A field of study in which properties of fictional universes are explored.
For example:
"In Independence Day, a woman is heard complaining due to the disruption, she can't watch the The X-Files.
In The X-Files movie, Mulder urinates on an ID4 poster.
Now, this means that X-Files is fictional in the ID4 universe, and ID4 is fiction in Mulder's universe. If so, then what is the show that the woman complains about not being able to watch in the movie ID4, when being shown in the X-Files universe?
Is it a completely different show? Is she heard at all? Or maybe there actually is a TV show called The X-Files in Mulder's universe, which subsequently was referenced in the movie ID4, of which it's poster Mulder is pissing on.
But what then? does THAT show contain characters called Mulder or Scully? Or are they based on Jose Chung's from Out of Space? Is Scully played by Tea Leoni?"
Might not be important as cancer research, but still pretty damn interesting reading.-- mrkillboy, Apr 12 2001 IMDB Independence Day references http://us.imdb.com/Mlinks?0116629 [mrkillboy, Apr 12 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004] IMDB X-Files references http://us.imdb.com/Mlinks?0106179 [mrkillboy, Apr 12 2001, last modified Oct 17 2004] TV Crossovers & Spin-Offs http://www.poobala.com/crossoverlist.htmlHe admits he has too much time on his hands [krelnik, Oct 17 2004] The Eyre affair http://www.amazon.c...&p=S00A#reader-linkA book about fictional worlds and interactions with them. My favorite page is 4, when she gets the Beatles single. You can read it online! [bungston, Sep 08 2006] Truman syndrome http://en.wikipedia...iki/The_Truman_Show [normzone, May 18 2015] /r/fantheories https://www.reddit.com/r/fantheories [notexactly, May 05 2017] Shared universe https://en.wikipedi...iki/Shared_universeincludes criteria to identify what happens in /the same/ fictional universe [Loris, Apr 22 2022] When in doubt https://www.esa.int...ience/Gaia_overviewmeasure it out [4and20, Apr 27 2022] 2-body solution? https://arxiv.org/pdf/1508.02312.pdfBetter to be a 1-body [4and20, Apr 28 2022] Tommy westphall universe https://www.google....e4b00e2cd5e8118a/am [mylodon, May 02 2022] Gödel universe https://en.wikipedi...i/G%C3%B6del_metric [4and20, May 05 2022] Has the universe been spinning? https://www.newscie...all-over-the-place/ [4and20, May 05 2022] Hmmm--the analysis of the respective Latin American surrealist worlds of Marquez in "Autumn of the Patriarch," Asturias in "Mulata," and Arenas in "Hallucinations" would be daunting and no doubt end with the analyst becoming insane. Go on, I dare you.-- Dog Ed, Apr 12 2001 just read a philip pullman book. no offense, but he probably writes a lot better than most of us-- dingbats247, Aug 14 2002 Tea Leoni played herself in an episode of the X Files.-- po, Aug 14 2002 you lost me just after the " for example " bit, but croissant anyways.-- kaz, Aug 14 2002 read again kaz, it may take 2 or 3 readings but you get there in the end.-- po, Aug 14 2002 wow thats screwy. my brain hurts-- kaz, Aug 14 2002 sorry, try again in 6 months.-- po, Aug 14 2002 // one reality is enough for me, most days. //
What reality?-- sadie, Aug 15 2002 [po]: I thought that Tea Leoni (Mrs Duchovny) played Scully, and Gary Shandling played Mulder. Are we thinking of the same episode?-- angel, Aug 15 2002 This is amazingly interesting. There's a website, one I can't find at the moment, featuring literature within literature. Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" series, for example, includes books only dreamed of. Many works of literature mention fictional works. Many refer to true-life ones as well. Douglas Adams's "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" offers an intriguing quandary regarding Coleridge and Bach.-- Rhetoric, Sep 13 2002 Very interesting. Perhaps the idea could be used to elucidate a link between Baudrillard's 'Simulacrum' and Derrida's 'Differance'. An everlasting chain of associations with no referent which exists in an unstable 'hyper-real' vacuum of representaion...erm, you dig?-- BrianMaiden, Apr 15 2003 Read Jorge Luis Borges, especially Tlon, Uqbar, Orbus Tertius. This story is about a fictional planet that became so exhaustively documented that it eventually supplanted our own.-- jacksheet, Feb 08 2004 I thought this was going to be a serious textbook on the nature of various universes in fiction, which a professor would use to teach a class. "Gary, Shelly decicided to make it possible in the universe of Frankenstein to create life in a laboratory. What does that suggest about her?" But it seems to be a pop-culture trivia book.-- ConsultingDetective, Feb 21 2004 I just had an idea which I think should go here. All phone-numbers in America start with 555, right? So there are a maximum of 10,000 phone lines in any area code. Some places have a lot of films set in them.Therefore it may be possible to work out which people in different films live in the same house.
For example New York. I just found a website which lists area codes, it looks like New York has 14 area codes. Therefore if one could identify the area, you could potentially work out that a household contained a murderer, a basketball player, and a superhero.
Another example, there is one area code for all of Arkansas. Are there many films set there? I don't know, but it is a fantastic opportunity for a media studies thesis.-- Loris, Sep 08 2006 I try to take the realities one at a time, but today all of them seem to have attacked me at once...-- froglet, Sep 09 2006 I'm not sure if this is actually an idea, it seems to be just a question. At least it's an interesting question.-- wagster, Sep 09 2006 I'm not sure if this is actually an idea, it seems to be just a question. At least it's an interesting question. Another question: do all American phone numbers really start with 555?-- wagster, Sep 09 2006 In some universe or other, yes. 555 is used in fiction to keep people from dialing real numbers in this universe.-- normzone, Sep 09 2006 Also, in 1998 the Earth was menaced by not one but two asteroids (as documented in Armagedden and Deep Impact).
This seems to me like an opportunity missed. If the makers of these two films has collaborated, it would surely have been spectacular to smash these two heavenly bodies into each other.-- Loris, May 18 2015 No one in the Archers listens to The Archers despite being in the Archer-listening demographic. Likewise, no one on EastEnders watches EastEnders.-- hippo, May 18 2015 There are already people who spend their lives studying fictional universes. They are called 'theologians'.-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 18 2015 mfd widely known to exist - there are "Lord of the Ring" courses and the like at real universities.
What should be implemented, as an extension, are courses that include the physical properties, not just social, of make believe universes - theories of magic, pre-Newtonian physics (okay, some of that is still around), as well as religions and political system theories (communism, capitalism, et cetera).-- FlyingToaster, May 18 2015 // there are "Lord of the Ring" courses and the like at real universities//
No, there are not. More or less by definition.-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 18 2015 Will Truman ever bother watching reruns of himself?-- RayfordSteele, May 19 2015 On Orphan Black, actor Tatiana Maslany turns out to be one of the many clone sisters.-- tatterdemalion, May 19 2015 //the Original Star Trek episodes predate the first Star Wars, doesn’t it? //
But surely Star Trek is set in the age of Lycra and Tricorders, whereas Star Wars is set in a galaxy long ago?
Actually it bothers me a little that I know those things.-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 19 2015 It may have been long ago _and_ far away (or long away and far ago). The Clangers, I believe were set in the Age of Knitwear which, according to the standard chronology, fell between the Late Bronze Age and 1977*.
[*1986 in Wales]-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 19 2015 //You really should try some of this material at an open mic night.//
I did. It was an interesting experience, but the audience response wasn't what I'd hoped for. It was only later they told me it was meant to be a seminar.-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 19 2015 That is excellent news. I really wouldn't worry about the money - at times I've been down to my last hundred-K, and it's surprising how you can get by.
Moreover, pulling oneself out of that particular type of hole is one of the most difficult feats known to mankind, so I shall toast you (pauses for toast) with a glass of the finest Cava that Tesco can furnish.
Live long and improper.-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 19 2015 What if we are in a multiverse, but they are all exactly on top of each other?-- 4and20, Apr 22 2022 In that case, a bright little ball bearing must roll forever, intermittently dropping through from one to which ever other it's on top of.-- pertinax, Apr 22 2022 //What if we are in a multiverse, but they are all exactly on top of each other?//
We are.At the end of time Singularities have swallowed up nearly all matter and energy.As this material crosses the Schwarzchild radius it exceeds the speed of light, travels back in time and accumulates at the point of attaining critical mass and big bangs over and over and over again.
Minus a teensy miniscule little amount of material from the last iteration which changes just one single moment of time.
All possibilities exist superimposed on one another in space separated only by time.My own personal theory is that dark-matter is simply the gravitational effects of our closest overlapping realities pulling on this one... and when the math is finally figured out they will find that it follows the inverse square law which governs magnetism but as it applies to time rather than distance.
<Pulls a [doctorremulac3] and drops the microphone>-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 22 2022 (doctoremulac3 runs out, picks up the mic and drops it again as a show of support for interesting speculation like this)
Stuff like this is why I come to the HB.-- doctorremulac3, Apr 23 2022 This site, as much as I absolutely love it and its denizens, does not like theories... which puzzles me because it is the premise upon which the scientific principals are based.
I ask you all, where would we be if the theory of relativity had never been explored because it was only a theory?
One of my most favourite postings ever was deleted on this premise.It had to do with the Earth being pear shaped in the past and spinning so rapidly that Pangea accumulated on one end while an irradiated and lifeless mountain protruded from the other end. No impact killed the dinosaurs because there is no evidence of a total extinction of life on this planet, just loss of every large inhabitant which couldn't adapt.
My theory is that a close call from another celestial body caused the Earth to increase in rotational speed to such an extent that the irradiated mountain section broke away becoming our moon and the dinosaurs dropped where they stood because of the sudden increase in gravitational attraction due to decrease in spin.
It accounts for our moon, (tidally locked and yet receding from us), the breakup of Pangea due to reformation of the Earth from pyriform to oblate spheroid, and the loss of dragonfly's with two foot wingspans all in one go.
...
Dropping the mic twice seems redundant.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 23 2022 //One of my most favourite postings ever was deleted on this premise// Well, that's just wrong. Theory is how most recipes, some relationships, and all good science starts. I say we revive the 'It Could All Go Pear-Shaped Again, As It Once Was' Theory.-- Sgt Teacup, Apr 23 2022 Theories are cause for MFD here.
Figure out how to turn your theory into an invention and its cool, but just posting a theory is a no-no.
It's made me figure out how to turn a lot of theories into inventions, which is cool, but stifled other things I haven't been able to take from the theory stage.
For example we all kind of universally agree that prostitution was the first profession, right?Well... what was the second profession?
I think it was smoking.
Somebody's clan had to be keepers of the flame before we figured out how to make fire for ourselves and so a smudge pot (once that had been invented) would need to be kept but for hunter/gatherers fire would need to be carried in the form of pipes and these keepers would have been exempt from the hunt yet share in the spoils as pay for keeping the fire alive.
No way to turn that into an invention so it just exists here as a side-note to another idea.
Future cyber-archaeologists are going to love this place almost a much as I do.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 23 2022 I have a theory that our entire observable universe is actually the emergent fringes of a higher dimensional text based discussion platform just like the halfbakery, where multidimensional beings of pure energy post stupid ideas like "quantum toasterdynamics" about how the toast is always either slightly underdone or slightly overdone, and always lands butter side down. There are a load of annotations with witty puns, and a bunch of fishbones, and the fuzz around the edges is what we experience in this universe. Prove me wrong.-- pocmloc, Apr 23 2022 It's not impossible, depending on your definition of existence. Many would say if the math has been done a thing has existed. If I were to run a perfect simulation of a car, that car actually existed in the simulation. That is to say, any being in the simulation (say I also simulated a cat's brain, body, and environment in the car) experienced the car. So to take that one step further if the aliens discussion fully fleshed out our existence then we existed or exist in that simulation. To get even more funky, one can say this existence is real even if the parts of it were conceived in different places and times.
So suppose my cat/car simulation happened on multiple CPUs. Or if half were run on Friday and half on Monday. The effects of cat on car and car on cat have to be fully modeled, so we can't do the car on Friday and then the cat on Monday, but we can split up the simulation into time slots or run half of it in Germany and half in China.
If this is the case then every time you map out another person's responses in your brain you've created a little bit of that person. And when you fully forget that map the extremely low-fidelity simulation of the other person is destroyed. If your map isn't true to life you've created a warped version of that person, but a version that exists.-- Voice, Apr 23 2022 //travels back in time// Hmm... black holes are known to shrink & "evaporate". Maybe they are actually growing due to the accumulation of matter, but (as you say) backwards in time. //dark-matter is simply the gravitational effects// I've read about this idea somewhere (pretty sure it wasn't here, but maybe); gravity is the only "force" (I describe it as not a "force" like electromagnetism etc, but a distortion of spacetime) that can cross parallel dimensions/universes. Which is why we can detect dark matter by it's gravitational effect on "normal" matter, but not see it or anything else. //theory of relativity// If we didn't know about the theories of relativity, we couldn't have GPS, for a start. //what was the second profession?// Engineering or science, IMHO (farming can be thought of as a combination of both). Many (well, some...) animals do engineering; preparing sticks to probe for termites, making a "sponge" from leaves to drink water.-- neutrinos_shadow, Apr 25 2022 /travels back in time///black holes are known to shrink & "evaporate". Maybe they are actually growing due to the accumulation of matter, but (as you say) backwards in time.//
If the amount of information a black hole pumps out does not equal the amount of information evaporated......then where did the un-evaporated bits go? certainly not back into our universe.
/dark-matter is simply the gravitational effects///I've read about this idea somewhere (pretty sure it wasn't here, but maybe); gravity is the only "force" (I describe it as not a "force" like electromagnetism etc, but a distortion of spacetime) that can cross parallel dimensions/universes. Which is why we can detect dark matter by it's gravitational effect on "normal" matter, but not see it or anything else.//
Exactly, except that all laws 'seem' tied to that one law, but gravity does not exist. Only time exists. Gravity is a distortion of time ie, whatever portion of your body, or any other body, is closest to a gravity well distorts faster than the rest of you so you are drawn to it.since time 'is' space... gravity.
/theory of relativity///If we didn't know about the theories of relativity, we couldn't have GPS, for a start.//
So if the theory had never been given thought then GPS would not exist. Without theories science can not progress.
/what was the second profession?///Engineering or science, IMHO (farming can be thought of as a combination of both). Many (well, some...) animals do engineering; preparing sticks to probe for termites, making a "sponge" from leaves to drink water.//
Sure, but before agriculture would have come the keeping of the flame.We didn't know how to make it yet, but we figured out how to keep it alive long before agriculture.
Nope. If figure puffing on a smudge pot was the second profession.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 26 2022 // Exactly, except that all laws 'seem' tied to that one law, but gravity does not exist. Only time exists. Gravity is a distortion of time ie, whatever portion of your body, or any other body, is closest to a gravity well distorts faster than the rest of you so you are drawn to it. since time 'is' space... gravity. //
See [Link]. I still say that it would be easier to have a better theory of gravity. How would you represent gravity as a function of time, without just putting all the little and big "g"'s in Einstein's (many) equations on some side opposite a "T"..?-- 4and20, Apr 27 2022 Well I don't think the G's need to be replaced with T. Mass distorts space-time. They are one and the same. Time moves faster in proximity to a gravity well with the same inverse square law as everything else so the soles of your feet technically age more than the top of your head, maybe only by a fraction of a second over a lifetime but still, the incongruity creates 'push' from the equilibrium of the rest of our universe.
If universes overlap then echoes of our closest neighbours effect gravitational readings in this one as everything pushes and pulls on everything else but with an inverse square law as it pertains to time rather than distance.A torus.
I dunno. That's the visual I get when I daydream about that crap anyway.Your guess is as good if not better than my own. I'm a dreamer, not a scientist.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 27 2022 Albert Einstein once said “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn't, pays it”. I don't know how Einstein's equations are applied in practice, but they don't seem instantly amenable to recursion. When, for example, the "Three-body problem" still has no closed solution, how do (computer) scientists model the compounded gravitational effects of n-bodies? It's not by relying on 1920s equations for a torus (I hope), which was a trendy geometry at the time and probably gave Einstein his impetus.
The closest I know to modelling real-world gravity on earth is probably 3D animation. Animators love to talk about how realistic their water is, though, again, it's probably a case of a limited number of splines being multiplied, without consideration for a moon of any kind.-- 4and20, Apr 28 2022 Per the original idea, we appear to be living in a Fictionally understood universe already.
"Since Einstein’s field equations of GTR can only be solved for the simple one-body problem, and even the two-body problem cannot be solved rigorously in GTR, the equations of motion of the relativistic three bodies must be obtained with some approximations." [link]-- 4and20, Apr 28 2022 I'll be the first to say I don't understand this, but the "Gödel universe" solution to Einstein's field equations involved a spinning universe, which might also make time travel possible.
'The quality of these observations improved continually up until Gödel's death, and he would always ask "is the universe rotating yet?" and be told "no, it isn't".'
A 2020 survey [link] suggests that the universe was spinning...-- 4and20, May 05 2022 [4and20]; everything else spins, from electrons (not sure about quarks, but probably...) to galaxies. So why not the whole universe too? Rotating implies an axis, which defines a centre. Partially explains the "expanding universe" though. Ooh, could be a toroidal universe, rotating about the poloidal axis. That would mess with ALL the science...-- neutrinos_shadow, May 05 2022 <adds the word Poloidal to lexicon>
Tried to figure out what it meant from context and failed miserably.I figured 'Pol' referred to 'polarity' and assumed it meant a doughnut spinning end-over-end, the exact opposite of what it actually means.
I don't know what the word for that is, but I see absolutely no reason to assume that the universe doesn't spin toroidally, poloidally, or end-over-end-oidally at the same time.
Without a frame of reference to compare against how could we know?-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 06 2022 "Poloidal" is one of those great words that is virtually impossible to explain without a diagram. <anecdote> I once had a pot of spaghetti on the cooker, & it arranged itself in a twisted torus of spag around the bottom of the pot, rotating poloidally as the hot water (& bubbles) rose up the edge of the pot (the element must've been hottest around the outside edge). It remains one of the coolest "natural" phenomena I've ever witnessed. </a>-- neutrinos_shadow, May 06 2022 random, halfbakery