Check out this link - a white dwarf star that is actually a 10 billion trillion trillion carat diamond!
Wow.
Monday, September 13, 2010
More ancient ruins...
I just picked up this link today - the oldest Roman baths in Asia Minor have been discovered in Sagalassos, Turkey. Underneath yet another set of Roman baths... why am I not surprised?
Friday, September 10, 2010
Cheerios and Space - and Language and Culture?
Here's an interesting little article about "the Cheerios effect" (I kid you not), in which Cheerios in a bowl of milk will clump together and aggregate at the sides of the bowl - and how this relates to space!
I think this article is particularly interesting because of the way it shows that simple everyday effects can be observed on vastly larger scales. The underlying truths of a world (physical laws in this case) are observable on multiple different levels.
This is also true of language. The most fundamental principles of a language, whether strictly grammatical or pragmatics-related, can generally be observed even in very small recorded samples of speech in that language. As examples I'd give grammatical gender in French and Spanish, and casual versus formal speech style in Japanese (though there are many more). I find the speech style example particularly interesting because it has social consequences, not just grammatical ones. This is where you start seeing that this phenomenon also reaches into the area of culture.
I've been writing this week in my Varin world, and rejoicing at the fact that I'm so much a better writer now than when I first designed it. The reason why? Well, because when you first design a world it's really easy to lay out a lot of general principles about how the society works. It's much harder to explore how those general principles play out on the smaller scale of individual interactions.
If you say, "The nobility are isolated and think they're better than anybody else," it's easy to have them go around acting too broadly. They dress and speak loudly, they insult others, they just basically act like arrogant snobs in a really really obvious way. I am embarrassed to say that this is what they were like when I first wrote them. However, this isn't really how things work. These are people like everyone else, and they should have just as many arrogant snobs among them as other social groups do - which is to say, not everyone. A single individual's main personality traits should be at the fore (as for example, my relatively modest and kind protagonist, Tagret); their cultural bias should be reflected on the small scale in their unconscious reactions.
To explore a bit further into the Varin example, the nobility of Varin typically don't mix with any caste but the servant caste, who are an integral part of their everyday life. They can be either polite or impolite to their servants depending on the person. They have dealings with the officer caste (police, army, fire brigade etc.) in certain fixed contexts. However, they almost never see anyone of lower caste than that. An insensitive nobleman or noble lady, having to deal with merchants or artisans, might express distaste, but someone like Tagret feels mostly out of his depth, like he doesn't know what to do with them. He tries to be polite but at the same time will try to distance himself from them, unconsciously, to remove himself from the discomfort of not knowing the appropriate way to treat these people socially.
If your world has social principles, treat them as respectfully as you would the laws of physics. Don't just slap them on over the top. Realize that just like the Cheerios effect, they will have repercussions that go all the way down to the smallest interactions, including the subtleties of the ways people talk to each other.
I think this article is particularly interesting because of the way it shows that simple everyday effects can be observed on vastly larger scales. The underlying truths of a world (physical laws in this case) are observable on multiple different levels.
This is also true of language. The most fundamental principles of a language, whether strictly grammatical or pragmatics-related, can generally be observed even in very small recorded samples of speech in that language. As examples I'd give grammatical gender in French and Spanish, and casual versus formal speech style in Japanese (though there are many more). I find the speech style example particularly interesting because it has social consequences, not just grammatical ones. This is where you start seeing that this phenomenon also reaches into the area of culture.
I've been writing this week in my Varin world, and rejoicing at the fact that I'm so much a better writer now than when I first designed it. The reason why? Well, because when you first design a world it's really easy to lay out a lot of general principles about how the society works. It's much harder to explore how those general principles play out on the smaller scale of individual interactions.
If you say, "The nobility are isolated and think they're better than anybody else," it's easy to have them go around acting too broadly. They dress and speak loudly, they insult others, they just basically act like arrogant snobs in a really really obvious way. I am embarrassed to say that this is what they were like when I first wrote them. However, this isn't really how things work. These are people like everyone else, and they should have just as many arrogant snobs among them as other social groups do - which is to say, not everyone. A single individual's main personality traits should be at the fore (as for example, my relatively modest and kind protagonist, Tagret); their cultural bias should be reflected on the small scale in their unconscious reactions.
To explore a bit further into the Varin example, the nobility of Varin typically don't mix with any caste but the servant caste, who are an integral part of their everyday life. They can be either polite or impolite to their servants depending on the person. They have dealings with the officer caste (police, army, fire brigade etc.) in certain fixed contexts. However, they almost never see anyone of lower caste than that. An insensitive nobleman or noble lady, having to deal with merchants or artisans, might express distaste, but someone like Tagret feels mostly out of his depth, like he doesn't know what to do with them. He tries to be polite but at the same time will try to distance himself from them, unconsciously, to remove himself from the discomfort of not knowing the appropriate way to treat these people socially.
If your world has social principles, treat them as respectfully as you would the laws of physics. Don't just slap them on over the top. Realize that just like the Cheerios effect, they will have repercussions that go all the way down to the smallest interactions, including the subtleties of the ways people talk to each other.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Cave photos!
For those of you who may be interested in caves for worldbuilding purposes, here is a terrific set of cave photos from all over the world, collected by National Geographic. The link will take you to one of the photos, but from there you should be able to navigate to the others. Extremely cool.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Architecture: how it reflects history and culture
How do people build in your world?
In my post about building materials, I started by bringing up the links between architecture and environment/setting. In this post I'm going to talk about the links between architecture and history. The buildings you choose to put in your world will tell readers (and the people of your world) about the history of these people and their civilization.
When we were in Europe we went to the city of Aosta in Italy. This city, we learned, was once called Augusta Praetoria, and was the place where Roman troops stopped for the winter before invading Gaul. It's been the center of its region since then. You wouldn't necessarily know this just by glancing at it from the highway, but if you walk into the town, it's hard to miss. Augustus' Arch, the Praetorian Gate, the Roman Theater... all are easy to access. The theater was great because it had a modern theater built right beside the ancient, crumbling one. Very cool - but that wasn't the most impressive part.
Aosta has a cathedral, built in the 11th century and remodeled a bit in the 15th and 16th centuries. It rises majestically above the roofs of the town - and that's all you see if you just walk by. If you go in, however, you can find the entrance of the church that was built before it, in the 3rd century. The cathedral was built right over the top of the old church, but the arches are still there, the columns and the carved capitals that were made in the years 200. If you then walk out of the cathedral and around the corner, you'll find the entrance to the Roman forum. Yes, the Roman forum is underneath the 3rd century church - and it's huge. It's this gigantic corridor of stone arches, now lit by electric light, and seeming way too huge to exist underneath two other buildings this far underground. I wish I could show you a photograph - but really you should go and see it with your own eyes. This gives the town the sense of permanence that I described in my post about building materials. It is set in stones more than two thousand years old.
How many fantasy or science fiction worlds do you know which have this kind of history reflected in their architecture? My answer would be, not as many as I'd like.
Just in case you're concerned that I'm suggesting everyone create modern Italy in their fictional worlds, that's not it at all. Paris is full of the architecture of other times, even down to the crypts underneath the city. Kyoto, Japan is similar, ranging from the ultra-modern to the ancient.
Kyoto is an interesting example because of the fact that their primary building material is wood, not stone. You can walk through the streets and see modern vending machines just ten feet away from the entrance to a small city shrine or temple. You can park your car (not that I ever had one) in the lot and walk in to see the temple of Sanjusangendo, originally built in the 12th century and containing more than a thousand statues carved in the 12th and 13th centuries. You can go visit the Kiyomizu temple, and then read about it in The Tale of Genji and realize that it wasn't new even in the year 1000, but was built back in the 8th century.
Ok, so at this point I'd like to ask another question. What kind of place doesn't have old buildings? There are several possibilities.
1. A place where people build structures that could potentially be permanent, but where some historical event has destroyed all structures over a certain age.
Tokyo is rather like this. It suffered the Great Kanto Earthquake, and then the carpet-bombings of World War II... and as a result, all of the oldest buildings date from a particular (more modern) era. In a case like this, it's important to consider what kind of impact a very destructive event will have on culture, and what less tangible evidence will be available in the mental states of the population.
2. A place where building materials are quickly broken down by the elements.
Jungle dwellings might well be like this. In this case, other evidence of human history might be available, like tools or artifacts of various types.
3. A place where the population is nomadic.
If the population is nomadic, then habitations have to be light enough to be carried. They may or may not be made from durable enough materials to be recognized as human tools/structures long after they have been abandoned.
4. A place where the cultural paradigm calls for constant renewal.
This is certainly a possibility. However, I can't see that it would make much sense for extremely durable architecture (stone, for example) to coexist with such a cultural paradigm. It would be much more likely to be present in a place where building materials broke down relatively quickly.
5. A place that has only recently become inhabited by humans.
Architecture in a place like this would probably be either made with local materials or with imported materials, but all more or less in the same architectural style, since everything would be built at the same time. Still, this lack of history is in itself a sort of history - indicating that the people are recent arrivals.
I'm sure there are other reasons why older architecture might not endure, but at this point I think it's worth pointing something out: the presence of architecture means something - and the absence of architecture also means something. So if you're creating a society and they don't have any old architecture, no problem - but make sure there's a good societal reason why it's not there. Think about where history is preserved in your society - in behaviors, in stories or written records, in artifacts or in buildings. What kinds of historical events might have influenced this world? In what kind of contexts might evidence of that history be available for discovery?
It's worth thinking about - and on that note, I think I'll include this link to some photos by Sergey Larenkov, which overlay images from World War II on images of the very same buildings from 2010.
In my post about building materials, I started by bringing up the links between architecture and environment/setting. In this post I'm going to talk about the links between architecture and history. The buildings you choose to put in your world will tell readers (and the people of your world) about the history of these people and their civilization.
When we were in Europe we went to the city of Aosta in Italy. This city, we learned, was once called Augusta Praetoria, and was the place where Roman troops stopped for the winter before invading Gaul. It's been the center of its region since then. You wouldn't necessarily know this just by glancing at it from the highway, but if you walk into the town, it's hard to miss. Augustus' Arch, the Praetorian Gate, the Roman Theater... all are easy to access. The theater was great because it had a modern theater built right beside the ancient, crumbling one. Very cool - but that wasn't the most impressive part.
Aosta has a cathedral, built in the 11th century and remodeled a bit in the 15th and 16th centuries. It rises majestically above the roofs of the town - and that's all you see if you just walk by. If you go in, however, you can find the entrance of the church that was built before it, in the 3rd century. The cathedral was built right over the top of the old church, but the arches are still there, the columns and the carved capitals that were made in the years 200. If you then walk out of the cathedral and around the corner, you'll find the entrance to the Roman forum. Yes, the Roman forum is underneath the 3rd century church - and it's huge. It's this gigantic corridor of stone arches, now lit by electric light, and seeming way too huge to exist underneath two other buildings this far underground. I wish I could show you a photograph - but really you should go and see it with your own eyes. This gives the town the sense of permanence that I described in my post about building materials. It is set in stones more than two thousand years old.
How many fantasy or science fiction worlds do you know which have this kind of history reflected in their architecture? My answer would be, not as many as I'd like.
Just in case you're concerned that I'm suggesting everyone create modern Italy in their fictional worlds, that's not it at all. Paris is full of the architecture of other times, even down to the crypts underneath the city. Kyoto, Japan is similar, ranging from the ultra-modern to the ancient.
Kyoto is an interesting example because of the fact that their primary building material is wood, not stone. You can walk through the streets and see modern vending machines just ten feet away from the entrance to a small city shrine or temple. You can park your car (not that I ever had one) in the lot and walk in to see the temple of Sanjusangendo, originally built in the 12th century and containing more than a thousand statues carved in the 12th and 13th centuries. You can go visit the Kiyomizu temple, and then read about it in The Tale of Genji and realize that it wasn't new even in the year 1000, but was built back in the 8th century.
Ok, so at this point I'd like to ask another question. What kind of place doesn't have old buildings? There are several possibilities.
1. A place where people build structures that could potentially be permanent, but where some historical event has destroyed all structures over a certain age.
Tokyo is rather like this. It suffered the Great Kanto Earthquake, and then the carpet-bombings of World War II... and as a result, all of the oldest buildings date from a particular (more modern) era. In a case like this, it's important to consider what kind of impact a very destructive event will have on culture, and what less tangible evidence will be available in the mental states of the population.
2. A place where building materials are quickly broken down by the elements.
Jungle dwellings might well be like this. In this case, other evidence of human history might be available, like tools or artifacts of various types.
3. A place where the population is nomadic.
If the population is nomadic, then habitations have to be light enough to be carried. They may or may not be made from durable enough materials to be recognized as human tools/structures long after they have been abandoned.
4. A place where the cultural paradigm calls for constant renewal.
This is certainly a possibility. However, I can't see that it would make much sense for extremely durable architecture (stone, for example) to coexist with such a cultural paradigm. It would be much more likely to be present in a place where building materials broke down relatively quickly.
5. A place that has only recently become inhabited by humans.
Architecture in a place like this would probably be either made with local materials or with imported materials, but all more or less in the same architectural style, since everything would be built at the same time. Still, this lack of history is in itself a sort of history - indicating that the people are recent arrivals.
I'm sure there are other reasons why older architecture might not endure, but at this point I think it's worth pointing something out: the presence of architecture means something - and the absence of architecture also means something. So if you're creating a society and they don't have any old architecture, no problem - but make sure there's a good societal reason why it's not there. Think about where history is preserved in your society - in behaviors, in stories or written records, in artifacts or in buildings. What kinds of historical events might have influenced this world? In what kind of contexts might evidence of that history be available for discovery?
It's worth thinking about - and on that note, I think I'll include this link to some photos by Sergey Larenkov, which overlay images from World War II on images of the very same buildings from 2010.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Washing Clothes across cultures
While we were in Paris, my family and I went to visit the Parc Asterix. I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the character of Asterix, but he's quite famous in many countries - a little Gaul from the time of the Roman Empire who loves to cause the Romans trouble along with his friend Obelix. We had fun, and saw lots of statues (and some costumed characters) of the folks from the comic books doing various things like riding in boats etc. One of the things they had was a statue of a Gauloise (woman from Gaul) washing clothes in a river. This was the moment when I had to explain washing clothes in a river to my kids.
We don't exactly pound our laundry on a rock. But there are still quite a few people in the world who do.
I took this as one example of a big difference in technologies surrounding the washing of clothes. However, what impressed me more was the more subtle difference surrounding the washing of clothes that I encountered in France and Switzerland.
Nobody had dryers. When asked, they would say, "A drying machine? Why?"
Well, in fact, it's a good question. I guess you could say that we Americans like to do everything as quickly and easily as possible and never mind the expense of energy or money. Yes, there are times when it rains. In France, there could be rain on any given day, since they don't have the unnatural division of rainy season and dry season that we have here in California.
The interesting thing from a TTYU point of view is the way that different values have been placed on these machines. Everyone has a washer; it's natural (that's another issue, but it's not being called into question in the US/Europe contrast). But what does it mean to have a dryer, or not to have a dryer?
In the US, it's surprising (at least!) to hear that someone doesn't have a dryer. In some cases, the lack of a dryer is associated with poverty. There is no such association (no surprise) in Europe. Having a dryer there is seen as a waste of money, bad for the environment (this view has become strong recently), and damaging to the clothes. Contrast this with Japan, where we had a dryer, but where our washer was so gentle it hardly washed things - and this was because it was believed that a stronger washer would damage the clothes!
So, for those world builders out there - it's valuable to have striking differences in technology, etc. but also good to explore how subtler differences in attitude lead to differences in what people use, like these washing machines. Just because a technology is available doesn't mean that people will want to use it, so consider why it is that people make the technology choices they do.
It's worth thinking about.
We don't exactly pound our laundry on a rock. But there are still quite a few people in the world who do.
I took this as one example of a big difference in technologies surrounding the washing of clothes. However, what impressed me more was the more subtle difference surrounding the washing of clothes that I encountered in France and Switzerland.
Nobody had dryers. When asked, they would say, "A drying machine? Why?"
Well, in fact, it's a good question. I guess you could say that we Americans like to do everything as quickly and easily as possible and never mind the expense of energy or money. Yes, there are times when it rains. In France, there could be rain on any given day, since they don't have the unnatural division of rainy season and dry season that we have here in California.
The interesting thing from a TTYU point of view is the way that different values have been placed on these machines. Everyone has a washer; it's natural (that's another issue, but it's not being called into question in the US/Europe contrast). But what does it mean to have a dryer, or not to have a dryer?
In the US, it's surprising (at least!) to hear that someone doesn't have a dryer. In some cases, the lack of a dryer is associated with poverty. There is no such association (no surprise) in Europe. Having a dryer there is seen as a waste of money, bad for the environment (this view has become strong recently), and damaging to the clothes. Contrast this with Japan, where we had a dryer, but where our washer was so gentle it hardly washed things - and this was because it was believed that a stronger washer would damage the clothes!
So, for those world builders out there - it's valuable to have striking differences in technology, etc. but also good to explore how subtler differences in attitude lead to differences in what people use, like these washing machines. Just because a technology is available doesn't mean that people will want to use it, so consider why it is that people make the technology choices they do.
It's worth thinking about.
Article on Darwin - and terraforming!
I found this interesting article today. It talks about Charles Darwin's experience on Ascension Island, and how it relates to ideas about terraforming planets. Fascinating.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11137903
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11137903
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