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.‘How’s the seeing?’‘Different class.’‘Aye, that’s the middle of nowhere for you.’‘Take a look.’Kane makes his way delicately to the telescope and peers into the eyepiece.He sees a bright circular disc, a hint of grey-blue around its edges.‘Venus?’ he suggests.‘Good spot.’‘Looks like it’s a ten-bob bus fare away, doesn’t it, sir?’ says Radar.‘Try thirty million miles when it passes closest,’ says Adnan.‘And that’s the nearest planet.The nearest star is Proxima Centauri, four light years away.’‘I’ll leave you guys to it,’ Kane says.He exits and closes the door.Adnan gives himself a moment for his eyes to readjust, then makes some alterations to the telescope’s position, keying in the corresponding coordinates on the computerised alt-azimuth mount.‘This is Polaris, the North Star,’ he says.Ewan has a look.‘It’s actually two stars in binary orbit, but it looks like one because it’s four hundred and thirty light years away.’‘Wow.So that means what I’m seeing here is actually.’‘Four hundred and thirty years ago, yeah.Shakespeare was live onstage when that light started its journey.’‘How did you get into this?’ Ewan asks him.‘Did you get a telescope when you were wee?’‘Yes and no,’ Adnan answers.‘I got a scope when I was wee because I was already into it.It was the winter that started me off.’‘Whit? Early dark? Clear skies?’‘No.When I was a kid, I hated being cold, and when winter was coming, I used to wonder why it had to.Was there any reason, maybe, why one year it might not, and we’d get the same weather all year round? I didn’t understand why there had to be seasons.Then I found out it was an astronomy question.’‘Because the Earth goes round the sun,’ Cameron suggests.‘No; well, partly.It’s because of the Earth’s axial tilt.During half our orbit, the northern hemisphere is closer to the sun, and during the other half, it’s the southern.That got me thinking about what was in the sky as solid objects rather than just lights and dots.Got my first scope when I was ten.’‘I’d just have been using it to see in lassies’ windaes,’ Radar says.‘Only if you get turned on by looking at folk upside down,’ says Matt, making one of his rare but insightful, if arcane, contributions.‘How’s that?’ Radar asks, but Matt doesn’t answer.‘The image is inverted,’ Adnan tells him, keying in a new set of coordinates.‘Doesn’t make much difference when you’re looking at stars.In space, there’s no such thing as the right way up.Now, get a load of this.’They take it in turns to have a look.‘It’s Andromeda.’‘Is that a star? Looks a bit like a hamburger.’‘It’s a whole galaxy.’‘Fuck, so it is,’ Cameron says.‘Like a flattened disc.’‘The Earth wasn’t flat, but it turned out the universe is,’ Matt mumbles.‘Messier 31,’ Adnan informs them.‘Two hundred thousand light years across.It’s the nearest galaxy to here, and it’s heading towards us on collision course at three hundred thousand miles an hour.’‘Fuck!’ Cameron shouts, and dives theatrically out of the way, prompting much hilarity.‘Don’t sweat.It’s two and a half million light years away.We’ve got three billion years before impact.’‘Nothing can travel faster than light,’ Radar says.‘I remember Mr Kane telling us that.So that means humans are never going to reach these places, are we?’‘Not travelling on a linear plane, no.In fact, the universe is expanding at such a rate of acceleration that the light from the more distant parts of it will never reach us.But that’s only talking about movement in three dimensions.’‘Well what other dimensions could you be talking about?’ Radar asks.‘The fifth one, with Mr Mxyzptlk from Superman?’‘Physicists are increasingly accepting that there may be higher dimensions, as well as parallel universes.’‘Seriously?’ Cameron asks, lifting his head from the scope and letting Ewan jump in.‘Straight up,’ Adnan assures him.‘Our universe could be a four-dimensional island floating in higher-dimensional space, one of an infinity of islands, in fact.But the thing about this higher dimension is that if we could see it, if we could move through it, we’d have a very different concept of distance.’‘How?’‘Well, think about an ant on this duvet.’‘More like a flea if it’s Radar’s,’ Ewan suggests.‘Shut it you, ya fudnut.’‘The point is, the ant is only moving in two dimensions: width and length.It can’t access - and isn’t even aware of - what is effectively a higher dimension: height.So if there was a group of ants on this duvet and you picked one up, it would look to its mates like it had dematerialised.You put it down again on the other side of them, and it looks to the ants like it’s been teleported.But all that’s happened is it’s moved through a dimension the ants can’t see and aren’t aware of.We move in three dimensions, plus the dimension of time, but if there was a fifth dimension, the same effect could apply to us.’‘You could perform surgery without breaking the skin,’ says Matt, grasping the principle and expanding on it in his familiarly skewed way.‘To a fifth-dimensional being, our anatomy would look like a cut-away diagram.’‘But how would we cover distance quicker?’ Radar asks.‘The ant still has to travel - it hasn’t taken a short-cut.’‘There’s a limit to the analogy,’ Adnan admits.‘But if you can imagine, our perception of three-dimensional distance might not reflect reality, just like the ant’s perception of two-D distance.Look at this.’Adnan takes a corner of the duvet in his hand.‘The ant is here, right, at one end of this wee universe.To get to the opposite corner, it’s a long distance in two-D space, isn’t it?’‘Aye,’ Radar and Cameron agree.‘Now watch this [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.‘How’s the seeing?’‘Different class.’‘Aye, that’s the middle of nowhere for you.’‘Take a look.’Kane makes his way delicately to the telescope and peers into the eyepiece.He sees a bright circular disc, a hint of grey-blue around its edges.‘Venus?’ he suggests.‘Good spot.’‘Looks like it’s a ten-bob bus fare away, doesn’t it, sir?’ says Radar.‘Try thirty million miles when it passes closest,’ says Adnan.‘And that’s the nearest planet.The nearest star is Proxima Centauri, four light years away.’‘I’ll leave you guys to it,’ Kane says.He exits and closes the door.Adnan gives himself a moment for his eyes to readjust, then makes some alterations to the telescope’s position, keying in the corresponding coordinates on the computerised alt-azimuth mount.‘This is Polaris, the North Star,’ he says.Ewan has a look.‘It’s actually two stars in binary orbit, but it looks like one because it’s four hundred and thirty light years away.’‘Wow.So that means what I’m seeing here is actually.’‘Four hundred and thirty years ago, yeah.Shakespeare was live onstage when that light started its journey.’‘How did you get into this?’ Ewan asks him.‘Did you get a telescope when you were wee?’‘Yes and no,’ Adnan answers.‘I got a scope when I was wee because I was already into it.It was the winter that started me off.’‘Whit? Early dark? Clear skies?’‘No.When I was a kid, I hated being cold, and when winter was coming, I used to wonder why it had to.Was there any reason, maybe, why one year it might not, and we’d get the same weather all year round? I didn’t understand why there had to be seasons.Then I found out it was an astronomy question.’‘Because the Earth goes round the sun,’ Cameron suggests.‘No; well, partly.It’s because of the Earth’s axial tilt.During half our orbit, the northern hemisphere is closer to the sun, and during the other half, it’s the southern.That got me thinking about what was in the sky as solid objects rather than just lights and dots.Got my first scope when I was ten.’‘I’d just have been using it to see in lassies’ windaes,’ Radar says.‘Only if you get turned on by looking at folk upside down,’ says Matt, making one of his rare but insightful, if arcane, contributions.‘How’s that?’ Radar asks, but Matt doesn’t answer.‘The image is inverted,’ Adnan tells him, keying in a new set of coordinates.‘Doesn’t make much difference when you’re looking at stars.In space, there’s no such thing as the right way up.Now, get a load of this.’They take it in turns to have a look.‘It’s Andromeda.’‘Is that a star? Looks a bit like a hamburger.’‘It’s a whole galaxy.’‘Fuck, so it is,’ Cameron says.‘Like a flattened disc.’‘The Earth wasn’t flat, but it turned out the universe is,’ Matt mumbles.‘Messier 31,’ Adnan informs them.‘Two hundred thousand light years across.It’s the nearest galaxy to here, and it’s heading towards us on collision course at three hundred thousand miles an hour.’‘Fuck!’ Cameron shouts, and dives theatrically out of the way, prompting much hilarity.‘Don’t sweat.It’s two and a half million light years away.We’ve got three billion years before impact.’‘Nothing can travel faster than light,’ Radar says.‘I remember Mr Kane telling us that.So that means humans are never going to reach these places, are we?’‘Not travelling on a linear plane, no.In fact, the universe is expanding at such a rate of acceleration that the light from the more distant parts of it will never reach us.But that’s only talking about movement in three dimensions.’‘Well what other dimensions could you be talking about?’ Radar asks.‘The fifth one, with Mr Mxyzptlk from Superman?’‘Physicists are increasingly accepting that there may be higher dimensions, as well as parallel universes.’‘Seriously?’ Cameron asks, lifting his head from the scope and letting Ewan jump in.‘Straight up,’ Adnan assures him.‘Our universe could be a four-dimensional island floating in higher-dimensional space, one of an infinity of islands, in fact.But the thing about this higher dimension is that if we could see it, if we could move through it, we’d have a very different concept of distance.’‘How?’‘Well, think about an ant on this duvet.’‘More like a flea if it’s Radar’s,’ Ewan suggests.‘Shut it you, ya fudnut.’‘The point is, the ant is only moving in two dimensions: width and length.It can’t access - and isn’t even aware of - what is effectively a higher dimension: height.So if there was a group of ants on this duvet and you picked one up, it would look to its mates like it had dematerialised.You put it down again on the other side of them, and it looks to the ants like it’s been teleported.But all that’s happened is it’s moved through a dimension the ants can’t see and aren’t aware of.We move in three dimensions, plus the dimension of time, but if there was a fifth dimension, the same effect could apply to us.’‘You could perform surgery without breaking the skin,’ says Matt, grasping the principle and expanding on it in his familiarly skewed way.‘To a fifth-dimensional being, our anatomy would look like a cut-away diagram.’‘But how would we cover distance quicker?’ Radar asks.‘The ant still has to travel - it hasn’t taken a short-cut.’‘There’s a limit to the analogy,’ Adnan admits.‘But if you can imagine, our perception of three-dimensional distance might not reflect reality, just like the ant’s perception of two-D distance.Look at this.’Adnan takes a corner of the duvet in his hand.‘The ant is here, right, at one end of this wee universe.To get to the opposite corner, it’s a long distance in two-D space, isn’t it?’‘Aye,’ Radar and Cameron agree.‘Now watch this [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]