copyright 2020 John Engelbrecht June 30 2020
A sci-fi short story, useful for teaching about physics and chemistry. Beings or robots from a multiverse come to Earth and observe a lot of things going on, and are surprised by the physics of the Earthly universe. The alien beings are accustomed to their own universe's bland physics.
This is a story about physics, not about values. If this story is adapted for a general audience, it needs to add values and personalities. The story as-is does not have reality at its core, because the reality of the "created order," the way God has made the world, is that God has used a small menu of atoms to get His physics done. He has accomplished a physics that accommodates the biochemistry that lets life exist and lets life reproduce. A person who reads this story may get a sense that God could have created other types of physics to accommodate life. But did God have a choice? Is the way physics is set up the only way that life could come about? This is a very big question. The topic of the finely tuned universe applies to this line of thinking. See the following paragraph, also these items in Physics Time Line in my web site:
2012 Casey Luskin August 14 2012
2016 Sept 4-5 Coast to Coast AM
2018 http://www.travisdickinson.com/no-faith-not-belief-without-evidence/#comments.
If one reads about the multiverse, one finds that it is an invention of atheist scientists who admit that our universe is finely tuned to allow chemistry and life. ("Anthropic coincidence") The atheists are intolerant of intelligent design. They theorize that there are a large number of universes, each of which has a different mix of physical constants and physical laws. These are all random. Most universes explode or collapse. Few have physics upon which our type of chemistry can exist, and fewer still have an environment with liquid water and an absence of poisons. The tiny fraction of the multiverses that have physics appropriate to life include our own universe.
Some scientists speculate that the multiverse is much more complex: every time there is a happenstance, there is a bifurcation whereby one universe splits in two, and both outcomes of the happenstance occur, one in each bifurcated universe. To a layperson, this thinking sounds bizarre.
In the Physics Time Line, https://sites.google.com/site/solderandcircuits/home/more-circuit-design/physics-timeline/physics-time-line-1900-present, at 1890s to early 1900s: Hungarian Jewish physicists and mathematicians are numerous and influential and seem to be concentrated by birth in Hungary, though they migrate away due to the low level of physics in Hungary. Enrico Fermi weaves a tale of evolution and science fiction. "Yearning for fresh worlds, they ... spread out all over the Galaxy. These highly exceptional and talented people could hardly overlook such a beautiful place as our Earth. And so, if all this has been happening, they should have arrived here by now, so where are they? " Leo Szilard, a man with an impish sense of humor, supplies the perfect reply. "They are among us, but they call themselves Hungarians."
This story is about beings from another universe who come to snoop on us. Their home universe has atoms, but not our atoms.
Thkrnd: Commander, we have arrived at our target universe. Our sensors are overloaded by alien energy. May I give you some early data?
Commander: Are we in danger here?
Thkrnd: No, sir, there is no imminent threat. There is some energy impacting our shields, but our shielding is adequate. It is true that we must not contact their atoms until we can predict what will happen if atoms with different physics touch each other.
Commander: Tell me your early data, then.
Thkrnd: Krmshd has the data.
Krmshd: Sir, this universe has four dimensions, as does our home universe. Three dimensions are spatial, and one is time. But the time dimension in this universe runs only forward, whereas in our home we can go backward in time.
Commander: Well, this universe seems to be a backward, uninteresting place. Perhaps we expended useless energy to come here. Should we return to our own universe, our beloved Qf?
Thkrnd: Commander, your assessment would seem to be warranted, but this universe's handicap of forward-only time is balanced by other qualities that we are not accustomed to. Go ahead, Krmshd.
Krmshd: There are large things separated by nothing. Please direct your attention to this one thing, the one that is smaller. Shall we call it thing A? It has complex energy patterns coming from it. Our scientists find these patterns to reveal sentient beings.
Commander: These beings, do they pose us danger?
Krmshd: They would be dangerous to us if they knew we were here. But we are not emitting energy and they know nothing of us.
We detect language and our auto-translator is processing it. A part of thing A, I should say on the surface of thing A, has much more energy being emitted than other surface areas. And the energy is in many wavelengths, according to the auto-translator.
Thkrnd: Please tell Commander about the high-energy area on thing A.
Krmshd: We are receiving these wavelengths: radio, heat, visible, and a little X-ray and gamma, to use their language.
Commander: This is a relief, I was afraid there might be shmuul6 or klk7.
Krmshd: Yes, Commander, if there were shmuul or klk we would have much to be concerned about. Their universe does not have these.
But there is a curious "force," to use their language. The force they call gravity. It is quite weak, but it acts continuously. We find that our distance to thing A is shrinking, and we think it is because of gravity.
Commander: Thkrnd, is this a threat to us?
Thkrnd: No, sir, we find that our directed energy beam easily counteracts the gravity.
Krmshd: Sir, there is something odd about the gravity. It is weak to us, as we experience it from midway between the big things, but it is strong on the surface of thing A. A number of the beings there are moving in smaller things. We have not yet identified what these things are, so they are labeled unidentified flying objects in our database. The beings are eager to move in these ufos, and each ufo seems to repel gravity.
Commander: If some are eager to move in ufos, why aren't they all moving in ufos?
Krmshd: We don't know, yet. But each ufo leaves behind a trail of heat, and characteristic chemicals. We suspect the temperature of the whole of thing A would continuously rise if all the beings were in ufos.
Commander: Chemicals, you say? We have chemicals. What is special about their chemicals?
Thkrnd: Our professors note that their chemicals occur in only integer varieties. The chemicals in our Qf are not so, our chemicals are atoms but Qf atoms have all masses, graded by no more than 0.01% between species. Here is an example of their atom sequence: from their carbon to their nitrogen is a mass ratio of 12:14. There is nothing between.
Commander: Their integer atoms must be a severe limitation of the matter that can be made from their atoms!
Krmshd: And furthermore, most of their atoms on the surface of the thing are lightweight atoms. Due to gravity, the heavy atoms sink below the surface. But their "ionic compounds" have a subtle difference; their pure uranium metal has a density 19 times the density of their dihydrogen oxide, whereas their uranium dioxide is only 10.8 times, the difference being the larger diameter of the uranium ion. So whether the heavy atoms sink depends on ionized or non-ionized. Now here is a great surprise: almost nothing on their surface is toxic. These beings can move around and touch almost anything without being poisoned!
Commander: Then they have a great advantage over us and the Qf. We have to spend so much, filtering out the toxins of the Qf. They must spend very little on filtering. And the absence of klk--they are so care-free!
Thkrnd: This is so. A side effect of their integer atoms is that, with so few varieties, they give names to their atoms! They have lithium, nitrogen, carbon, helium, hydrogen, iron, etc. A side effect of these few varieties is crystals.
Commander: Crystals. A pretty word, but what is this crystals?
Krmshd: Believe it or not, their varieties of atoms tend to conglomerate in mixtures that have small-number ratios. For instance, their solid dihydrogen oxide has hydrogen to oxygen ratio of 2 to 1, exactly. Notice these areas of their surface that reflect all visible wavelengths, what they call "white." This large area of white is all solid dihydrogen oxide.
Commander: The white area you indicate--I see fluffy white areas all over thing A.
Krmshd: True, but the fluffy areas are transient, what they call "clouds." They are a mix of dihydrogen-oxide gas, liquid, and solid. These clouds change by the hour. But this large white area, here, persists over tens of thousands of hours.
Commander: Yes, I see that the largest white area is complemented at the opposite end of the thing.
Krmshd: We think it is more than coincidence that the rotational axis of thing A goes right through these large white areas. Krmshd lowers his audible amplitude. Now, I need to reveal something fearful, Commander. This smaller white area, in what they call "north," is indeed solid but is suspended over liquid dihydrogen oxide. Solid is what they call "floating" over liquid, even though they are all the same atoms.
Commander: What kind of strange physics are these beings putting up with? Solid suspended above liquid? The beings must be expending fantastic energy to do such a thing with that large white area!
Krmshd: No, Commander, the beings (or "humans," as they call themselves) do not cause this. It is natural in their physics. It happens without any human intervention. The solid is less dense than the liquid. Furthermore, the humans play with this solid and liquid dihydrogen oxide, even holding in their "hands" containers with the solid floating above the liquid. They take great pleasure in this, and add beautiful colors to the liquid.
Commander: This sounds so dangerous, that they should want to be close up to this strange physics.
Krmshd: Our sociologist in the Aliens Department describes this odd human behavior. They call it "playing with fire."
Thkrnd: May I add that there is something about their solid dihydrogen oxide that is always true, their solid dihydrogen oxide has less heat coming from it.
Commander: This is a contradiction. The humans are attracted to "less heat?" I see in these pictures on their "beach" that they are attracted to "more heat." They throw off their coverings so they can soak up more heat. And they concentrate heat on their beaches to heat their marshmallows, which they use to heat their oral cavities.
Thkrnd: We have no explanation of this contradiction. But our chief chemist just now is delivering an assessment of this dihydrogen oxide. If we were to apply even a tiny amount of this chemical onto any of our facets, it would dissolve a hole in the facet, and that would be lethal to us.
Commander: Well, this chemical is a deadly poison after all. But we all can see that the white, solid dihydrogen oxide on thing A is across large areas. And you are telling me that they even enjoy solid dihydrogen oxide in their containers, close-up. Why would they seek to "play with fire?"
Thkrnd, with a tremor: Commander, this situation is even more fearful than we had thought. Not only would their solid dihydrogen oxide melt into our facets, but the liquid dihydrogen oxide from their "oceans" would do the same. Now, here is the worst of it. We find that 60% of a human is this awful dihydrogen oxide!
Commander: What are these humans, the walking dead?
Krmshd: One would think so, but they thrive on this fearful dihydrogen oxide! It is vital to their internal chemistry. Their containers with dihydrogen oxide--they apply their containers to their oral cavities and "drink" the stuff. We find extreme cases where they "chug" this poison.
The leading property of dihydrogen oxide is its polar nature. It is the most polar chemical in all this strange universe. It does what they call hydrogen bonding, an influence so strong that a drop of their liquid dihydrogen oxide, falling through their atmospheric gas, holds a round shape even to a diameter of 10 million molecules. The hydrogen bonding is what makes the white areas on thing A remain solid to such a high temperature. And when it does melt to the liquid form, it absorbs a great deal of energy. This is why they play with solid dihydrogen oxide in their containers.
Commander: I can scarcely believe your story. Something so poisonous is what they thrive on! Imagine that.
Thkrnd: The auto-translator is delivering their word for dihydrogen oxide. They call it "water."
Commander: Water, you say? Is this dreadful poison anywhere around us?
Krmshd: Yes, there are balls of mixed solid water and "rock" flying around thing S, at all distances. I will notify the Scan Department to be on the lookout for these balls.
Thkrnd: A new analysis of the solids on thing A reveals that oxygen, a third of their water, is also in a variety of the crystals we were talking about. Within minerals, such as chlorate, nitrate, and phosphate, oxygen is abundant. And in other minerals such as gypsum, entire water molecules are "water of crystallization."
Krmshd: This oxygen, their eighth-integer atom, is found to be necessary for something called "combustion." Our Exobiology Department has these new details. 1) Oxygen releases much energy when combining with hydrogen or carbon, 2) but considerable threshold energy must be applied to initiate the combustion, and 3) the resultant matter after combustion involving carbon and hydrogen is practically inert, being gaseous carbon dioxide and water.1
Commander: Water again. Water! Water! Water! These humans can't get enough of this poisonous water.
Krmshd: Commander, the situation is even stranger than what I have communicated: in their internals, these humans bombard their carbo-hydrogen-ate with oxygen to combust the carbo-hydrogen-ate. Somehow, this gives the humans energy.
Commander: You strain my thinking organ!
Thkrnd: Commander, try this on for size. We notice that certain humans, "Fire Department," love their water so much that they party, combining a water festival with a playing-with-fire festival. The two just go together on this strange sphere. They "break out" cans of special water at these festivals, special because it contains trace di-carbon/two-thirds-of-a-water-molecule.2
And, though "Fire Department" is a tiny minority of humans, a majority of humans plays routinely with little fires in their "homes," combusting pure hydrogen-carbon3 using oxygen. Rarely, a little fire spreads combustion to a larger portion of their home. The humans excitedly call out a code word, nine-one-one, then Fire Department rushes to join the party. Fire Department obtains water from curious rock that underlies the carbon between their homes, what they call "asphalt." The curious water rock is long cylinders carrying pressurized water.
Commander: Water, a dreaded poison to us, and the beings love it. But enough about that, tell me about another of these crystals that you mention.
Krmshd: One of their chemicals is very complex, though made of a small variety of atoms. What they call DNA is a pretty spiral. The joining links are what they call amino acids. They come in only four varieties and are made only of their hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen, always in certain ratios. The middles of the links are joined by hydrogen bonding.
Commander: If hydrogen bonding joins the half-links, then this DNA must be a large, strong structure?
Krmshd: Well, one would think so, but on reflection our chemist finds that their "reproduction" involves "unzipping" the DNA, breaking the hydrogen bonds.4 So in some cases, their hydrogen bonds are strong, and in other cases, the hydrogen bonds are pliant.
Thkrnd: Commander, though their four amino acids are quite simple and boring in their redundancy, the DNA is very big, 6.2 giga-amino acids. By this gigantic size, their humans are very different, each a recognizable individual.
Commander: I had been thinking that the humans must come in just four varieties, like their amino acids, but I see how diversity might come from the large DNA.
Thkrnd: Our chemist finds that triads of DNA links, called codons, form a digital code. The codons are important in their reproduction, giving the order of amino acids to build proteins.5
Krmshd: Now, there is an aspect of diversity I will tell you about, but it is a lack of diversity that we have seen. The humans come in only two varieties. They have equal numbers of "female" and "male." The females are rounded in shape, favoring circles and arcs. The males have a simpler geometry, though some males are heavier and have "abs" or "six-packs."
Thkrnd: We find it curious that the most rounded females are found more frequently beside the abs males. At times of maximum density of males and females, the males need to moderate the density by sprinkling in aluminum cans full of water.
Krmshd: The statistics indicate a puzzle concerning these females and males. A female occasionally will gain a great amount of matter in its middle part, making it extra round, though for some reason this does not get more attention from the males. Then, suddenly, the matter is gone and the female is holding a notably messy, miniature human. Furthermore, it appears that this temporary matter gain in the females is considered a disability, it makes life hard for the female. But the abs males make "jokes" about the females when they gain the matter.
Commander: One would think that the abs males would give some assistance to these females with the matter increase. After all, an abs male is heavier and stronger, is it not?
Thkrnd: On the contrary, the females with the matter increase look to other females for help, not to the males.
Commander: Most puzzling. Now, from these pictures, I see most humans have messy growths on their spherical protuberances. It seems to be long, thin, flexible filaments. I would estimate there are 100,000 per protuberance. How can they stand being around each other, with that repulsive growth?
Thkrnd: On the contrary, Commander, they like that messiness. They call it "hair." They add many chemicals to impart particular qualities to their hair. They prefer what they call suave, serum, and creme. Their dandruff excites them.
Commander: I do notice that the curvy females tend to have curvy hair, yes. The hair resembles their DNA. I have to tell you, these humans look quite gross. I prefer our sharp angles and flat facets. And look how they have only two eyes! So gross and lacking in refinement. Our three eyes per facet is so much better.
Thkrnd: Yes, Commander, there is no doubt about which is nicer to be around, these alien humans or us!
Commander: Thkrnd, would you classify these pictures of humans? Get the pictures locked up. We do not want our travels to be curtailed or our funding sources dry up, just because of the grossness of these humans that we have happened upon.
Ak..Ak..Ak..Ak
Commander: What is that alarm?
Krmshd: There is an increase of energy from that distant, large thing, the one our scientists label S. If the energy continues to increase, our shields may be inadequate.
Commander: Keep half your eyes on it.
Thkrnd: Commander, our past scan shows that the energy from thing S is quite powerful, but generally constant. On thing A, there are energy pulses of two kinds. May I inform you of this?
Commander: Yes, we need to be wary of all energy pulses.
Thkrnd: The one kind of energy pulse on thing A is entirely within their gas. Each pulse lasts mere microseconds. The physical phenomenon is in the bottom quarter of the depth of their gas, delivers electromagnetism to the solid surface of thing A, and never strikes twice. It gives off vibrations and many wavelengths, through ultraviolet. We know these energy pulses are not controlled by humans, because humans are afraid of these pulses. Trace chemicals result from these pulses: tri-oxygen and orange-colored nitrogen oxides.
Commander: If the humans are afraid of it, should we be concerned for our safety?
Thkrnd: No, this energy stays within their air. We are receiving only the smallest amount of energy from these pulses.
The other kind of energy pulse shows up only in our past scan, up until 57 of their years ago. These pulses are different from the first type. This second type is entirely controlled by the humans. Though there is a similarity of duration, again microseconds as in the first type, this second type of energy is similar to the energy of thing S. In the time since a rash of these pulses, there have been few, and they are concentrated in this cold, small area. But these pulses have left behind contamination: gamma rays and neutrons.
Commander: All these thing-A pulses are trifles.
Thkrnd: Indeed, but they are interesting to our chief chemist. He is quite excited by the diversity of nitrogen-to-oxygen ratios in the nitrogen oxides I was mentioning. He notes nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, nitrous oxide, nitrous and nitric acids, and dinitrogen pentoxide. He tells us that delicate balances in the chemistry cause the nitrogen oxides to be suppressed, in favor of diatomic oxygen and diatomic nitrogen. Otherwise the sentient beings would collapse. Even as it is, many of the sentient beings show anger about something they call "acid rain." Others of the sentient beings are angry about some mysterious "policy correctness."
Commander: Just trifles to me. Now, tell me about what I notice, an odd bit of geometry. Thing S has so much heat, visible energy, and ultraviolet energy, coming out all over. But only half of thing A is emitting energy. That half faces thing S. Why should thing A emit on only half?
Krmshd: Yes, the energy from thing A is reflected energy. And we notice that the non-illuminated side of thing A has humans that are completely still. You would call it by their word, "dead," but shortly before the illumination comes around, the dead-looking humans start moving. So they aren't really dead.
We have spotted geometrical areas where they put their dead. Living humans avoid the dead areas. Since their time moves only one way, once they are dead, they stay dead.
Thkrnd: Commander, the energy from thing S has leveled off. We are stable and safe. The thing-A humans have a name for the transient energy. They call it a "flare."
Krmshd: Our auto-translator has come up with a pattern concerning the energy reflection. More reflection is what they call "lit" or "day," and less reflection they call "shadow" or "night."
Commander: Thing S...it has so much more surface area, there must be great numbers of humans there.
Krmshd: No, it turns out that thing S is thermally ionized, and humans die when they contact thermal ions. By the way, the auto-translator finds that they call the human-populated thing Earth, and the large, high-energy thing is Sun.
Commander: These humans, they are so fragile. Tell me this, if you know. If humans are confined to Earth, why do they pay attention to Sun? If humans don't live on Sun, why do they even give Sun a name?
Krmshd: Our scientists detect the energy from Sun warms Earth, but most of Sun's energy goes out into the emptiness, never to return.
Commander: What a waste! So inefficient.
Krmshd: And here is a surprise: the emptiness that is far from Sun is not warm at all. The lack of warmth causes the atoms far from Sun to move very slowly, and all matter far from Sun is solid; there is little gas, but there are a few spheres of solids, separated by large distances.
Commander: It seems such a waste, the Sun with all that surface and no humans. It is puzzling that all the things I see here are spheres. Why is this?
Krmshd: It is their peculiar gravity. Gravity seems to "pull down" any heights. It forms their things into spheres. On Earth, we see some rather insignificant heights, made of something they call "rock." We find that all the heights are emitting less heat, and the highest heights have the white solid water. We count a few humans on the heights, and we see that some humans on the heights are still and remain still.
Commander: Then they are dead, the still ones on the heights. Do the heights have those geometric places of the dead?
Krmshd: No, there are none of the geometric places on the heights.
Thkrnd: Our Qf is so much more orderly, uniform gravity everywhere, and our gravity is so slight compared with this alien universe. We are wondering if their high gravity goes along with their short lifetimes. They die at around 80 Earth-years of age.
Commander: This is shocking! Why, we all live, well, I can calculate the Earth years...135,319 Earth years. These alien humans are indeed handicapped beings.
Thkrnd: Commander, may I tell you something else our scientists are detecting? There are tiny bits of solids that travel around...
Commander: Oh, in ufos?
Thkrnd: No, they are in the emptiness that plagues this cold universe. By the way, we have learned their name for their ufos. They call them aircraft, because they stay in the air, though occasionally they plunge into the liquid water bodies, and then they are called submarines. But the point is that some bits of solids travel toward Earth in graceful ellipses, and when they get close to Earth, they speed up, get very hot, and suddenly become ionized gases! I have mentioned that surrounding all parts of Earth are gases, three parts nitrogen and one part oxygen.
Krmshd: We have just discovered why the humans have the unsightly flaps on their spherical protuberances, poking out from their messy hair. They "hear" vibrations in the gas. They can "talk" to each other, using ugly, vibrating bands that are lodged in the stalks underneath their protuberances. And they hear, and seem to enjoy, repetitive air vibrations coming from small boxes. They spend much of their lit or day time listening to the small boxes.
Commander: I hear no boxes. Is that because there is no gas between us and the boxes?
Thkrnd: Correct, and I regret to tell you that we cannot get close enough to ever hear their boxes. Gravity in this universe becomes strong near Earth, and our directed energy beam is not able to keep us stationary in the gas around their planet. We must be satisfied to remain here in the quiet emptiness.
Commander: It must be interesting to humans, to hear all their small boxes. There must be millions of small boxes. How can one human make sense when he is hearing millions of small boxes?
Krmshd: This is a strange thing, Commander. The vibration energy of a small box spreads out in the gas and becomes diluted. Any one human can only hear a box that it is close to.
Commander: We see again such waste. The Sun's energy is mostly wasted, and the vibrations of the small boxes are wasted when the vibrations become diluted. And the atoms of humans are wasted when their short lives end.
Thkrnd: Yes, Commander, we can appreciate the orderliness and efficiency of the Qf, when we see such waste in this strange universe. And I can inform you that their aircraft, in the absence of shmuul, are so wasteful of the water-like "fuel" they burn in their aircraft engines. If they had the advantage of even a little shmuul for their engines, it could be that humans would be visiting the Qf, rather than us visiting their universe.
Commander: Yes, when our physicists mastered shmuul containment, it expanded our horizons so much.
Krmshd: Commander, we must make you aware of one amazing advantage these humans have. The energy in their universe, with wavelengths of, in their terms, 0.4 micrometer to 0.7 micrometer, is able to penetrate "clear" solids, be "focused," and form "images" that their brains can interpret.
Commander: What is this nonsense you are saying? Energy cannot penetrate solids!
Thkrnd: But Commander, in their universe, energy and matter are somewhat different. We have confirmed these strange properties. You know that we, in the Qf, have mirrors, yes?
Commander: Yes, do not take me to be a fool. Any child will tell you that mirrors are used to concentrate starlight for our electrical power.
Krmshd: This is true, Commander. And the humans have mirrors, also. But some of their other solids admit energy and pass it through as if no solid were there. Furthermore, these solids may be shaped in arcs, and the most amazing thing happens. The energy passing through forms a "virtual image." They call it "focusing." If I may use their term, they use a "lens" to "focus" the energy into a "virtual image."
Commander: You are taking my time with this story, and it must be because these humans use "images" to some advantage. Get to the point.
Thkrnd: Yes, Commander. Their images are focused in their spherical eyes, and an image is sensed by their "retina," which is energy-sensitive "rods" and "cones," and it ends up telling their brains what is around them. We notice that their females prefer a specific wavelength. They call it "pink."
Commander: These human eyes, what is advantageous about that? My eyes see things well enough. Do I have to tell you this? Each of my facets has three eyes, so I have, what would it be, 3 x 891 eyes apart from my ylkryt. That is 2673 plus the 289 in my ylkryt, giving me 2692 eyes. I have perfect vision. Do you dare to say the humans are superior?
Thkrnd: Please don't be offended, Commander. Almost all humans have vision superior to us. Their eyes, both of them...
Commander: Both? Oh yes, you remind me that they only have two. Why, they are practically blind!
Thkrnd: Yes, but hear me out. Each eye of a human has 126 million rods and cones. These are in a flat array (actually, on the inner surface of their spherical eyes, which, by the way, are filled with that dreaded water). So there are about 11,000 rods and cones in length and width, if we were to simplify to a square.
Krmshd: Yes, Commander, 11,000 x 11,000 is about 126 million.
Commander: I might believe this fantasy but for the impossibility of 126 million nerves taking the rods and cones into their brains!
Krmshd: Well, we find only 1.2 million nerves in their optic nerves.
Commander: Who is lying? Can it be that 125 million of their rods and cones go nowhere? 99% of their rods and cones go nowhere?
Thkrnd: Well, they do go somewhere! There is local processing behind the retina so that they can detect lines, motion, and other features of the image. This is done before any processing by their brains.
Commander: Tell me this. You said they see energy of 0.4 micrometer to 0.7 micrometer wavelength. What is that in our measures?
Krmshd: It is about one sixtieth of the size of our eyes.
Commander: So they have an advantage already just from being able to see such tiny wavelengths. And the energy can be focused by a transparent lens onto a retina that has 126 million rods and cones.
Now tell me more about this motion awareness that you mentioned.
Krmshd: Their ability to see motion is in addition to their static vision. Just with their static vision, we see them gazing at an "art" for as much as 40 seconds. With their dynamic vision, they can see 30 "frames" per second. Anything faster appears to them as a flash, and they tend to perceive flashes as danger.
Thkrnd: Commander, you need to know that, since their 1890s, they have had motion pictures that are so popular that motion pictures have displaced their magazines. They are so stimulated by motion pictures that they spend up to 40% of their waking time looking at motion pictures.
Commander: Forty percent, you say. This must contribute much to their intelligence.
Thkrnd: Well, sad to say, most of what they watch is "fiction." And most of that is silliness that they remember little of. In their 1960s, their critics called their televisions "boob tubes." We think that is a reference to their silly-looking bird, blue-footed booby. Many times when they watch this television, they are eating. They call it "feeding their faces."
Commander: Eating? What is this?
Krmshd: Their need for energy is so great that they eat three meals in each of their days. And many of them "snack." Some of them even waken midway through their unlit time to "raid the refrigerator."
Commander: Tell me more about this eating.
Krmshd: There is energy in their carbon-based "food." But their "stomachs" cannot accept large chunks of food. They use hard things, teeth or dentures, to grind and shred their food. The humans emit strange sounds as they eat, both from the shredding and crunching and also as they heckle each other to eat hotter "peppers." If they eat too much, they moan, then reach for short cylinders of calcium carbonate!
We notice in their "shopping areas" many "dentists." The dentists take care of their shredding devices, their teeth, or pull our their teeth and fix them up with dentures. That is when they don't "brush."
Commander: How inefficient! This is strange behavior, indeed. Why don't they just fill their energy reservoirs from nozzles, like we do?
Krmshd: Sad for them, they carry around no reservoirs whatsoever.
Commander: But back to their televisions. They squander so much time on vision? We are superior, since we have such discipline in what we watch. I just wonder if we are superior in vision, after all.
Thkrnd: Since our eyes work like the compound eyes of their insects, and since our eyes are on all of our facets, we definitely have an advantage. Some humans claim to have eyes in the backs of their heads, but we suspect that is a hoax. But we really do have eyes all over ourselves. No one can sneak up on us, especially since we don't have the humans' need for sleep.
But if we look at their "televisions," there is evidence that they do have some advantages. They spend much money on "4k" televisions. These have 3840 x 2160 pixels, 8 million pixels in total, far more than their nerve count in their optic nerves.
Thkrnd: Both on their television and their small boxes, our sociologist in the Aliens Department has decoded a message. "Reba degeneres grammy waylon swift beyonce lady gaga." We have no idea what this means. But the humans spend much time listening, and they "sing along."
Commander: Let me try my hand at interpreting. Reba generates grams of weight by swiftly bouncing ladles of gagabytes. It makes perfect sense, they are singing about their physics, don't you see? The humans may be squandering their time on motion pictures, but they are singing about physics. This is something we can respect.
Ak..Ak..Ak..Ak
Commander: Now what is it?
Thkrnd: Our future scan shows that the humans will have detected us and will be calling us UFO. They will send a tiny thing toward our vessel.
Commander: Will it be one of the round things?
Thkrnd: No, it will be too small to be pulled into a sphere. We now see it will be one of the humans' robots. We see a protuberance.
Commander: Is it a human? I would like to hear it sing about ladles of gagabytes.
Thkrnd: No, it will have one of those lenses, and they will call it a "camera." They are going to try to look at us! Their robot must not touch us, we do not know yet what their atoms would do to our atoms!
Commander: This will be too threatening. Let's just slip back to the Qf and be done with this strange universe. Set the controls and let's get out of here!
--The End--
Footnotes
1 Lawrence M. Krauss ATOM 2001 Back Bay Books p. 173
2 beer
3 paraffin, candle
4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW3qZF9cLIA
5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwTExa8rs5A
6 Shmuul behaves like magnetism but falls off with distance by the sixth power, whereas our magnetism falls off by the second power. Shmuul is destructive if you are close up.
7 Klk is extreme cold that requires extraordinary energy to warm up.
References
http://kunochan.com/the-50-laws-of-science-fiction-physics/ Fun sci-fi fake physics Ship Impact Responsive Theory Law of Inertial Dampening Newton’s Fourth Law of Motion Fifth Law of Combustibility Law of Technological Complexity John tried the comments section and it posted: Rule of declining vowelness–The less the resemblance of an alien to humanoids, the fewer the vowels in its name. Also, clicking on my name takes a browser to this web page
https://www.thoughtco.com/worst-movie-science-mistakes-609450
Story Contents to guide insertion of additions. (Don't mention 'human' before the word is introduced at 30%.)
arrival
danger of alien atoms
three dimensions, limitation of time
large things separated by nothing
Thing A (to be Earth)
sentient beings
electromagnetism
shmuul
gravity
UFO
integer atoms in molecules
low toxicity
klk
crystals
fluffy white
floating dihydrogen oxide
humans named 30%
H2O dangerous, polar
size of atoms
water named 40%
oxygen and combustion, CO2
fire department
DNA
two varieties of humans
little humans
hair
three eyes per facet
first alarm 55%
Thing S (to be Sun)
energy pulses: lightning, nuclear bombs
nitrogen oxides
PC
death
Earth and Sun named 66%
spheres from gravity
different physics in the Qf
humans die young
hearing
small boxes emit vibrations
shmuul
light penetrates solids
lenses 80%
eyes
movies, magazines, TV
eating
second alarm