Science In My Fiction

I’ve written half of this while traveling, and the rest while sleep-deprived. Science gets way more exciting when one is misreading every other word in a sentence. Apologies if any of that carried over!)

The Gold Standard…or is that the Silver Standard?

From slaying vampires and monsters to holding holy relics, silver has long stood as a sacred metal in religious and mythical lore. In modern times, it has done its fair share too, but, somehow, the credit always goes to gold.

Now, whether cleaning polluted water, or helping us diagnose illness, silver is becoming one of our most important elements.

Holy Water?

“Silver nanowires have been extensively studied and used for a variety of applications, including transparent conductive electrodes for solar cells and optoelectronic devices,” said nanoscientist Yugang Sun of Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials. “By chemically converting them into semiconducting silver chloride nanowires, followed by adding gold nanoparticles, we have created nanowires with a completely new set of properties that are significantly different from the original nanowires.”

“A scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has created visible-light catalysis, using silver chloride nanowires decorated with gold nanoparticles, that may decompose organic molecules in polluted water.”

While this is still far from advanced enough to deal with wide-spread disasters like the Gulf spill, it may lead us to new methods of cleaning polluted water. As water becomes more scarce and pollution becomes more common, this could be one of our most important lines of research.

The scientists running the study speculate that the nanowires may also be used to split water into hydrogen.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100615122534.htm

Silver is also the focus of research that may lead to clean water at a fraction of the cost and difficulty of current methods. Utilizing the antibacterial properties of silver, nanowires and electricity work together to clean water.

“The scientists knew that contact with silver and electricity can destroy bacteria, and decided to combine both approaches. They spread sub-microscopic silver nanowires onto cotton, and then added a coating of carbon nanotubes, which give the filter extra electrical conductivity. Tests of the material on E. coli-tainted water showed that the silver/electrified cotton killed up to 98 percent of the bacteria. The filter material never clogged, and the water flowed through it very quickly without any need for a pump.”

Granted, it only takes that pesky 2% of E. Coli to make life pretty miserable, but this is a start, at least. Clean water technology needs to be one of our priorities, right alongside clean fuel.

NANOPARTICLES!
What do researches get when they add vitamin C, ascorbic acid and an antiseptic (usually found in cosmetics) to silver nitrate and the gold compound chloroauric acid? Nanoparticles, apparently.

No, not little machines running amok through your system, clearing out all of your diseases. We aren’t in *that* future(yet). These are just foundations—or building blocks–for future advances.

But, these little baubles could be a new method of drug-delivery (hello, Big Brother conspiracies!) or the foundation of new technology. (It is worth noting that there is also technology being developed that would tattle if you skip your pills. While this could be of great use , the potential is a bit worrying.)

“The precise structures of the nanoparticles were revealed using a high-resolution elemental mapping technique. The analysis shows the nanoparticles to have multiple layers, shells of gold within silver within gold, in the case of the bimetallic particles and some blending, or alloying, of the metals occurred.”

Silver Bells, Silver Bells
And, finally, in deference to the holidays: jewelry that might just help Alzheimer’s patients hold onto a bit of their past. Using technology in conjunction with beautiful things, researchers are personalizing recorded memories. Citing the impersonal disposability of technology today, researchers have started working to make technology something to hand down and treasure

I’m particularly curious to hear thoughts on this last bit. With technology advancing so quickly—and being so fragile—is it really worth making into heirlooms? Is it even feasible? From an SF point of view, it isn’t that far out there, but for practical use, I’m not so sure.

One can hardly have an Apocalypse—whether Biblical, SF or even Fantasy—without some nasty natural disasters and killer weather. Hollywood in particular likes to bring the planet-as-foe into its movies, as can be seen by this list! For sheer impact and implacable force, natural disasters have few challengers. A virus can, in theory, be killed. An army of demons can be slain. Barring magic, there’s not much to be done about a tornado. Just wait and see what happens.

Unpredictability plays another part of it. Sure, we’ve got sophisticated technology to give us some warning about the worst weather now, but that’s about the extent of it. And even warning isn’t always a help: people still have to listen…and there has to be somewhere to go.

Part of the threat of deadly weather is its reach, as well as the long-term effects and our absolute inability to stop it. Over the last century, the 10 worst natural disasters have claimed an estimated 4,100,000 people. These are only the events that claimed more than 100,000 people, as well as did significant economic damage. Katrina, dozens of cyclones and earthquakes and floods aren’t even calculated into this number. Nor are the prehistoric disasters.

From a fictional perspective, natural disasters will shape nations, change lives, and often provide a catalyst that no human could. I think my first introduction to the use of disaster and deadly nature in fiction was Laura Resnick’s The Destroyer Goddess. Besides being just plain cool fantasy, she used volcanoes, oceans, land and rivers as catalysts and characters. Pitting her main characters against such a backdrop added a sense of fatality and grandeur.

Rachel Caine has my favorite, more recent use of weather in her Urban Fantasy. While I’ve only read Ill Wind, the use of storms and fires as villainous forces and sentient—but alien—entities is the highlight of the book for me.

Science Fiction has a host of well-known natural disaster tales: Mother of Storms, Heavy Weather, Lucifer’s Hammer, The Rift, Forty Signs of Rain.

So, here we’ve got hurricanes and earthquakes, volcanoes and floods. But that’s not all Mother Nature has up her sleeve. Here are three disasters that we might see in an Apocalyptic setting:

Fire Tornadoes

I have to admit, deadly weather is fascinating. As a kid, I avidly watched documentaries on natural disasters. Tornadoes, especially. But dozens of videos, and I never saw a tornado made of fire. While I feel thoroughly gypped, I shall now share the weirdness with you: Fire! Tornadoes! Tornadoes made of fire!

Now, the reality of this is simple enough: wind+fire=bad things. I’m from California, so this is an easy concept. Like a water-spout or dust-devil, this is merely the result of pre-existing conditions, and not really more dangerous than the fire itself, but it is possibly one of the coolest sights around!
Of course, there are exceptions. During the civil upheaval following the 1923 Tokyo earthquake, a firestorm erupted within a packed square, killing 38,000 people who had survived the quake itself.

Derechos

The mother of wind-storms. To quote Wikipedia: “A derecho is a widespread and long-lived, violent convection-induced straight-line windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms in the form of a squall line(…).”

With sustained wind-speeds of around 50-100 mph, and a spread of around 280 miles, this rapidly-moving storm isn’t something to mess with. Typically occurring in North America, they do occur in other places, such as India and Bangladesh.

Basically, it packs as much force as a tornado over a vast swath of land…and spawns tornadoes, too. The Storm of the Century, moving down the entire eastern US seaboard in 1993, was one of the most devastating, wide-spread derechos in American history.

Even better? Derechos are most often caused by extremely hot and humid weather, which means that they can be found in conjunction with…

…Drought/Heat waves

In the past 20 years alone, the US has sustained three major heat waves:

1988 Heat Wave/drought: 61.6 billion, 5000-10,000 deaths
1980 heat wave: 48.4 billion, 10,000 deaths
1998 heat wave/drought: 8.3 billion, 200 deaths

Africa, of course, suffers frequent deadly heat waves and droughts. Europe? Yes. In 2003, 35,000 people died in a heat wave that affected 8 countries. Heat waves are actually more common and more deadly than most other natural disasters.

With global warming an undeniable fact (I know, I know, hello, Tea Party…), we’re only going to see more of these costly, deadly summers.

Plus, there might be elephant stampedes. No, really. In 1972, elephants—crazed by the heat—stampeded through the Chandka Forest, killing over 20 people. http://www.digalist.com/item/3963

Perhaps, the heart of the fascination with natural disasters boils down to this: We can’t do anything about it, our race will probably be wiped out by them eventually, and so we might as well just sit back, enjoy them from a distance, and hope like hell that the planet doesn’t toast our butts anytime soon.

Speculative fiction is littered with stories showing our future after Apocalypses of all sorts. Vampires, dying suns, exploding stars, epidemics, plagues, earthquakes, fires…the list goes on. It’s Baskin Robbins and the 32 flavors of the Apocalypse!

The amount of world-building necessary for a post-apocalypse, dystopian or near-future alternate reality is as heavy as any fantasy world. It is simply a matter of extrapolation. Instead of creating things to see how they develop, destruction is the start of a post-apocalyptic world.

For the next few months, my focus will be on some of those deconstructions. Society, religion, cryptozoology, even zombies! While these are deep, broad subjects worth a better study and a lot of discussion, I’ll be attempting to hit the high points.

Building the Apocalypse: Neighbor Bob, King of Vancouver?

Social lines, in a world as crowded as ours, are beginning to blur. Instead of hundreds of insular, small societies and a few large, open-bordered cultures, we have the formations of a monolithic society with shaded boundaries and a few small pockets of unique societies.

So, what happens if the world collapses around such a large society? If our communications go, and our governments fold, and our law systems dissolve, where do we go from there? For answers to this, the best studies are probably prison inmates, immigrants and concentration camp prisoners. Without any common bonds–blood, religion, race, history–except circumstance, chaos and disadvantage, these random groupings of people develop their own societies and laws.

As most prey animals know, there is indeed safety in numbers, in putting the weakest creatures at the center of the herd. Given time and the right agitations, humans in chaos eventually sort themselves into strata. Nuclei form, protection from the elements that haven’t found some sort of order.
Humans are both predator and prey. So we create elaborate systems to protect ourselves, and turn the predators into the protectors to channel their aggressive instincts.

The question is, how would this happen? Would things be different in a rural community, versus a big city? In different climates? With different levels of infrastructure damage and wealth?

Certainly. For one thing, it would depend on the type of apocalypse that got served up. Most likely, a large city would be more devastated by a catastrophe, while a smaller community would have, perhaps fewer resources to ride out the storm, but less to throw into chaos and a faster recovery time.

“A small town in Kansas, for example, can likely rely upon reputation and the fact that everyone knows everyone else, while the residents of New York City need some mechanism, like punishment, that can work in the absence of reliable reputations,” ~Evolution of Fairness

In other words, a metropolis, like LA, New York, Chicago or Atlanta might be more likely to give rise to a dictatorship or monarchy, with an individual or group seizing power, while a smaller town might get off with less social back-lash.

However, such a situation would be a plausible basis for American feudalism. In a society shaken badly enough by disaster, those with the most resources/knowledge will fare the best in the cities. After a disaster, crime lords, high-level politicians and wealthy opportunists might have the resources to make power-plays.

The concept of ‘turf’ is, in a way, feudalistic anyways. Competing for resources, location, followers and power, the political set-up isn’t that different. Frightened, disoriented people turn to leaders, and leaders sometimes turn into rulers.

Even the weather and neighborly trust have something to do with our recovery.

Is the Apocalypse hot or cold? Ice Age or Global Warming?

Climate can also have an influence over the mind and behavior. Studies have shown that violent-crime rates are higher during warmer months compared to colder months. ~Social Ecology: Lost and Found in Social Science

A low-violence, organized community that works together and pulls as a team would also, likely, be faster to recover economically.

For example, nations high in general trust have more subsequent capital investment and economic growth that nations that are low in general trust.~Social Ecology

In the 1920′s, America shifted from a rural-centric society into an urban-centric society. Manufacturing brought about an age of leisure, fun and indulgence. For the first time, it wasn’t just the rich who had to look for things to do. Automation, 8 hour work-days and unions took some of the load off of the American citizen.

When the Great Depression hit, this leisure society was abandoned, and people had to work again. While this was a dark and horrible time in our history, it may have, in fact, contributed to our overall health and prosperity.

A recent study suggests that, as grandma always said, ‘idle hands are the Devil’s playground, but hard work is the way to heaven.’ People who are busy and active are more likely to be happy than people who are more sedentary.

For the study, volunteers completed a survey, then had to wait 15 minutes before the next survey would be ready. They could drop off the completed survey at a nearby location and wait out the remaining time or drop it off at a location farther away, where walking back and forth would keep them busy for the 15 minutes. Either way, they would receive a candy when they handed in their survey. Volunteers who chose to stay busy by going to the faraway location were found to be happier than those who chose to be idle. ~Science Daily

If you want to learn how to do more than is humanly possible, ask a farmer or rancher. I'm in awe of my rancher great-grandfathers, who worked right on through retirement. They were good, solid people, and always had a laugh and joke at the ready. They knew how to pack a lot of work into not a lot of time, and still have fun.

Compare this to the majority of modern society!

If happiness, activity and trust are key to the economic success of a country, then perhaps we'd start knitting together in the rural areas, the secluded glens. Maybe our reconstruction would come from the Appalachians, or the backwoods of Idaho.

*

These are just a few of the many things that could happen in American society, if a disaster of national or global impact were to shatter our infrastructure. As has been demonstrated in the past, it would take a truly epic event to damage us beyond repair. But our nation is also more fragile than it has been for a while, so who can say?

However, you can rest easy: we’ve survived world wars, influenza epidemics, Katrina and politicians with a relatively intact infrastructure. If an event big enough to crash America ever does happen, most of us will be dead, and not caring if Neighbor Bob becomes King of Vancouver.

Calligraphy. Rebel Without A Cause. Heartbeats. Chaos Theory. Predicting heart attacks.

What might these things have in common? The 1/f Fluctuation.

From Wikipedia:

In stochastic processes, chaos theory and time series analysis, detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) is a method for determining the statistical self-affinity of a signal. It is useful for analysing time series that appear to be long-memory processes (diverging correlation time, e.g. power-law decaying autocorrelation function) or 1/f noise.
The obtained exponent is similar to the Hurst exponent, except that DFA may also be applied to signals whose underlying statistics (such as mean and variance) or dynamics are non-stationary (changing with time). It is related to measures based upon spectral techniques such as autocorrelation and Fourier transform.
DFA was introduced by Peng et al. 1994 and represents an extension of the (ordinary) fluctuation analysis (FA), which is affected by non-stationarities.

Sorry if your eyes crossed about halfway through that, like mine did. That’s not even the formulas or anything!

Here’s the simple version:

The 1/f Fluctuation is a concept from chaos theory. The 1/f fluctuation is a pattern of attention that naturally occurs in the human mind and elsewhere in nature. It appears to be a constant in the universe, showing up in engineering, economics and the human heartbeat, among many other things.

It has been said that the pattern which is characterized by the 1/f fluctuation is a source of pleasant feeling. It is found in classical music (leading one to wonder if perhaps the composers were even more brilliant than we give them credit for!), certain brain waves, Japanese calligraphy, and the human pulse.

Recently, it has been used to break down what makes something attractive to the human eye and ear. There is an extensive study of the mechanics of calligraphy’s beauty, as explained by the 1/f fluctuation, among other theories.

The Science of Hollywood
What makes a blockbuster? Why do new movies feel so different from older movies?

Perhaps due to a natural evolution based on our attention patterns. Movies that miss the pattern might not last, no matter how good their plot or characterization might be, while the blockbusters, lacking depth and brilliance, continue to draw huge crowds.

Scientists have found several movies which have near-perfect 1/f fluctuation patterns, some in almost every genre. The Perfect Storm, released in 2000, Rebel Without a Cause, 1955, and, perhaps not surprisingly, Hitchcock’s 39 Steps, released in 1935.

I have to wonder what would be discovered in analysis of Hitchcock’s works as a whole, or Steven King, or any of the other massively popular authors, movies and music. Is this a determining factor in what makes a masterpiece? Or merely a chart-topping piece?

*

This is a science that doesn’t apply only to what is within our stories, but perhaps even the stories themselves, and their delivery.

If movies are indeed more successful because they follow this formula, then how long until Hollywood requires its directors to understand the fluctuation, and utilize it in their movies? Will music become a collection of songs based on 1/f? Can this theory be moved from visual and auditory experiences and be leveraged against print audiences? If the fluctuation was mastered, would that be the cornerstone of truly immersive virtual reality?

Anything for another dollar, right? But would this be bad? If the 1/f fluctuation is a fluctuation of pleasure, then would music become art again? Could book pacing be patterned for maximum attention? (I hold no hope for Hollywood, sorry…)

Within a story, the 1/f fluctuation could serve science or magic. Perhaps that is the pattern of Avatar’s Ewa, or a the foundation of mood-music on one of Saturn’s moons. If the world is based on a rhythm or pattern, could we change the future by manipulation of the fluctuation, or, if such fluctuations are fixed, determine the future to some degree.

Granted, this is all speculation based on a science that is, at best, confusing for someone who hasn’t studied it in depth. But any way it is looked at, it is fascinating to think that, perhaps, this is the rhythm, the heartbeat of the world.

All animals emit some electrical charges, usually very weak. Some animals, however, have evolved complex and beneficial electrical tools. Whether this is the stun to kill, or merely a tracking device, it is a fascinating field full of high potential.

The most commonly known creature is, of course, the Electric Eel. Not a true eel, it is actually a member of the knifefish family. Comprising 4/5ths of the eel’s body mass, the three electrical organs within the eel can produce enough electricity to be fatal to a human. Additionally, these are air-breathing fish, and must return to the surface for air.

“The electric eel has three abdominal pairs of organs that produce electricity: the Main organ, the Hunter’s organ, and the Sachs organ. These organs comprise four-fifths of its body, and are what give the electric eel the ability to generate two types of electric organ discharges (EODs), low voltage and high voltage. These organs are made of electrocytes, lined up so that the current flows through them and produces an electrical charge. When the eel locates its prey, the brain sends a signal through the nervous system to the electric cells. This opens the ion channel, allowing positively-charged sodium to flow through, reversing the charges momentarily. By causing a sudden difference in voltage, it generates a current.

The electric eel generates its characteristic electrical pulse in a manner similar to a battery, in which stacked plates produce an electrical charge. In the electric eel, some 5,000 to 6,000 stacked electroplaques are capable of producing a shock at up to 500 volts and 1 ampere of current (500 watts). Such a shock could be deadly for an adult human.

The Sachs organ is associated with electrolocation. Inside the organ are many muscle-like cells, called electrocytes. Each cell can only produce 0.15 V, though working together the organ transmits a signal of about 10 V in amplitude at around 25 Hz. These signals are what is emitted by the main organ and Hunter’s organ that can be emitted at rates of several hundred Hz. ” ~ Wikipedia

Researchers have theorized that such organs can not only be replicated, but improved, and possible used to power bionic limbs.

The Electric Ray is another unique beast. Known since antiquity for it’s electrical qualities, this ray was possibly used in the treatment of gout and headaches, as well as to numb the pain of childbirth.

While several other varieties of fish use some form of electricity, only two mammals do: the platypus and the echidna. Electrosensors cover the platypus’s bill, allowing it to distinguish between trash and living food.
Research into the electrical capabilities of these animals is fairly new. Bionic limbs is only the beginning.
Imagine the underwater weapons! Ray guns, underwater. Because electric animals all have a unique energy sender, whoever owns the weapon could have an integrated chip within their hands to protect them from the shock.

Warning systems. A magic city, guarded by advanced eels. Hey, I’d read it.

New organs, or saving old organs. A heart-attack occurs, leading to a change in the electric sensor. Tuned to that frequency, some sort of organic-tech hardware is triggered to jump-start the heart, giving the victim valuable time, and possibly lowering the amount of brain-damage.

Electricity is often equated with life. What if these creatures became central to an empire, a magician’s court, or a healing practice?

The possibilities for electric creatures are nearly endless. Organic or cold tech, human or fish, this is a largely unknown system. (As an aside, wouldn’t it be great to see electric eels and rays in steampunk?)

So, where do you think it could take us? Be as wild and weird as you want, and let us know!

The camera pans into the scene. Broken buildings. Fires in windows, shattered icons, blood. Sometimes there are looters, sometimes zombies or bugs or aliens. Occasionally, it is simply an empty wastelands. Oddly, it is almost always raining.

It’s a familiar trope, mainstreamed and popularized by films such as Matrix, Blade-Runner and Terminator. Dystopia, post-apocalypse, grunge, zombies, war. A totalitarian government, a single culture. The future has been a dark and dirty place, recently.

Of course, there is plenty of reason for such a dark depiction. It seems like every new discovery, every bit of progress we make, just turns into one more thing to go wrong. The oil disaster in the Gulf, the garbage patch in the middle of the ocean, the rising ill-health and falling education of our nation. Iowa approves gay marriage, Arizona approves racial harassment. A healthcare bill is passed, an abortion doctor is murdered.

The future could be a very dark place indeed, judging by the current trends. But a powerful, often-ignored entity in the direction of our future is the mechanisms of social globalization and the psychological impact of rapid, wide-spread social evolution.

Even if our world was completely buried under concrete and people, we would not be one blanket culture. The sheer size would force lines and divisions. Besides that, people move, science evolves, kids invent ever more horrific ways to express their individuality.

So what moves society and keeps it from becoming a static, lead-gray sheet?

Exiles, refugees, immigrants, emigrants, tourists, business travelers and merchants. People affect people. The only way a society might remain fairly static (Amish, Amazonian tribes, Basque) is if there are no outside influences. Even one person can trigger an avalanche of social change.

With the ease of travel and communication, the world can’t really be mapped in solid lines any more, but has to be drawn in an ebbing, flowing, living picture.

Tourists are a particularly under-utilized group. Bleak future or not, tourists are like cockroaches: only the total destruction by fire of their entire species is going to stop them. Philadelphia got eaten by giant scorpions? Have an underground trade of stingers, or have hucksters sell Real (imitation) Scorpion Shell. It’s a theme park waiting to happen. People like sensational things, and big events, and to be (safely) scared. As long as travel is reasonably simple and affordable, you’ll have tourists.

Armies. A massive, insular and antagonistic stress on any society. An army leaving a country will open dozens of holes in the economy, familial structure and work-force. An army coming in will create chaos and boost the success of, among other things, drug, sex and entertainment industries.

Technology. Have it, don’t have it, don’t have it but want it…take your pick. The modern world revolves around gadgets and tech. We’re to the point where, if our technology crashed, we’d pretty much self-destruct. Our money is online, our relationships are online, the daily elements of our lives are run by computers.

Maybe the Fourth Quarter has the technology to create computers. Seventh Quarter has running water, and a Third Quarter inventor made this ingenious little machine that creates power out of motion. A friend tells a friend, and pretty soon, they’re meeting in a back room and discussing how to create the internet.

Missionaries. I really want to see someone writing about post-apocalyptic missionaries. No, really. Anywhere you have religion, you’ll have eager young people burning to share their faith. If history is any indication, they have a magnetic draw to isolated places where they will get their skin removed in any number of horrible ways. But a dystopian missionary might have a HAM radio with her.

The environment. The environment is now hugely affected by people. We drill, dump and drain with little regard for the effects. In return, storms are worsening, the ice caps are melting, and our deserts are sinking.

Imagine that the Garbage Patch washes/builds up to the edge of a remote beach, somewhere that modern society hasn’t been able to catch up to. Suddenly, all these pieces of an unimagined future inundate their lives. How long until someone starts connecting wires, rearranging elements, and inventing things that wouldn’t even occur to an American scientist? What sort of science-fiction, alien culture could build from such a unique viewpoint?

Even the way these catalysts interact with each other can affect the society in question. Pit Armies against Weather. Tourists (think Vancouver and China’s Olympics) against Big Brother.

As these catalysts interact with each other, various forms of societal landscapes begin to form. Ethnic lines, technological landscapes, lines of ideas, finances and media. Within a city, ethnic groups will draw together. The classes will sift themselves by money and social status. Groups will be drawn together by technology, fetish and hobby. No matter how many times the lines of society are redrawn, patterns will emerge. Boundaries will change. Religions will rise and fall.

There are thousands of possibilities to be explored and utilized.

Even Dystopia is not a monochromatic, blind lump.

“I am the third sex, not a man trying to be a woman. It is your society’s problem that you only recognize two sexes.” (Hijra Mona Ahmed to author Dayanita Singh).~Wikipedia on Hijra culture.

Before I kick off into the body of this post, I want to make a disclaimer up front. I realize that gender is a sensitive issue without a simple, black and white answer. It is also a vast, complex topic. So I have left things out, and perhaps over-simplified other aspects. No disrespect is intended in any case. And in all cases, I have many lovely genderqueer friends to thank for my own understanding of the gray area and of the unique position occupied by those who do not fit into the either/or.~Jaym

Nothing quite gets under modern society’s skin like gender.

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God made some men of mud, but they were very soft and limp, and they couldn’t see. They could speak, but what they said didn’t make sense.~ Mayan Creation Story (Indiginouspeople.net)

She sits on the steps, dirty-white sadness wrapped tightly around her, time running through her hands like the quicksand of an hourglass. Music sketching Richter-scale graphs in her mind, her thoughts appearing and disappearing across her mental screen in the empty room of her head.

She has Synesthesia. Sight is sound, time is sand or twine, emotion is colored clay. Music is a pattern, words are a dance. Communicating cannot be done in simple verbal exchanges for her. Oh, she can talk, well enough, but words lack. People’s words are flat with lacking complexity.

If she could communicate with people in her way, shapes and sounds and textures would layer and permeate her language. Instead of a stream of empty, harsh sounds, she would dance, touch, taste and shape her way through the conversation. But, that’s not how English works. She stutters through a description of her day. The kids laugh at her, and she runs.

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Perspective

The sides of the cauldron are steep, thickly covered by ancient volcanic gravel. Around the rim of the massive crater, winds can gust to as much as fifty miles an hour. The panorama from the volcano’s rim is of the seared, scorched Death Valley. Downwards, the slope plummets over five hundred feet to the bottom. There is a trail, but running through the gravel is more fun. Walking it, you have to go sideways to keep your feet. Running, the key is to move in short diagonal bursts, to use the gravel to brake yourself. Don’t start falling, you won’t stop until you hit the bottom, and the gravel is sharp.

This is Ubehebe Crater, Death Valley, California. Open to the general public, there are now long lines of people trudging up and down the switchback trail. But when I first remember being there, some fifteen years ago, only a few people did more than look over the rim. Very few went all the way to the white-silt bottom. My family did climb down into the crater. Ubehebe is a small, extinct volcano, but even so, it terrified me. Those early adventures triggered a fascination with volcanic phenomena that has lasted ever since.

Mythology

Volcanoes are one of the most potent, powerful forces on the Earth. They have crept, over the ages, into our nightmares, our folklore, our speech. Intricate mythologies formed around them. Hephaestus, Pele, Llao, Mafuei, Aetna and Fuji all shook the earth and spewed fire in their rages and passions.

Some mountains have their own mythology, too, becoming gods or forces with their own life, malevolence and force. Even now, villagers pray to Mount Etna for her mercy.

Others were the entrances to Hell, the burial grounds of the gods, or the birthplace of monsters. Often, they were the sites of great battles, most likely because of the great earthquakes that often accompany their eruptions.

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From Wikipedia:

Piezoelectricity is the ability of some materials (notably crystals and certain ceramics, including bone) to generate an electric field or electric potential in response to applied mechanical stress. The effect is closely related to a change of polarization density within the material’s volume. If the material is not short-circuited, the applied stress induces a voltage across the material. The word is derived from the Greek piezo or piezein, which means to squeeze or press.

The first recorded, modern study of piezoelectrics took place in the 18th century. Carl Linnaeus and Franz Aepinus started with research of the pyroelectric effect, using various materials to generate an electric response due to temperature change. This research prompted Rene Just Hauy and Antoine Cesar Becquerel to posit a relation between mechanical stress and electric charges. Unfortunately, their experiments proved inconclusive, leading to a bit of a gap in experimentation.

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