59 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
59 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
+============================+
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| ~1.64 Ms |
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+============================+
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+---------------+
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Subject: Language
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+---------------+
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I have had time to reflect since my introduction on the QEC. I have been
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able to reflect more on other posts, and to train myself and my
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translation program to write more naturally in this galactic dialect.
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+-----------------------+
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Subject: A Matter of Time
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+-----------------------+
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It is difficult to truly grasp the way time dilates on a galactic scale.
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I'm sure the relative speed of my ship to whatever solar structure
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houses the QEC alone presents a divide that the human mind would find
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difficult to understand, let alone the effects of the QEC itself on
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time for each message.
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I know I am not alone in my confusion. Since my last correspondance, I
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have had time to read more of the plethora of messages stored on the
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QEC. Some messages seem to be sent in quick succession, while some seem
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to have been sent out years apart.
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Even if I could know that my time is perception of time is relatively
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consistant with an arbitrary reader, there would be no way of knowing
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where said observer exists, or if they would use the same standards of
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time. From studies of histories stored on our ship, it seems that humans
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have struggled to agree on a standard unit for telling time even
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pre-diaspora.
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I have thus decided that the best way to provide temporal context to my
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messages is to use a (hopefully) universal unit: seconds. Even if it is
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not used in common speech today, the concept is likely accessible in a
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linguistic database, or at least in a computer manual.
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That being said, Seconds need to measure from a specific and a shared
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reference time. This is harder than it may seem. Seconds from a
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specific Earth event would require intact records of Earth, which may
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not be universally available (I know that my ship contains very little
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verifiable information on Earth- digital data from that era is subject
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to degredation). Seconds based on galactic events may quickly become too
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large-scale to have much meaning to human life.
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The best solution, in the end, was to measure time from when I sent my
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first message on the QEC. It will have less meaning for readers when
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compared with their own time, but will provide more context when
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compared with events aboard my ship.
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For example, this communication was sent out ~1.64 Ms after my first
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communication. That is 1640000 seconds. More precision will be used if
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necessary, but too much precision again approaches irrelivance. For
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context, should your culture still use any of the old Terran metrics, an
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Earth day was a little under 76001 seconds (if our records of Earth are
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to be believed).
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