Alternatives Book Jacket
Time travel may make it possible to pick and choose between alternative time paths and adjust history to the greatest advantage of humanity.
- Isaac Asimov, On Science Fiction
The Universe
Which one is it?
So, you think you know everything there is to know about quantum physics, space-time dilation, and alternate universes? All right, I admit it. My mind shrinks when I see equations running across the page. I like Einstein's blurb.
Mass gained or lost is equal to a gain or loss in energy. Yeah, yeah, I'll buy that ... We can still understand what these guys are saying in layman's terms.
I drive my car everyday but on the weekend I don't rip apart the engine and spread it across my garage floor.
Now things get interesting
Erwin Schrodinger
Stephen Hawking simplifies the next step for me.
The Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, thought of a paradox to show that quantum mechanics doesn't apply to larger, tangible things. He envisioned a cat locked in a steel chamber with a tiny amount of radioactive material, a Geiger counter, and a diabolical device designed so that if the Geiger counter detects a radioactive decay, it activates a hammer that breaks a flask of acid and poisons the cat.
Stephen Hawking
It takes only one decaying atom to kill the cat, but whether an atom decays or not is governed by probability. Applying the rules of quantum mechanics to this system would mean that the cat is neither alive nor dead until a human observer actually looks in the chamber. Schrodinger argued that this was nonsense and merely an example of applying quantum mechanics to situations in which it doesn't apply. Still, a few physicists defend the idea that the cat doesn't take on an existence (or lack thereof!) until it's observed.
Arthur Rudolph weighs in on Schrodinger's unusual experiment
When you look at the plate, one of two things happen, depending on what school of Quantum Physics you belong to. There is the Copenhagen Interpretation (so named because that was Einstein's brand of chewing tobacco), which states that when you look at the plate, the wave form will "collapse" and the probability of the photon hitting section A will "jump" to one, while the probability of the photon hitting section B goes to zero. There is also the Many Worlds Interpretation. Here, when you look at the plate, the universe splits into two parallel universes, one where the photon hits A and one where it hits B. The Many Worlds Interpretation is the basis for the popular television show "Melrose Place" (or is it 90210?).
My name is Robert P. Fitton and I am a timeaholic. I believe in parallel universes, alternate time lines and infinite possibilities. Has he finally gone mad, you say.
The Coranado Expedition' search for the Seven Cities of Gold, Cibola
In Alternatives Ricardo and Martin veer north from the expedition and find the real Cibola.
Pedro de Castaneda, of Najara's account of the expedition to Cibola which took place in the year 1540.
PREFACE
TO ME it seems very certain, my very noble lord, that it is a worthy ambition for great men to desire to know and wish to preserve for posterity correct information concerning the things that have happened in distant parts, about which little is known. I do not blame those inquisitive persons who, perchance with good intentions, have many times troubled me not a little with their requests that I clear up for them some doubts which they have had about different things that have been commonly related concerning the events and occurrences that took place during the expedition to Cibola, or the New Land, which the good viceroy - may he be with God in His glory - Don Antonio de Mendoza, ordered and arranged, and on which he sent Francisco Vazquez de Coronado as captain-general.
In truth, they have reason for wishing to know.
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A little bit of exaggeration makes a nice fantasy novel.
The Colorado Rockies
(not the baseball team)
Aliens arrive in Colorado to establish an alternate time outpost inside the mountains. An arrogant, ruthless and quite obnoxious member of the Coranado party, accompanied by his associate, stumble into the dimensional warp.
The Entities are designed to send those entering the outpost into realities of their choosing. Ricardo, over the next five hundred years, takes full advantage of the aliens' marching orders. He usurps power, money, and lust and Martin tags along for the ride.
Paul Revere's Boston Massacre
Ricardo sold arms to the British during the revolutionary war.
The Pentagon
Washington, D.C
Early in Alternatives Ricardo is bribing defense contractors.
Peter Sturgis
Citizen of the Year
Peter Sturgis, family man and good citizen, reluctantly nails the corrupt Ricardo, but Ricardo has become infatuated with Peter's wife Jeannie. Obsessed, Ricardo hijacks the Sturgis' to Cibola. Peter Sturgis now faces the dilemma of waking up in a different reality.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, And I'm not sure about the former."
- Albert Einstein
