Victor Grippi – The Atomic Writer

Hello Readers,

Amazon is pairing Stephen Hawking’s book, A Briefer History of Time, with The Ninth Cube for the month of November. Readers will have the opportunity to purchase both books at a cost savings and can do so with a single click.

Available with The Ninth Cube on Amazon

I am very excited about the opportunity for readers who may not have heard about The Ninth Cube and the Timeline Trilogy to be exposed to it through this partnership. It’s hard to get the word out in today’s crowded and heavily saturated book market, and Amazon is helping new authors, like myself, to gain exposure through this partnership.

For those who ask questions such as; is time travel possible, where did we come from, where are we going, how are we going to get there, what will be there when we get there? The answers to these and many more questions can be found in the writing of Stephen Hawking and The Atomic Writer. And in the month of November, you can experience both these writers at discount.

To quote Stephen Hawking, “The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.”

We find in The Ninth Cube the main character, Dr. Daniel Lamb, who studied under Dr. Hawking. In Daniel’s thoughts and actions the story unfolds and realizes the dreams of a great physicist. In many ways this is the story Stephen Hawking would write, if he wrote fiction.

Don’t believe me? Read the story and post a comment.

Remember, never stop looking up at the night sky and asking, what if…

Until next time…

Victor Grippi
The Atomic Writer

We all seek the elusive secret of life. In our view of the world and all the elements in it, we as humans strive to make sense out of a world that seems random and chaotic at times. We can’t help but to apply a cause and effect pattern on everything we see, touch, hear and smell. It starts during childhood and based on environmental stimuli – we begin to categorize and sort items into nice comfortable buckets that help us cope with everyday life. Many people who are provincial in their thinking stop this process at an early age and are not open to new ideas and theories. They are held prisoner by a narrow minded world view that renders the world only in terms they know. Any deviation from this single view, and cries of injustice, prejudice and blasphemy are heard.

Others, however, are constantly learning new theories and forming their own ideas about an ever changing and dynamic world. These are people open to new ideas who are not threatened by learning new things. It is this latter group who derive the most enjoyment from my writing; either on this blog, or in my short stories or from my books.

Some of you may ask, who am I to write about such lofty subjects? I am a writer who above all else is an observer. All good writers are good observers. I am no smarter than the average person, just an acute observer. We analyze and categorize all that we experience, and try not to form narrow patterns. I have done this my entire life. At a certain point this information ripens and a silent call to action is heard. I heard this call several years ago when I began honing my writing skills and starting the information dump that continues to this day. I have always been open to new ideas and consider myself a free thinker. More importantly, I have taken this input and formed it into my own view of the world and the underlying reason things exist the way they do.

I found fiction to be the best vehicle to relay my thoughts and unique viewpoint of the world. Through the characters I invent and their stories, I am able to convey what I believe may be one possible explanation for the meaning of life. You may not agree with me, and that is totally acceptable. For those who do read what I write, and can then make intelligent comments, I am forever grateful.

If you continually learn new things you are always changing. The world is always changing, nothing ever stays the same. The earth, sun and the moon are always changing. Plants and animals are always evolving and adapting to the ever changing environment. Whether by intelligent design or random origins, our world is in constant motion. The well known phrase: The only constant in life is change. is very important. Once you stop changing, you begin to die. It’s as simple as that. Many people, at an early age, close themselves off to new ideas and begin to die.

My goal as a writer is to expand the minds of my readers. To open them up to new possibilities and ideas they may not of experienced before. In this way they may some day take this input and combine it to form their own personal world view. If I can achieve this with one person then I have succeeded as a writer.

If I have to dilute the message in my writing in order to sell more books, then I may never be a best selling author. Too many writers fall into this trap and change their writing in order to appeal to a mass audience. They have sold out to the system. Their message is contrived and artificial. Their words are targeted to sell books and make money for their publishers. Their books are nothing more than a commodity. If you want a cheap book, you will get a cheap message.

If you have read this post, this far, than I congratulate you. You are a positive thinker open to ideas and new experiences. You may also enjoy reading more. Some of my recommended books are on the right side in my Amazon ferris wheel.

Remember, never stop looking up at the night sky and asking, what if…

Until next time…

Victor Grippi
The Atomic Writer

Many of you ask The Atomic Writer if time travel is possible. It used to be a subject of science fiction that was not taken seriously. People would look sideways at you in a conversation about the physics involved and the possibility of altering space and time. Many scientists feared being seen as “fringe” scientists who are discounted as lunatics or quacks; the scourge of the profession.

Speaking of Fringe; how about the new Fox series by the same name? The Atomic Writer would like to know your comments on this new science based, X-Files like, new tv show. Any comments?

Michio Kaku gave the below interview to Scientific American on just this subject. The interview references the book and later movie, Timeline, by my fellow author Michael Crichton.

Now, let’s go back to Kaku, who says that it’s possible now to speak publicly about time travel without putting a career at risk, a thing unbelievable ten years ago.

Originally, the burden of proof was on physicists to prove that time travel was possible. Now the burden of proof is on physicists to prove there must be a law forbidding time travel. He goes back to the past to tell us when scientists started to think about time travel in a rigorous way, from Einstein to logician Kurt Gödel or mathematician Roy Kerr.

Here are selected excerpts:

SA: The idea in Timeline is that you can “fax” particles into the past. What is the kernel of truth there?
MK: In the last ten years, there has been enormous progress in something called quantum teleportation. This is not science fiction anymore. Now, to be real, we’re not talking about sending Captain Kirk across space and time. But we are talking about sending individual photons across space. In a few decades, maybe we will teleport the first virus, if the virus consists of a few thousand molecules. But at the present time, that’s the limit of what we can do. And we can only teleport things in space, not time. But the concept of faxing matter is not totally out of the question. And that was also raised in my book. So, there is a little bit of truth there.

SA: How practical would it be to build one of these time machines?
MK: In fact the energies we are talking about are the energies of stars. It would take a civilization far more advanced than ours, unbelievably advanced, to begin to manipulate negative energy to create gateways to the past. But if you could obtain large quantities of negative energy — and that’s a big “if” — then you could create a time machine that apparently obeys Einstein’s equation, and perhaps the laws of quantum theory. You need string theory to ultimately control all the divergences [i.e., to make sure a hail of gravitons doesn't fry you when you open or close the time machine]. Some cynics say quantum effects may still make the machine blow up. But at this point the burden of proof has shifted: people who are skeptical of time travel have to prove it’s impossible. And so far they have failed.

Kaku also speaks in detail about the paradoxes implied by time travel. and he discusses string theory or the influence of science fiction on physics. Scientific American also asked him what was his favorite time travel movie.

MK: Oh, that’s a hard one. There is a problem being a physicist, and that is when you see these movies, you say, “Well, that’s not right.” And it really ruins it. But I like the Back to the Future series. Here was a movie where you actually saw the scientist building and doing things; he was an essential character in the entire series. Doc Brown was this crazy man, but at least they showed him. He was there. He was making the series work.

Source: JR Minkel, for Scientific American, November 24, 2003
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So is time travel possible? Every day science advances into the future. Most of the time it is with baby steps, but sometimes we do make a quantum leap.

Having a scientist as a protagonist is a great idea, just ask Dr. Daniel Lamb…

Remember, never stop looking up at the night sky and asking, what if…

Until next time…

Victor Grippi
The Atomic Writer