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Author Topic:   Hollow Earth Expedition?
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 61 of 177 (702440)
07-05-2013 11:53 PM
Reply to: Message 58 by yenmor
07-05-2013 9:15 PM


You guys have spent years dealing with pseudoscience, and now you're telling me you can't think of a single pseudoscientific principal to help me out?
I'm saying I can't think of a scientific principle explaining the expansion of planets. I can think of plenty of pseudoscientific principles. It's caused by higher vibrational quantum energies in the cosmic flux. There you go. That's a pseudoscientific explanation for the expansion of planets. It's also a pseudoscientific explanation for crop circles, how dowsers find water, and why crystal healing works. The only problem with it is that if you put that at the end of a sci-fi novel as your explanation for why the Earth is expanding then you will be lynched by an infuriated mob of science-fiction fans, and rightly so.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 62 of 177 (702441)
07-06-2013 12:36 AM
Reply to: Message 59 by Coyote
07-05-2013 9:29 PM


Re: Science fiction...
Readers will forgive these extrapolations if the other science is sound and it is introduced in a plausible manner.
But too much of that and you end up writing fantasy whether you meant to or not.
I don't think either the quantity of these things or their plausibility (based on current) is really an issue. It's a question of the role they play in the story. An FTL drive is usually absolutely fine, its capacities and limitations are laid out at the start of the story. The same with telepathy, teleportation, whatever you like: it's OK so long as the author lays his cards on the table near the beginning, and anything the technology does subsequently can be logically inferred from the premises.

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yenmor
Member (Idle past 3655 days)
Posts: 145
Joined: 07-01-2013


Message 63 of 177 (702443)
07-06-2013 12:59 AM
Reply to: Message 62 by Dr Adequate
07-06-2013 12:36 AM


Re: Science fiction...
You suggesting I lay out the "principles" of planetary expansion and hollowing at the beginning of the novel?

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 64 of 177 (702444)
07-06-2013 3:09 AM
Reply to: Message 63 by yenmor
07-06-2013 12:59 AM


Re: Science fiction...
You suggesting I lay out the "principles" of planetary expansion and hollowing at the beginning of the novel?
No, 'cos you don't actually have any principles. No good science fiction writer explains how a matter transmuter works either, 'cos they can't, 'cos it doesn't. (And even if they could and it did, it wouldn't improve the novel to do so --- no-one's ever spent a chapter of a novel set in modern America explaining how a television or a computer works. The fact that most of the readers have no idea is not a problem.)
Now any principles you came up with couldn't be hard science, they'd have to be technobabble of the reverse-the-polarity-of-the-neutron-flow type. As such, they'd be a waste of time.
Therefore, I suggest that you leave the mechanism unexplained. After all, many phenomena have been discovered prior, in some cases millennia prior, to anything remotely approaching a good theoretical explanation. You can have your expanding planets thing be one of those.
However, if you do that, you'll have to be very careful that the reader knows not to expect an explanation in terms either of hard science or anything you've put on the table early in the novel and therefore might serve as the basis for a legitimate explanation at the end of it. If they're expecting a good explanation, they'll feel disappointed.
I couldn't really advise you further without knowing more about the plot. I feel, however, that this is the sort of thing that is going to be hard to do. Science fiction has its own uncanny valley: I can read with pleasure a balls-out space opera with FTL travel, telepathy, and teleportation, and then have conniptions over a book where someone sliding down a zip line ends up going both higher and faster than they started out.

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Stile
Member
Posts: 4295
From: Ontario, Canada
Joined: 12-02-2004


Message 65 of 177 (702511)
07-08-2013 1:03 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by yenmor
07-05-2013 4:20 PM


Re: Hollow Man
yenmor writes:
I have a very interesting idea for a science fiction novel that I plan to work on. And I was hoping to get some more info on the subject or perhaps some insight.
Well, now that makes a lot more sense. It might have been easier to just say this in the beginning.
How can worlds grow and expand and leave a hollow centre?
I agree with everyone here that you won't get an "ordinary" scientific explanation 'cause they don't do that.
This, of course, leaves us with plenty of extraordinary avenues.
You could make-up how planets, themselves, are living creatures. Living creatures that feed on solar energy and have a symbiotic relationship with all the organisms that live upon them.
These planetary-organisms would have evolved in a much different path from the creatures that evolved on them.
Because of those differences... the definition of "life" that they fall within is a bit different from the one we're used to...
And they wouldn't so much be like animals (with brains) as they would be similar to plants (in the sense of just growing and living)...
During the course of their "life"-cycle, planets grow and develop a hollow core as they attempt to increase their surface area for feeding off the sun (moving as much of their mass as possible to the surface).
In order for this (or any other explanation) to work, you'd have to ignore certain scientific findings, though.
You would replace these ignored-findings with your other imaginary observations... such as discovering other (all?) planets also having these hollow cores. You might be able to get away with saying that earth is so small that it only recently reached the point where it started having a hollow core as well...
Or something like that, anyway.

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ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 66 of 177 (702515)
07-08-2013 1:47 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Stile
07-08-2013 1:03 PM


Re: Hollow Man
Stile writes:
You could make-up how planets, themselves, are living creatures.
It's been done, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in When the World Screamed.

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Colbard
Member (Idle past 3391 days)
Posts: 300
From: Australia
Joined: 08-31-2014


Message 67 of 177 (736060)
09-01-2014 4:12 AM


Not hollow, but...
In Isaiah 31:37 KJV Bible, It is claimed by God that the foundations of the earth cannot be searched out. Check out Proverbs 25:3 as well.
Having said that God also says what the earth is made of etc, in many other places in the KJV. and includes a knowledge of how matter exists, and all the functions of nature we observe from the weather to the universe, and how it operates as well.
What do you think might be the reason the interior of the earth cannot be discovered?

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22389
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 68 of 177 (736067)
09-01-2014 8:08 AM
Reply to: Message 67 by Colbard
09-01-2014 4:12 AM


Re: Not hollow, but...
Colbard writes:
In Isaiah 31:37 KJV Bible, It is claimed by God that the foundations of the earth cannot be searched out. Check out Proverbs 25:3 as well.
There is no Isaiah 31:37, while Proverbs 25:3 says, "The heaven for height, and the earth for depth, and the heart of kings is unsearchable." It seems to be saying that we cannot find the height of the heavens or the depth of the Earth. The height of the heavens is meaningless, while we of course know the radius of the Earth fairly precisely.
What do you think might be the reason the interior of the earth cannot be discovered?
I'm not sure what you mean when you say the Earth's interior "cannot be discovered." If you mean that it can't be scientifically studied, then of course that is wrong. If you mean we can't visit the Earth's interior ourselves to study it in person, then this is true beyond a depth of a few miles, and the reason is due to practical constraints having to do with increasing temperatures and with the difficulties of maintaining a shaft that deep.
--Percy

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 69 of 177 (736070)
09-01-2014 1:10 PM
Reply to: Message 67 by Colbard
09-01-2014 4:12 AM


Re: Not hollow, but...
Having said that God also says what the earth is made of etc, in many other places in the KJV. and includes a knowledge of how matter exists, and all the functions of nature we observe from the weather to the universe, and how it operates as well.
How about some example verses?

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

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Colbard
Member (Idle past 3391 days)
Posts: 300
From: Australia
Joined: 08-31-2014


Message 70 of 177 (736090)
09-02-2014 6:15 AM
Reply to: Message 68 by Percy
09-01-2014 8:08 AM


Re: Not hollow, but...
Sorry about that, it was supposed to be Jeremiah 31:37, not Isaiah.
When I read these texts for the first time I had the same response as you.
God does not say in other places, that we cannot know or understand what is in the earth, but that it cannot be discovered.
I was reading about all those efforts to drill through the crust, and yes as you said the pressure and heat down there...
But somehow I am pretty sure we can drill through, its just a matter of time and technology.
The anticipation ranges from just another day on the drill rig to there is something weird down there.
Remember people had the same reactions before the sound barrier was broken in an aircraft.

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Colbard
Member (Idle past 3391 days)
Posts: 300
From: Australia
Joined: 08-31-2014


Message 71 of 177 (736091)
09-02-2014 6:44 AM
Reply to: Message 69 by NoNukes
09-01-2014 1:10 PM


Re: Not hollow, but...
Just a couple of texts in regards to the earth, God asks Job a lot of questions about the foundations of the earth. Job 38. A second look at these texts shows the answers in each question.
The concepts are derivatives or expansions of Genesis 1.
Most people think the earth was there, on the first day of creation, but Moses records that God declares the earth "appearing" on the third day.
Before that, we have the waters and the light.
So depending on what we think the Bible says about these two elements, may determine what the earth is founded on, and why some people in the 1800's, jumped to the misdirected conclusion that the earth is hollow. From there on fantasies entered, even from the pulpit... as you know. But the Bible has something else to present, that is scientific rather than mythical.

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Pressie
Member
Posts: 2103
From: Pretoria, SA
Joined: 06-18-2010


Message 72 of 177 (736092)
09-02-2014 7:00 AM
Reply to: Message 70 by Colbard
09-02-2014 6:15 AM


Re: Not hollow, but...
Jeremiah 31:37 (KJV)-
Thus saith the Lord; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.-
Your response doesn't make any sense.

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 73 of 177 (736094)
09-02-2014 9:36 AM
Reply to: Message 71 by Colbard
09-02-2014 6:44 AM


Re: Not hollow, but...
From there on fantasies entered, even from the pulpit...
Not to pick on you from the start, Colbard, but I don't think "even" belongs in there.
Job chapter 38 is some beautiful poetic language, at least in the KJV, but "scientific?" I think not. If you can develop a case that it is, I will cheerfully read on.

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 74 of 177 (736101)
09-02-2014 1:38 PM
Reply to: Message 71 by Colbard
09-02-2014 6:44 AM


Re: Not hollow, but...
Before I engage the supposed examples you provided, I have to complain about the bait and switch. Here is the previous discussion and my request for example verses.
Colbard writes:
Having said that God also says what the earth is made of etc, in many other places in the KJV. and includes a knowledge of how matter exists, and all the functions of nature we observe from the weather to the universe, and how it operates as well.
NoNukes writes:
How about some example verses?
Your examples don't touch on any of the stuff you promised.
Now about the particular bit of science you offered.
Most people think the earth was there, on the first day of creation, but Moses records that God declares the earth "appearing" on the third day.
This is hardly any science here. Instead there is a questionable bit of interpretation that would intended to correct other Bible interpretations. And then what about the third day stuff which regardless of whether the earth was present at the beginning, places the creation of the earth prior to the creation of the sun, moon, and stars on Day 4.
So depending on what we think the Bible says about these two elements, may determine what the earth is founded on, and why some people in the 1800's, jumped to the misdirected conclusion that the earth is hollow
Your statement here is nonsense. Nothing in the first few chapters of Genesis either requires or rejects a hollow earth.
As usual, claims that the Bible is a scientific text book turn out to be akin to numerology.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 71 by Colbard, posted 09-02-2014 6:44 AM Colbard has seen this message but not replied

  
Colbard
Member (Idle past 3391 days)
Posts: 300
From: Australia
Joined: 08-31-2014


Message 75 of 177 (736112)
09-03-2014 6:57 AM


Job 38, talks about the foundations of the earth, what the earth is founded on, that is, whatever is under it.
And because the earth is a sphere, the texts are talking about what is in the earth, as well as the creative processes involved.
To provide info on the related topics would take weeks and months on the forum, however you don't need me to do that for you once you understand a couple of basics. In regards to the hollow earth, I said that the concept was a mistaken one, so you don't have to try and tie it in with the creation story.
Edited by Colbard, : Add text

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