What can I say :)
I like physics?
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Shadow recoiled slightly, hearing the sudden intensity of Roland’s voice, suspecting his worst fear coming true. Trying to collect himself he turned to look out, slowly answering. “A thing unheard of that is, the dead coming back?” He looked around. “But where is she then Roland, where is our Merry?” As he saw Roland’s despairing gaze he found compassion battling against his resolve. He wanted no more than to make Roland heal but this was apparently not to be. The loss had to be acknowledged, first then a proper healing could begin.
Roland tried to clear his head as he listened to Shadows merciless questioning, dazedly trying to remember. “She came.” He repeated, slowly but doggedly. “She was real, but she was gone when I woke up?” He looked at Shadow askance. “How is that possible Shadow?”
His hands started to move, as of their own volition, twisting and gripping each other as he tried to make sense of his shattered memories. “I can’t understand, how I could forget it?” He mumbled incredulously. He stood up and unheeding of the sun, he started to restlessly pace back and forth. “I swear, it was real Shadow. She was really here, with me.” He stared at him, eyes filled with renewed hurt. “And it was no shaping of mine. But if I had, it couldn’t have been any more real.” Dizzy now, the line between dream and reality blurring, melting away in his need to convince himself. Shadow looked at him in pity. “Please Roland, why don’t you sit down? Walking won’t solve it, sit down friend and let me get us some tea.” Heavy of heart he watched his brother in arms sit down, forced to grow up all too fast, and now? Reduced to a mere child by memories he couldn’t make sense of.
“And you’re sure you saw her?” he asked, hating himself for asking, but needing a answer. As Roland looked him in the eyes nodding he knew. It had to be the soulthirster, but it made no sense, they didn’t share with humans? All the same he found himself without a choice, he would have to speak about it, He cleared his voice. “There are some things we haven’t talked about.” He started haltingly. “But, I think the need is upon us. We did have a visitor last night, but not as you think, not Merry.” Carefully observing him, weighting his friend fragility against his need to know, he could see how Roland drew back into himself, infinitesimally disappearing from a reality no longer wished for. At last Shadow made up his mind.
“You remember me speaking about the veil?” he asked. Watching Roland’s interest kindled he nodded, the boys curiosity growing against his will, his mind still meandering in the past. He remembered the veil. Shadow had indeed mentioned it now and again, but always kept it vague, as if there was a danger hiding in his allegations, something he was reluctant to share.
“I’ll start with explaining how I see it Roland. For me the veil is a living thing with us all shaping it, creating the interface we call reality. And your dreaming is just another way of way of talking with it, arranging its borders.” He stopped for an instant, looking around as if he saw something Roland couldn’t. “I know your elders had another view of it, and I’m not saying they're wrong. But the veil can be many things, holding many truths.”
“They never talked about any veil?” Roland interrupted, curious against his will. “They only talked about how life could spiral out, you know, changing with decisions.” Looking as if he had calmed down a little.
Shadow smiled fondly at his friend “So maybe they didn’t.” He agreed. “But life being what it is, most walks it with their eyes closed, having little thought for those things not needed.” He thought for a while. “Maybe we all do that to some degree?” Quietly reminiscent of his own choices for good or bad, or maybe it was them choosing him? The landscape, shimmering in a white almost bluish sheen in its heat, seemed to whisper to him again holding a threat in its eerie beauty. “You’re right though, we’re not what we think we are, and neither are we solely here.” He stopped talking, filling up his cup again reveling in its subtle fragrance. “The veil is what differ us from reality Roland.” He said as he tasted it. “Damn, too hot.” He muttered as he put it down.
Roland stared at him, trying to decide if he was serious “So this isn’t reality then?” He asked half jokingly half serious. Shadow smiled at him pleased with his attention. “Do you remember that old book your father used to read to you from?” he asked.
Roland nodded. ”Sure.” He answered, wiping his mouth clean from a too deep draught. “I loved that book.” Shadow smiled. “And do you remember how it discussed light? That no matter the motion of any object emanating light, the lights speed would always be the same, no matter from where you measured it?” Roland smiled back, his eyes losing some of their despondency. “Yes, we argued about that a lot.” He answered, remembering. “I still don’t believe it though.” He said as he shrugged his shoulders. “The faster that candle would travel, the faster the light it cast should be moving too, that’s only fair, isn’t it?”
“Well, then I’m afraid we disagree Roland. The speed of the candle have nothing to do with the speed of that light. I won’t go into the working of it, but as far as I know it’s true that light only have one speed, always the same, no matter if measured from the candle moving with it, or if measured by you standing still relative it.” Pointing to the sun he said. “See that sun Roland? If now all things move, our Earth as well as any other heavenly body.” Starting to draw a simple schematic in the sand as he spoke, making four straight lines in the sand, evenly spaced in a square, but slanted slightly to look at each other. “The ancient made some clever experiments, measuring the time it took for light bouncing between mirrors. To their surprise the experiment showed that, no matter the Earths speed, light always seemed to keep the exact same speed.”
He stopped to threw a speculatively glance at Roland watching him lean forward, almost bursting as he manfully held his silence. “Wait.” He said pleadingly, lifting his hands. “Give me some leeway here.” At that Roland sat back, relaxing again. “Think about it Roland.” He said pointing to the lines he had drawn. “Imagine that those was the mirrors, and that the furrows I drew was the light-corns bouncing between them.” He drew a circle around his drawing. “For our presentation this is Earth.” He said gravelly, then giving Roland a hasty smile. “Not to measurement, but still.” Roland smiled back, some of his hurt drifting away as he got lured deeper into their discussion. “If now our Earth has a motion, then it would stand to reason that the light would have a longer way to travel between some of those mirrors than between others wouldn’t it?”
Roland thought about it, still finding it hard to accept that light always would keep to the same speed. “You can imagine two mirrors instead, moving at high speed, but being still relative each other. Then imagine a light-corn bouncing between them with you sitting on one of the mirrors watching it. If now both light and mirrors moved together, would that light-corn take a longer time between the mirrors? Or do you think it would take the same?
Roland nodded thoughtfully, not sure if he really understood what Shadow meant, but willing to go along with it for the moment. Shadow stopped, waiting for an answer, but finding none forthcoming continued. “Well, that’s just another description of the same type of experiment. Anyway, what they found was that no matter how that mirror-pair moved, or the Earth, as it was in this case. The speed of light always would was the same, never changing. Wait, give me some time!” He called as he saw Roland open his mouth to protest. “So, what they had found was that lights speed was an invariable, unchanging, and having no relation to the speed of the object emanating it.”
He glanced down at the sea star lying forgotten at Roland’s feet. “They also realized something really strange coming from this fact, namely that distances and time would vary with the speed of your motion. And they tested it to be true too Roland, to the limit of their knowledge.” Now Roland was shaking his head, almost furiously as he started to argue. “That’s not possible.” He said as he eagerly leaned forward. “Time will always have the same speed, there is nowhere I age slower or faster.” Shadow smiled at him. “You’re right Roland.” He said. “From your frame of reference you will always age the same, and that my friend, that’s where the veil rests.” He enjoyed the incomprehension comfortably placing itself over his friends face for a moment before continuing. “Think Roland, if I’m correct, what does it make of time? And what does it say of distances, and about speed?”
He waited to let his friend collect his thoughts, as he did so he wiped out his drawing to make a new one. In that he only made two lines, parallel to each other. “Look at those Roland.” He said. “Imagine that this is two mirrors speeding away, almost as fast as light itself. One bright light-corn” Lifting up a sand corn in his palm. “bouncing between them. When that corn of light bounce from one mirror to the other, will the mirrors speed do anything to the distance between them?”
As Roland thought about it he realized that the faster the mirror-pairs motion would be, the longer the distance that the light-corn traveled between the mirrors would have to be too, as it would take a longer distance for it to reach that other side. “I think it would take longer?” He said hesitantly. “Are you sure?” Asked Shadow. “Now imagine that you’re sitting on one of the mirrors, moving with it in the blackness. Sitting there, only seeing the mirrors you will have no way to decide if you’re moving or not, there will be no acceleration and no other way to tell. Like when riding that steam train between your villages, when it moves smoothly you won’t feel it, will you? So imagine this the same, and if you now were looking at that mirror opposite you watching the light corn bounce from one mirror to the other, would you then expect it to slow down, taking more time?”
Roland suddenly realized what Shadow meant. If he was sitting there, on a mirror, it wouldn’t matter at all if they were moving or not, the distance between those mirrors would always be the same for him, and for the light-corn too. He shook his head confused. “It makes no sense.” He muttered. “Are you saying that if I move with the mirrors the distances will be shorter than if I’m standing still watching them.” Thinking some more he realized that not only would the distances be longer then, that light corn would also take more time bouncing from one mirror to the other. “How is that possible?” he asked helplessly. “That depending on from where I stand both distance and time change?”
“Yes, both do mark time, don’t they?” Shadow agreed, a little smugly. “Watching that light-corn move, like an invisible pendulum of light, swinging between your mirrors. One of the most intriguing ideas the ancient had was called the twin experiment. In it you had identical twins, one twin traveling to a sun far away almost at the speed of light, then coming back to Earth where his brother waited for him. If their ideas made sense the twin traveling would be younger than his brother. Think you can reason it out, using our mirrors?”
“Magic?” asked Roland feebly, in vain trying to make a joke of it. Then he sat still, once more thinking of those mirrors moving. “I think I see how that could be.” He said at last. “When I’m moving with those mirrors the distance will be the same as always, and so time too have to be the same for me. But if I was standing still, watching the mirrors speed away from me, that light-corn bouncing in-between would have show a longer distance, as it would have to cover the mirror-pairs combined distance in space, as well as the distance between the mirrors, and then traversing more space to reach that other side.”
He looked at Shadow, suddenly confused. “And if the light has a longer distance it also must take a longer time, as its speed never will differ from any spot measured, and that should mean?” He stared down at the sand as he tried to encompass his sudden understanding, then helplessly looking up. “That my time watching them move will go faster and their time slow down? But what would I experience when sitting on one of those mirrors watching?” He shook his head, in vain trying to clear his thoughts, protesting. “But that can’t be true Shadow? Why would time differ? I won’t notice any difference at all, will I? No matter where I was, on the mirror or standing still. Surely my time would flow the same?”
“So now you've meet the veil Roland.” Shadow said secretly proud over his adept. “Or at least one aspect of it. There are some things the ancients thought invariable, calling them invariants. One was the lights invariant speed in a nothing, or space, as they called it. Another was times invariant pace as measured from your own frame of reference. No matter where you are, your time will always tick the same, and that is as true as that lights speed always will be the same.” He let him be for a while, studying how the shadows grew, getting longer as the sun descended and then said as he leaned over to light the fire between them. “Now put those two together Roland, your own personal times invariance with the lights invariant speed, always the same no matter how you measure it, moving or still. “
Roland sat totally still, losing himself in his thoughts as the day quickly turned into dusk, testing Shadows premises in his mind. He could see how time and distance might vary, but it still made no sense. “But if there is no difference to be felt when moving with the mirrors, me being still, watching them move away, how can I be sure what it is moving?” he asked. “If I had two pairs of mirrors Shadow, one being the one we said was moving, the other being the pair we said being still, and both pairs having their own light corn bouncing.” He stopped, carefully thinking it over again. ”Wouldn’t I see the exact same, looking back at the mirror-pair we first defined as being still Shadow? I mean, if I can’t tell if my mirror is moving or not, while sitting on it, what stops me from saying that it is the other mirror moving? And then that should show that light corn slowing, shouldn’t it?”
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