Localized Bubbles of Spacetime Curvature May Also Explain Undecided Voters

Our guest columnist is theoretical physicist Ben Tippett.

In 1928, the late Francis Wayland Thurston published a scandalous manuscript in purport of warning the world of a global conspiracy of occultists. Among the documents he gathered to support his thesis was the personal account of a sailor by the name of Gustaf Johansen, describing an encounter with an extraordinary island. Johansen’s descriptions of his adventures upon the island are fantastic, and are often considered the most enigmatic (and therefore the highlight) of Thurston’s collection of documents.

We contend that all of the credible phenomena which Johansen described may be explained as being the observable consequences of a localized bubble of spacetime curvature. Many of his most incomprehensible statements (involving the geometry of the architecture, and variability of the location of the horizon) can therefore be said to have a unified underlying cause.

We propose a simplified example of such a geometry, and show using numerical computation that Johansen’s descriptions were, for the most part, not simply the ravings of a lunatic. Rather, they are the nontechnical observations of an intelligent man who did not understand how to describe what he was seeing. Conversely, it seems to us improbable that Johansen should have unwittingly given such a precise description of the consequences of spacetime curvature, if the details of this story were merely the dregs of some half remembered fever dream.

We calculate the type of matter which would be required to generate such exotic spacetime curvature. Unfortunately, we determine that the required matter is quite unphysical, and possess a nature which is entirely alien to all of the experiences of human science. Indeed, any civilization with mastery over such matter would be able to construct warp drives, cloaking devices, and other exotic geometries required to conveniently travel through the cosmos.

Comments: 13 pages, 10 figures. Before you charter a boat, please look up the collected works of HP Lovecraft

Possible Bubbles of Spacetime Curvature in the South Pacific [Cornell]

nojo
2:11 pm • Wednesday • October 31, 2012
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9 Comments

Beggars Biscuit

3:09 pm • Wednesday • October 31, 2012

Is this before or after John Locke dies and comes back as John Locke (except he’s not, he’s the Smoke Monster because, well – why not?), on Lost? Because I’m stuck somewhere in that season.

Benedick

4:15 pm • Wednesday • October 31, 2012

Ha ha. Spooque. Why did I read it as Spooge?

Yes, I’m back. Power came on a short while ago. So did the septic alarm. We did pretty well. Irene was much worse here. The city looks terrible but Bloomberg is on TV doing Jimmy Cagney impressions.

iPhone was a lifesaver. God bless Steve Jobs. Though I imagine the management upside isn’t thrilled to have him. No doubt he’s up there bitching about crappy design and blah marketing. “Arriving at the Pearly Gates should be an event.”

Dodgerblue

4:39 pm • Wednesday • October 31, 2012

@Benedick: “Who designed these fucking robes? Where is the iPhone pocket?”

Tommmcatt May Just Have Some MJ In His System As Well, So What?

4:41 pm • Wednesday • October 31, 2012

@Dodgerblue: “What do you mean you can only get Starbucks in hell?”

SanFranLefty

5:59 pm • Wednesday • October 31, 2012

@Tommmcatt May Just Have Some MJ In His System As Well, So What?: Steve Jobs was a Peet’s guy all the way, judging from the number of times he was spotted at the Shallow Alto Peet’s on the corner of El Camino Real and Embarcadero Rd across the street from Paly High and Stanford. Hell, I spotted him there a few times after my weekend soccer games. All the locals would be cool and pretend not to notice, a la folks in WeHo when some actress walks by at the Whole Paycheck.

JNOV

8:19 pm • Wednesday • October 31, 2012

Or watch six years of LOST.

8:24 pm • Wednesday • October 31, 2012

Do these fuckers charge to read palms?

I’ll wait until Brian Greene ~~is sober~~ comments on this, what, abstract? Journal article? Then we’ll know how batshit he is.

nojo

8:52 pm • Wednesday • October 31, 2012

@JNOV: Abstract. Dude (recently a postdoc in Canadiastan) also evaluated Superman’s powers a couple years back.

9:54 pm • Wednesday • October 31, 2012

@nojo: Yeah — I downloaded the paper and decided I’d rather be stung by a swarm of pissed off bees. Sent out an SOS to Greene on the twitters. First time I’ve been on in awhile.

ADD: Oh! A Canuck? That explains it.

Localized Bubbles of Spacetime Curvature May Also Explain Undecided Voters

Possible Bubbles of Spacetime Curvature in the South Pacific [Cornell]

Odorama

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