“Don’t be alarmed - that dizzy pleasurable sensation you’re experiencing is just your brain slowly exploding from all the wild magnificent worldbuilding in Nicky Drayden’s Escaping Exodus. I loved these characters and this story, and so will you.”
- Sam J. Miller, Nebula-Award-winning author of The Art of Starving and Blackfish City
The Compton Crook award–winning author of The Prey of Gods and Temper returns with a dazzling stand-alone novel, set in deep space, in which the fate of humanity rests on the slender shoulders of an idealistic and untested young woman—a blend of science fiction, dark humor, and magical realism that will appeal to fans of Charlie Jane Anders, Jeff VanderMeer, and Nnedi Okorafor.
Earth is a distant memory. Habitable extrasolar planets are still out of reach. For generations, humanity has been clinging to survival by establishing colonies within enormous vacuum-breathing space beasts and mining their resources to the point of depletion.
Rash, dreamy, and unconventional, Seske Kaleigh should be preparing for her future role as clan leader, but her people have just culled their latest beast, and she’s eager to find the cause of the violent tremors plaguing their new home. Defying social barriers, Seske teams up with her best friend, a beast worker, and ventures into restricted areas for answers to end the mounting fear and rumors. Instead, they discover grim truths about the price of life in the void.
Then, Seske is unexpectedly thrust into the role of clan matriarch, responsible for thousands of lives in a harsh universe where a single mistake can be fatal. Her claim to the throne is challenged by a rival determined to overthrow her and take control—her intelligent, cunning, and confident sister.
Seske may not be a born leader like her sister, yet her unorthodox outlook and incorruptible idealism may be what the clan needs to save themselves and their world.
Quantum vacuum would be the space in which apparently nothing exists for any observer but contains a minimal amount of energy, mainly electromagnetic and gravitational fields and virtual particles (force particles) interacting with each other.
Previously, there was thought to be a physical entity called the absolute vacuum on which several scientists of the Middle Ages, including Blaise Pascal, have carried out various experiments to try to reaffirm this idea.
The absolute vacuum would be one in which nothing would exist, no chemical elements, fields and particles of force, etc. However, it was found that if such Absolute Vacuum really existed, it would contradict Werner Heisenberg’s famous Principle of Uncertainty, the postulate and major basis of Quantum Mechanics.
Quantum mechanics, generally and simpler, is the physics of probabilities, in which there is no certainty as to the position and velocity of a particle, but a measure of probabilities of finding the particle in a given position and at a given velocity.
The Principle of Uncertainty of the Physicist Werner Heisenberg, emphasizes mathematically this idea, in which it is impossible to simultaneously determine with infinite acuity the position and velocity of a particle. The more precisely the position is determined, the less speed is determined, and vice versa.
This is because when we need to determine the position and velocity of a particle, we need to focus light on it. This light has a certain frequency and consequently a given energy. Thus, the position and / or velocity of a particle are altered according to the frequency and energy of the light used to observe them. That is why the more you determine one thing, the more indeterminate another and vice versa. This depends on the frequency and energy of the light used for observation.
The typical example is of the two uncharged conductive plates in a vacuum, placed a few nanometers apart. In a classical description, the lack of an external field means that there is no field between the plates, and no force would be measured between them. When this field is instead studied using the quantum electrodynamic vacuum, it is seen that the plates do affect the virtual photons which constitute the field, and generate a net force – either an attraction or a repulsion depending on the specific arrangement of the two plates. Although the Casimir effect can be expressed in terms of virtual particles interacting with the objects, it is best described and more easily calculated in terms of the zero-point energy of a quantized field in the intervening space between the objects. This force has been measured and is a striking example of an effect captured formally by second quantization.
Contrary to what is commonly understood, the vacuum is full of potential particles, virtual matter pairs and antimatter, which are constantly being created and destroyed. They do not exist as observable entities, but they exert pressure on other particles (Casimir effect).
The creation of virtual particle pairs does not violate the law of conservation of mass / energy because they exist in very small time intervals, much smaller than Planck’s time (10 ^ -44s), so that they do not impact the laws macroscopic.
The quantum vacuum is the lowest state of energy known in the universe (rather than the absolute zero).
Visualizations of Quantum Chromodynamics
The animations above illustrate the typical four-dimensional structure of gluon-field configurations averaged over in describing the vacuum properties of QCD. The volume of the box is 2.4 by 2.4 by 3.6 fm, big enough to hold a couple of protons. Contrary to the concept of an empty vacuum, QCD induces chromo-electric and chromo-magnetic fields throughout space-time in its lowest energy state. After a few sweeps of smoothing the gluon field (50 sweeps of APE smearing), a lumpy structure reminiscent of a lava lamp is revealed. This is the QCD Lava Lamp. The action density (top) and the topological charge density (below) are displayed. The former is similar to an energy density while the latter is a measure of the winding of the gluon field lines in the QCD vacuum.
This animation shows the suppression of the QCD vacuum from the region between a quark-antiquark pair illustrated by the coloured spheres. The separation of the quarks varies from 0.125 fm to 2.25 fm, the latter being about 1.3 times the diameter of a proton. The surface plot illustrates the reduction of the vacuum action density in a plane passing through the centers of the quark-antiquark pair. The vector field illustrates the gradient of this reduction. The tube joining the two quarks reveals the positions in space where the vacuum action is maximally expelled and corresponds to the famous “flux tube” of QCD. As the separation between the quarks changes the tube gets longer but the diameter remains approximately constant. As it costs energy to expel the vacuum field fluctuations, a linear confinement potential is felt between quarks.
The manner in which QCD vacuum fluctuations are expelled from the interior region of a baryon like the proton is animated at above. The positions of the three quarks composing the proton are illustrated by the coloured spheres. The surface plot illustrates the reduction of the vacuum action density in a plane passing through the centers of the quarks. The vector field illustrates the gradient of this reduction. The positions in space where the vacuum action is maximally expelled from the interior of the proton are also illustrated by the tube-like structures, exposing the presence of flux tubes. A key point of interest is the distance at which the flux-tube formation occurs. The animation indicates that the transition to flux-tube formation occurs when the distance of the quarks from the centre of the triangle (< r >) is greater than 0.5 fm. Again, the diameter of the flux tubes remains approximately constant as the quarks move to large separations. As it costs energy to expel the vacuum field fluctuations, a linear confinement potential is felt between quarks in baryons as well as mesons.
Comet PanSTARRS is near the Edge : The comet PanSTARRS, also known as the blue comet (C/2016 R2), really is near the lower left edge of this stunning, wide field view recorded on January 13. Spanning nearly 20 degrees on the sky, the cosmic landscape is explored by well-exposed and processed frames from a sensitive digital camera. It consists of colorful clouds and dusty dark nebulae otherwise too faint for your eye to see, though. At top right, the California Nebula (aka NGC 1499) does have a familiar shape. Its coastline is over 60 light-years long and lies some 1,500 light-years away. The nebula’s pronounced reddish glow is from hydrogen atoms ionized by luminous blue star Xi Persei just below it. Near bottom center, the famous Pleiades star cluster is some 400 light-years distant and around 15 light-years across. Its spectacular blue color is due to the reflection of starlight by interstellar dust. In between are hot stars of the Perseus OB2 association and dusty, dark nebulae along the edge of the nearby, massive Taurus and Perseus molecular clouds. Emission from unusually abundant ionized carbon monoxide (CO+) molecules fluorescing in sunlight is largely responsible for the telltale blue tint of the remarkable comet’s tail. The comet was about 17 light minutes from Earth. via NASA
Sunday School is a content agency born in Toronto, with a global perspective to develop influential campaigns while bringing together a community of evolving creatives. We do all sorts of work, and would love to connect with you!
Okay here’s my attempt on generalizing the types of time travels stories I’ve encountered so far. There are many more variations and types I have in mind but was too lazy to actually make them into this comic!
The 6th type is my take on TIME TRAVEL. I’ve explained in very short but there’s much more I’ve thought about. Will explore that in next comics.
Indulge in the realms of vivid science and science fiction blended with subtle philosophical attributions and a tinge of savoury humour with @spacetime-reveries.
signed with the monogram (lower left); titled, dated 1928, inscribed with the measurements and numbered 424 on the reverse oil on canvas 100 by 76cm. 39 3/8 by 29 7/8 in.
According to tradition, the island was considered one of the burial places of Osiris, was therefore considered a sacred place; In fact it was considered sacrilegious to get close to anyone who was not a priest. The most important temple is the temple of Isis, built in the Ptolemaic period, dominating the whole island and was the main center of the cult of Isis.
In this structure they were joined by two other temples dedicated to the gods Horus and Hathor, so that File, in the second century BC, became one of the most important pilgrimage sites of Ancient Egypt.
The temples were closed in the VI century A.D. by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.
Titan is primarily composed of water ice and rocky material. Much as with Venus before the Space Age, the dense opaque atmosphere prevented understanding of Titan’s surface until new information from the Cassini–Huygens mission in 2004, including the discovery of liquid hydrocarbon lakes in Titan’s polar regions. The geologically young surface is generally smooth, with few impact craters, although mountains and several possible cryovolcanoes have been found.
The atmosphere of Titan is largely nitrogen; minor components lead to the formation of methane and ethane clouds and nitrogen-rich organic smog. The climate—including wind and rain—creates surface features similar to those of Earth, such as dunes, rivers, lakes, seas (probably of liquid methane and ethane), and deltas, and is dominated by seasonal weather patterns as on Earth. With its liquids (both surface and subsurface) and robust nitrogen atmosphere, Titan’s methane cycle is analogous to Earth’s water cycle, at the much lower temperature of about 94 K (−179.2 °C).
“Val puts on her gloves, cuff on her forearm, boots, and breastplate. She grabs her Dragonfang sword and puts it at her side. Val mans the Blaster, and we see that she’s changed into the CLASSIC WHITE & GOLD VALKYRIE ARMOR (Thor’s gift). Bad ass.” — Thor: Ragnarok Script
The royal woman represented here cannot be identified with certainty. It is difficult to imagine that the already aged Queen Tiye—the mother of Akhenaten and highly respected as a wise woman at Amarna—was shown as a beauty of such sensuous character. Queens Nefertiti and Kiya, however, are both possible subjects.
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty,
Amarna Period, reign of Akhenaten, ca. 1353-1336 BC.
Yellow jasper, from Tell el-Amarna (Akhetaten).
Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 26.7.1396
