avoided if it remained poised above its Schwarzschild radius; if it collapsed down to a stable configuration of strange quarks and degenerate neutrons instead.
"It flickered indeterminately between the two states. The indeterminacy crystallized, and what remained behind was something that we believe to be completely unique in the universe.
"The object settled on a stable configuration whereby its paradoxical nature was not immediately obvious to the outside universe. Externally, it resembled a neutron star--for the first few centimeters of crust, at least. Below, however, the nuclear matter had catalyzed into intricate forms capable of lightning-swift, to use a rather inadequate adjective, computation, a self-organization which had emerged spontaneously from the resolution of its two opposing states.
"The crust seethed and processed, containing information and data at the theoretical maximum density of storage of matter, anywhere in the universe.
"Below, the crust blended seamlessly with a flickering storm of unresolved possibility, as the interior of the collapsed object danced to the music of acausality. While the crust ran endless simulations, endless computations, the core bridged the future and the past, allowing information to channel effortlessly between them. The crust, in effect, had become one element of a massive parallel-processor, except that the other elements of its array were the future and past versions of itself."
Now, as you might imagine, it would take a massive amount of resources to create something like this. The tractor beams of a fleet of Eclipse-class Star Destroyers might have sufficient force to maneuver the requisite red dwarf (or dwarves) into position around the black hole, though this would be a massive expenditure of energy and money. Furthermore, it is currently unknown how the immense computing power of this phenomenon could be effectively put to use, although it has been posited that such a phenomenon could make possible the creation of a Sentient Intelligence (SI), one with unlimited autonomy, unlike our own RIs. Several recommendations have been sent to me in favor of the creation of an SI, but as the creation of such a cosmic supercomputer is a massive undertaking, and will have to be carefully considered before action is taken.
END MEMO