Starlust

Professor Dutton had a theory that the problem with the universe was the stars. They were too greedy, and lusted after everything, until they imploded and became black holes. If we could distribute all that energy a bit more judiciously, so that it didn't bunch up so egregiously that the stars began consuming everything around them, then we wouldn't have to worry about the heat death of the universe. According to his calculations, it was also the fault of the stars that the universe was forever expanding.

"And thus, I present my plan to destroy every star in the galaxy."

The Ending?

At the beginning of my travels I lived in a reality where the US used Celsius. A temperature for a human was a 100 C. Body temperature was 97.8 C. How could that be? Blood flowed much much faster there. And reality spun up much faster too.

Meaning? Here they say 243 million years for an orbit of the Earth, while on a parallel Earth they said 1000 years. Begging the question how much faster is reality here? The big differences? Simple no known Black Holes? Yes. Abe Lincoln was a senator? Yes. Japan was off the coast of China.

From Guest Contributor Clinton Siegle

Traveler

Curiosity turned into passion. A passion to explore the unknown.

Time. Space. Alternate history. I visited them all.

And my memories unfolded...

Worlds I explored.Arrakis. Gethen. Narnia.

Characters I observed.Zaphod Beeblebrox. Severian.Winston Smith.

Wonders I experienced.Clocks that struck thirteen.Monoliths that searched minds ofape-like men.Farm animals that spoke of revolution.

Gods of worlds that I was privileged to.Wolfe. Asimov. Lewis. Clarke.

But you wondered about how I made the impossible possible.

Inventor of faster-than-light travel?Navigator of black holes?Man familiar with alien technology?

I responded with three simple words.

"No. I read."

From Guest Contributor John Lane

Absolute Zero

Is it so easy to discard Einstein? To forget Kuhn? Nothing is absolute. Even the rules Einstein himself believed inviolable proved fallible.

We've broken the light barrier. We've entered a black hole and returned. Still they demand their rules be sanctified.

Now she would prove them wrong again. She would surpass absolute zero. She would prove that no matter how cold, it could always be colder. She would do so by transforming the hermeneutics of quantum gravity, and forever alter our understanding of the universe.

And she would die in the process, praying she's right about the viability of cryogenics.