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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: Perplex City » PXC: General/Updates
[UPDATE] The Path of Least Time - August 31
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step
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Joined: 24 Jan 2005
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Location: Boston-ish

 		[UPDATE] The Path of Least Time - August 31
Quote:
The Cube
Wednesday, August 31 2005, 10:51 AM

I dropped by one of the Cube research labs today as part of an interdepartmental 'mixing' exercise, in which we are supposed to learn all sorts of new insights from wildly different areas. For example, in my case, it would be wonderful (for the organisers of this exercise) if I managed to figure out some amazing new way of programming search algorithms by talking to some post-Hausam art historian. Something like, "Ah, Malme's oil paintings of the Mazy riverbanks are obviously a metaphor for the fractal interface between information and entropy within a tiered dataset! Now I can make a programme that's 200% faster!"

Or vice versa. To be honest I don't see it working out that well, but it's a good excuse to take a break from the CRT Special Projects division once in a while. In the case of the Cube research labs, which in practice comprise several different research groups in various buildings, it's a bit more relevant to what I'm doing.

The guys there told me about their efforts to track down the Cube remotely, from Perplex City. While they've been able to narrow down the Cube's location to the surface of Earth, through some intricacies of theoretical physics that I don't understand, they can't really pinpoint it any further.

"Why not?" I asked.

"OK, so. See. We know the Cube is made of a very peculiar material that-" began the Fellow in charge of that group.

"Yeah yeah yeah, I know, you can track it. Some sort of dual method of tracking the natural electromagnetic radiation from the Cube, and also sending out a pulse to make it resonate," I interrupted quickly.

"Right. So, obviously you know how the anti-theft systems are supposed to work. But no-one ever thought the Cube would leave this planet, never mind the solar system," he continued. I nodded along to this pretty reasonable assumption. "We, uh, have access to a number of tracking stations on the ground and elsewhere that can triangulate the Cube's location to anywhere on this planet, even thousands of metres underground."

"Well, come on, surely you would've noticed it moving long before then - tracking it kilometers below the surface is a bit of overkill," I said.

The fellow, a thin middle-aged guy called Boardman, laughed shortly. "True, but for the Cube, you can never be too careful, as recent events have shown. Anyway, the tracking stations aren't solely for the Cube, they perform other research, that's why they have those capabilities. In theory, we could track the Cube all the way out into space."

"So, if someone managed to steal the Cube, load it onto a spacecraft, avoid the air surveillance network, reach escape velocity and then fly away, you'd know exactly where it was," I replied.

"Absolutely," said Boardman, oblivious to my sarcasm. "In any case, the Cube isn't anywhere nearby, that's for sure. One of the first things we did when the Cube went missing was to turn up the power on the tracking stations, and we just didn't find anything. One minute it was here, the next it'd gone."

"I wonder..." I said slowly, while watching the interestingly shiny hologram of the missing Cube spin around in front of me, throwing off reflections. "I wonder, wouldn't it be possible to cloak the Cube, maybe in a Faraday cage*, to prevent EM radiation?" I ventured.

(*I didn't actually say Faraday cage, because obviously most people in Perplex City don't know who Michael Faraday is. But you get what I mean - an RF shield - basically a box made of metal.)

"Right, yes, that was one of the first possibilities we, uh, thought about. But the Cube emits neutrinos, or at least appears to, so..."

Boardman carried on for a while, but I could see where this was heading. Neutrinos can penetrate through pretty much any substance; you'd need on the order of a light year of lead to form a decent barrier, and suffice to say, Perplex City hadn't noticed any light-year blocks of lead lying around.

"...just not plausible," he finished abruptly. He joined me in gazing at the hologram of the Cube, which hovered above a rather messy meeting table in the centre of the room, on top of which was what appeared to be several days worth of junk food and one forlorn apple. It must be pretty depressing to work in a Cube research lab with no real Cube to study.

The Cube has been such a constant presence in the Academy and Perplex City that we tend to forget it's actually there. I'd be surprised if there was a single person in the city who hadn't visited the museum and seen it with their own eyes, but for most people, one visit was enough; they were just happy to know where it was, and of course, they could always see it again later. It wasn't, they thought, as if it was going anywhere.

I've heard it's the same with your artefacts. Take the Rosetta Stone, for example. I'm sure that most people in London have seen it and looked at the hieroglyphs on it (I'd certainly love to look at it) and taken pictures over the heads of other people crowding around. But ultimately, once is enough - despite their importance, hardly anyone understands the symbols and and most people aren't particularly interested in learning. And after all, it'll always be there.

The difference with the Cube, however, is that it's still a mystery to us. We don't know its exact origins, or why it was made, or even what it's for. Oh, we know a little about what it can do, which is often baffling and incredible. That's partly why we want it back so much. Not only is it part of our history, it's a scientific enigma, one of the greatest puzzles of all. And now it's gone, maybe forever, and now people are suddenly feeling the loss of something they'd always thought would never leave.

"Uh, so Kurt, how is the search for the Cube going?" Boardman asked, pulling his gaze away from the phantom.

I smiled painfully. This is a question I never like answering. "It's coming along fine. We're working hard, just as you might expect with Sente and the rest of the city pushing us, and we have a few ideas. Nothing that I can reveal, unfortunately, but things are going well. The people on Earth seem reasonably interested in the search but we've still got more to do on that front."

The fellow nodded along, clearly a little disappointed but not surprised. He changed the subject rapidly, sensing my unease. "So, you know, I remember when we first figured out the Cube was on Earth. It must've been about a couple of weeks after it went missing, and we'd already tried everything obvious - and a bunch of stuff that was plain crazy. When someone suggested hooking up the EM search algorithms to the Earth stream, most people thought that was crazy as well - the processing time required to crunch through that much data was huge - but it paid off. Hah! Didn't help us too much though, what with the stream being non-local. We couldn't even tell which side of Earth the Cube was on. At the time we thought it could've even been in orbit, or on the Moon... we've managed to eliminate those possibilities, at least."

I listened intently - I'd been in the Academy after the theft, just like all other essential staff, working pretty much 24 hours a day on helping other search efforts.

He went on. "We tried to pinpoint it further, but the stream just doesn't permit that kind of information - it would take too long to explain, but there's no way of pulling it out, not with what we're receiving right now. I suppose that answers your original question." Boardman paused to scratch his nose. "Anyway, we were all exhausted by then, but happy to know that the Cube was somewhere, if not anywhere we could get at it. I can't imagine what it would've been like if we had no idea where it was. And now you guys are taking the lead."

This was my cue to talk. "Yeah..." I said, quietly. The first few months after the Cube Retrieval Team was assembled was the hardest I'd ever worked. Sente had to order people to take breaks, and there was more than a few cases of nervous breakdowns from the pressure. The amount of cognitive enhancers used by some of the team had been well beyond the recommended limit.

I looked back to the phantom Cube. "We'll find it," I said. "We have to find it."

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PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 7:42 am
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sledgecallier
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Joined: 19 May 2005
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 		Some interesting hints and clues here without anything specific being said. (Although I guess we know we won't be needing to hitch a ride on the next moon shot to locate the cube Smile )
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 9:54 am
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Jakeo
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Joined: 30 Aug 2005
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 		Rosetta Stone
While I'm sure that anyone with even a passing interesting in crytography is already fully aware of the significance of the Rosetta stone, for those of you that aren't

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_stone

Its especially significant because it provided a way to translate Ancient Egyptian Hieroglpyhs into Ancient Greek. As far as I am aware, prior to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone no one could translate the hieroglyphs.

So what does this mean? I don't know, I'm just punting out ideas. Smile

PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 10:18 am
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doctorclark
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Joined: 03 Aug 2005
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Quote:
When someone suggested hooking up the EM search algorithms to the Earth stream, most people thought that was crazy as well - the processing time required to crunch through that much data was huge - but it paid off. Hah! Didn't help us too much though, what with the stream being non-local.


Is there anything we could do on Earth to pinpoint the Cube's location? Certainly we would have comparable "EM search algorithms" or other such sensors. Could we give them a "local stream?"

What should we ask Kurt?
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 11:09 am
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Scott
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 		i genuinely love reading anything by kurt! he's so fFriendly and informative! even when he's not telling us anything directly, he's a joy to read.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 6:37 pm
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Mikeyj
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 		I don't think there's much point trying to detect neutrinos...might be beyond us http://tinyurl.com/7e5dj also, the cube would have to be an extremely large source of neutrinos for it to be noticed amongst the background, making the Faraday cage idea even less useful. I don't quite understand the "or at least seems to".

So we need a nice EM pulse and a way of detecting the resonance...piece of cake Cool ... Confused
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 7:46 am
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perplexed
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 		all we need is access to say..... all of americas nukes, and then we fire them at evenly spaced points, high up in the atmosphere all over the world, so as to make sure every where gets the em pulse and then we can detect the resonance with giant electromagnets, which will induce the current from the emp... or something like that. Physics isnt my strong point Smile
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'take not my words as sacred, for in the Cube alone lies the power and each man must seek it for himself.' - Gyvaan
perplexed, moi? Definitely Razz

PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 8:16 am
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mattyb
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Joined: 25 Aug 2005
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 		Hi guys! New to all this, so be gentle...

Do you think the Reynolds Ioniser and the Klebold plates that were found in the Five of Cups could have been used to cloak the Cube?

Just an idea... Smile

PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 5:41 pm
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sledgecallier
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 		Anything's possible. From what I recall (and it's late, so forgive me if I get this the wrong way around) the Klebold plates are used to scan 3D objects to a great level of detail. (Down to the atomic or sub-atomic level even??) The use for the Reynolds Ioniser is a little more hazy but I guess could be used to mask or cloak something. However we know that the Cube gives off neutrino radiation so I doubt ionisation would do the trick? But then I failed A-Level physics so I could be wrong about that..? Smile
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 9:07 pm
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Talos D'Loristo
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Joined: 27 Aug 2005
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 		So if anyone remembers the old "TRON" movie or have checked out the xbox game "Tron 2.0" before you're made into a program they scan everything of you... the plot line has all the details.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 11:09 pm
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Mikeyj
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Joined: 18 Oct 2004
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mattyb wrote:
Hi guys! New to all this, so be gentle...

Do you think the Reynolds Ioniser and the Klebold plates that were found in the Five of Cups could have been used to cloak the Cube?

Just an idea... Smile


IMO I reckon it's more likely that they were used to transport the cube...unless this really is impossible and they were used to transmit an image/copy of the cube to Earth and the real thing remains disguised in PXC...spec hyperbole Jetpack !
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 12:10 pm
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sledgecallier
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 		This is one thing that has always bugged me about this storyline. Everyone in Perplex City is adamant that it is truely impossible to transmit physical objects from their domain to ours and yet they are more than ready to accept that the cube is on Earth? What gives?
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 03, 2005 6:01 am
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wiglaf
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sledgecallier wrote:
This is one thing that has always bugged me about this storyline. Everyone in Perplex City is adamant that it is truely impossible to transmit physical objects from their domain to ours and yet they are more than ready to accept that the cube is on Earth? What gives?



I think that (for most of them) it seems impossible to transport anything to Earth, and they wouldn't accept that it was possible except that however they are able to detect the cube has shown so conclusively that it is on the surface of the Earth

PostPosted: Sat Sep 03, 2005 6:17 pm
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Seej
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Joined: 30 Nov 2004
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 		Well, I don't know about you lot but I'm going to spend the next few weekends coiling lots and lots of copper wire as I produce an EMP generator (without the whole nasty business of resorting to nukes). Um, and a pulsed high-energy supply to power it. Anyone feel like going halves on the £2K or so that it'll all cost me? Wink

Or maybe I should just go sit in a deep mine in Kamioka with a big tank of purified water.....

PostPosted: Wed Sep 07, 2005 10:34 am
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