On: Asking for Help When Writing Science!(TM) · 2:11am Sep 21st, 2019
Good Morning from my Writing Lair! This is Shadow_8472, and today, I have been seeking out help artistically adding a nod to real science to my next chapter of A Tale of Two Worlds without completely bowing to it. Let's get started!
First of all, it's almost ready. For some unspecified-for-now reason, Dr. Stone finds himself in a curvature in space-time without the whole planet getting crunched. I've been posting the physics problem like so:
- The observer is about 50 yards away from the portal.
- 3-5 hours are compressed into 15-30 minutes (relative to Canterlot, if need be).
- Physical mater is not affected by gravity due to the additional curve in space-time, but light is.
- The portal is big enough for multiple ponies to use at once, but too small to drive a truck through
Does the observer see any obvious/inobvious gravitational lensing around the portal?
Does the observer see anything else that might clue him into non-Euclidean (Ponification of Euclid would be nice, but workaround avalible) geometries?
The usual response I've gotten almost feels like an overwhelming reaction of Don't you know how black holes work? You can't divorce gravity's effects like that! (compilation paraphrase). Less common is the comp where It's your story, Just write it how you think it goes. Admittedly, some places were better than others, but one time, an admin had to get on everyone for not giving me time to type a long reply. (Thanks if you're reading this.)
Long story short, someone sent me to Pineta, and his most recent story looked like Twilight and Rainbow Dash were looking at some portal. I spent a chunk of time learning about the Polar Vortex and how it involves two layers in the lower atmosphere. The survey (Why does Firefox have auto-correct add to dictionary right below the one suggestion I actually needed?) I submitted afterword will likely have one of the more interesting reasons for reading the story.
Here is my most recent line of inquiry in case you have some constructive ideas: https://www.fimfiction.net/group/200591/science-in-equestria/thread/415331/calculation-assist-request-gravitational-lensing.
Final Question: Have you ever gotten what felt like hostile advice while writing? Did rewording terminology help?
I was discouraged from writing my Fallout: Equestria longfic.
I'm still working on it. I've learned a lot from writing shorts while I continue to develop this longfic.
You don't need to do what your critics say, but understanding why they say it is critical for growth. Once you understand, you can decide if you will take the offered advice, forge your own path to address the issues you identify, or carry on because those people are not your audience.
At the end of the day, you're writing for yourself. What's important to you? Making other writers happy? Getting upvotes? Getting views? Having a high upvote to view ratio? Writing a story that you'd want to read? Taking revenge against people for their choices by making them read a horrifying story? Decide what it is you want, and figure out how to get there.
Those folks who discouraged me were not my audience. I've found my audience on other servers, and take feedback now for this story from those servers.
I couldn't swear to it as I've not gotten through my 'calculus on manifolds' study (and I'm not sure if I will anytime soon), but for what it's worth I think the scenario described corresponds to a mathematically describable manifold... however, just because that is true doesn't mean any actual arrangement of mass-energy could create that space-time. It's rather difficult to prove either way. Here's an interesting time machine that probably doesn't correspond to any real configuration but which is geometrically valid: https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9702031.pdf
And well, I tend to get people not wanting to offer any criticism, which is I guess better but still not ideal. I try to be constructive with my criticism myself.
Oh and this is a weird question but is the Dr. Stone pony at all based on the manga of that name?
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Wow, I suppose there are a lot more reasons than I had thought. I believe my primary goal is to share a story that is special to me in a way where it can be enjoyable to others. Views/upvotes/intelligent comments would be nice, sure.
Learning along the way is always good too.
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I skimmed the link, and I'm not sure I know quite enough math to easily understand all the implications, though in my exploration, I believe I learned enough to tighten the definition of my little story problem (no pun intentionally intended!):
I want to use Geogebra to find a reasonable value for X, but in previous iterations of the problem, I've taken a wild guess and said about 50 yards. This value has an upper bound of half the approximate size of the town square and a lower bound pertaining to events in the chapter.
On a related note, human and/or pony Physiology may not be completely happy operating in a temporal gradient. I'd like to explore how close characters can approach without some biological system failing.
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No, actually. He is my own, original creation. My oldest surviving documentation of him is a couple months after the first issue of the Dr. Stone manga, but I had an earlier forum post on a MineLittlePony server message board-type site that was shut down shortly after I joined. My Dr. Stone is an elderly Crystal Pony with motifs from MacGyver and Indiana Jones. Dr. Stone W. Jay PHD of the Crystal Archives, presently on load to the Canterlot Archives.
I actually ended up writing a whole page introducing his ability to MacGyver things as well as introduce a detail that might show up in a sequel.
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Oh I was just giving it as an example. After I wrote that I found out that any (pseudo-) Reimannian manifold technically has a corresponding stress-energy tensor (because the Einstein equations are under-defined when working in that direction), but it may not correspond to a 'reasonable' configuration: You may have negative mass, for instance.
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Looking at your dates, probably doesn't pre-date it, but it's a pretty obvious name. :P
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It probably doesn't predate it, but I only found out later. His full name is a pun on Stonewall Jackson, and Dr. Jay doesn't quite sound quite right. I had the same problem with Applesauce: I went back and watched the series for a second time and one of the aunts had a familiar name. I just decided he was named after her.
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Oh that's why that name sounded familiar. Makes sense, I mean, they'd have to run out of apple-based puns eventually. Probalby got called 'little applesauce' as a foal.
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I just might include that as a hated nickname!
Lilsauce
Of course, since he had a hard time learning magic, you can guess who came up with a special one for him: "Worn Horn."
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Babs?
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Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. He might have had a related little incident that involved Dad pulling his horn out of a tree and mandatory home school afterword.