It's the first of March here, and Epiphany is the 6th of January, so I'm concerned that you might have been hibernating for two months and not realised it... :-p
The Epiphany "I think we're all glad that we weren't were that gate opened last time," same Memnith. His voice was calm, but Elizabeth noted that the muscle just under his left eye was twitching. "You can't reopen a gate," she said, shaking her head. She paused, thinking back through her lectures and studies. "No, it's impossible. That must have been something else." Her confidence in herself started to drain away as soon as she looked at Lord Vileburn and realised that this has to be the third time she'd inadvertently forgotten that he was a Lord Magical and not just a colleague. "Hmm," said Memnith. He smiled, and she smiled back, a little tentatively. "How do you know it's impossible?" "There's a proof," said Elizabeth. "Well, sort of a proof. It doesn't actually work, but I never got round to going back and fixing it. It's sort of obvious why it has to be right, so it never seemed all... that... important...." Her voice trailed off as she thought about what she was saying. "Not that important? Didn't you just point out that we should use things we don't properly understand?" The heat of her blush was enough to make her worry she was going to start sweating. She desperately wanted to run out of the room, get some cold water for her face, and think about what she'd just said until she could justify it. But no, running away from a Lord Magical was just not appropriate. Ever. "I did," she said, using the admission to buy herself time to think. "And I'm starting to think I should think before I open my mouth." "Derby would be nodding sagely at you right now," said Memnith. He still looked more amused than annoyed, but she couldn't work out if that was a good thing or not. "I quite like you thinking aloud though. It makes it easier to catch mistakes, and we're working with things we don't really understand here, so two heads are better than one. But tell me about the proof still. It's wrong, but you believe it?"
Elizabeth took a deep breath, hoping it would steady her. It felt like she might not have messed up as badly as she thought, but she still felt like she was standing on thin ice. "Well," she said. "It's the standard proof that when a gate closes it causes turbulence because of the backflow of magical energy. We use magic to open the tunnel between two places, and that tunnel has to go somewhere when the gate closes, so it divides equally between the two ends, and this creates vortices in the Power that break up the Gate signature. So you can open a new Gate, because you can just avoid the vortices, but you can't reopen the old Gate because then you can't." Mennith nodded. "So what's the problem with the proof?" "When it shows that the Power is equally divided when the Gates close," said Elizabeth. She felt on much safer ground now. "It's intuitively obvious, of course, but it makes a claim about the minimum of a certain polynomial and that's not actually true if you look at it carefully. I'm pretty certain that it's just a handwave for students because you need to do some careful analysis to rule out the extra cases, it's just that every time I sat down to do it I kept making mistakes." "Did you?" Memnith's words were quiet, and in the silence that followed Elizabeth felt like she'd had an epiphany. "Oh." she said. "Oh, right. Actually there are three minima, aren't there? Equally divided, but the Power could all go out one end or the other as well, right? But that would-" She stopped, her brain stalling at the implications. "That would be catastrophic at that end," said Memnith. "Explosively. Wherever Derby's Gate actually got diverted to has probably been flattened, and is quite probably on fire right now. Yes. We teach that proof because most students accept it, and of the ones who look into it, most, like you, decide that it's intuitively correct. Only a very few work it out all the way, and we watch out for them, just in case. A Gate can be a very effective weapon, and using one as such is a capital crime. Luckily there is a hard limit on how big we can make Gates, and the mathematics there is entirely sound, so it's not much use in war. Well, yet, anyway." "People probably died then," said Elizabeth. She was starting to feel shaky at what was happening. "Lord Derby...?" "Probably dodged it," said Memnith. "That man seems to have a charmed life sometimes. As, speaking of nagging irritations-" Someone knocked on the door. "Come in, your Majesty," called Memnith. The door opened slightly and the King poked his head round. "Just passing," he said cheerfully. "And thought I'd see if you have my Investigator back yet? Only I think I'm going to need him shortly."
3 comments:
It's the first of March here, and Epiphany is the 6th of January, so I'm concerned that you might have been hibernating for two months and not realised it... :-p
The Epiphany
"I think we're all glad that we weren't were that gate opened last time," same Memnith. His voice was calm, but Elizabeth noted that the muscle just under his left eye was twitching.
"You can't reopen a gate," she said, shaking her head. She paused, thinking back through her lectures and studies. "No, it's impossible. That must have been something else." Her confidence in herself started to drain away as soon as she looked at Lord Vileburn and realised that this has to be the third time she'd inadvertently forgotten that he was a Lord Magical and not just a colleague.
"Hmm," said Memnith. He smiled, and she smiled back, a little tentatively. "How do you know it's impossible?"
"There's a proof," said Elizabeth. "Well, sort of a proof. It doesn't actually work, but I never got round to going back and fixing it. It's sort of obvious why it has to be right, so it never seemed all... that... important...." Her voice trailed off as she thought about what she was saying.
"Not that important? Didn't you just point out that we should use things we don't properly understand?"
The heat of her blush was enough to make her worry she was going to start sweating. She desperately wanted to run out of the room, get some cold water for her face, and think about what she'd just said until she could justify it. But no, running away from a Lord Magical was just not appropriate. Ever.
"I did," she said, using the admission to buy herself time to think. "And I'm starting to think I should think before I open my mouth."
"Derby would be nodding sagely at you right now," said Memnith. He still looked more amused than annoyed, but she couldn't work out if that was a good thing or not. "I quite like you thinking aloud though. It makes it easier to catch mistakes, and we're working with things we don't really understand here, so two heads are better than one. But tell me about the proof still. It's wrong, but you believe it?"
Elizabeth took a deep breath, hoping it would steady her. It felt like she might not have messed up as badly as she thought, but she still felt like she was standing on thin ice. "Well," she said. "It's the standard proof that when a gate closes it causes turbulence because of the backflow of magical energy. We use magic to open the tunnel between two places, and that tunnel has to go somewhere when the gate closes, so it divides equally between the two ends, and this creates vortices in the Power that break up the Gate signature. So you can open a new Gate, because you can just avoid the vortices, but you can't reopen the old Gate because then you can't."
Mennith nodded. "So what's the problem with the proof?"
"When it shows that the Power is equally divided when the Gates close," said Elizabeth. She felt on much safer ground now. "It's intuitively obvious, of course, but it makes a claim about the minimum of a certain polynomial and that's not actually true if you look at it carefully. I'm pretty certain that it's just a handwave for students because you need to do some careful analysis to rule out the extra cases, it's just that every time I sat down to do it I kept making mistakes."
"Did you?" Memnith's words were quiet, and in the silence that followed Elizabeth felt like she'd had an epiphany.
"Oh." she said. "Oh, right. Actually there are three minima, aren't there? Equally divided, but the Power could all go out one end or the other as well, right? But that would-" She stopped, her brain stalling at the implications.
"That would be catastrophic at that end," said Memnith. "Explosively. Wherever Derby's Gate actually got diverted to has probably been flattened, and is quite probably on fire right now. Yes. We teach that proof because most students accept it, and of the ones who look into it, most, like you, decide that it's intuitively correct. Only a very few work it out all the way, and we watch out for them, just in case. A Gate can be a very effective weapon, and using one as such is a capital crime. Luckily there is a hard limit on how big we can make Gates, and the mathematics there is entirely sound, so it's not much use in war. Well, yet, anyway."
"People probably died then," said Elizabeth. She was starting to feel shaky at what was happening. "Lord Derby...?"
"Probably dodged it," said Memnith. "That man seems to have a charmed life sometimes. As, speaking of nagging irritations-"
Someone knocked on the door.
"Come in, your Majesty," called Memnith.
The door opened slightly and the King poked his head round. "Just passing," he said cheerfully. "And thought I'd see if you have my Investigator back yet? Only I think I'm going to need him shortly."
Greg - it is difficult to express how utterly okay I would be with that scenario...
Still enjoying the back and forth between these two. I find it... illuminating :)
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