SCP-536 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-536.

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Adam Smascher 20 Mar 2011 01:14

+ Ok, now that I'm not so tired, actual feedback. Collapsible tab.

SCP-536 is to be maintained according to standard Foundation procedures.

This is not containment procedures, this is a cop out to avoid writing them. Things to consider include who can access this, how easy you want it to be to access, and its potential danger.

SCP-536 is a ██ by █ by ██ meter chamber, with a 50 centimeter square viewing window…

You give us the dimensions of the window and a photo of it - it wouldn't be an insurmountable task to extrapolate its dimensions from that. I'd recommend not censoring its dimensions, as I can see no reason why they would be sensitive information.

The viewing window is opaque to electrons, nuclear particles, [REDACTED], and photons of energies above 1 keV.

Except for the viewing window, SCP-536 is totally opaque to electromagnetic radiation and subatomic particles.

These properties are highly anomalous and sure to attract attention, but you simply glaze over them.

I dislike the amount of censorship and the Anti-Foundation links in the recovery log. Why not attribute this to Prometheus Labs? This is right up their alley.

Now, onto the first test. I don't think they would jump into human testing right away… Let me rephrase that. There is absolutely no conceivable circumstance under which they would find a device and have no idea what it does, or know full well what it does for that matter, and immediately throw people inside and begin their dickery with the fundamental forces. Why the hell would they not stick a rock inside? Or a clock? Or a computer running at a predetermined speed? Further, how did the sensors inside the chamber remain operational after being subjected to the same environment that turned the doctor into a black hole? Would the doctor have had enough mass to become a black hole stable for longer than some minuscule fraction of a second?

Second test. Again, unnecessary human testing.

Subsequent analysis of video indicates both Lorentz contraction and redshift of light on the baseball…

Was the baseball thrown at approaching the speed of light, then? If so, where was the observer relative to the baseball's direction of movement? Unless it was thrown away from the observer, I think blueshift is the term you want. I'm also iffy on the described effects here. I'm not sure a person would feel pain due to this. I doubt very much that slowing down the speed of cognition would have the same effects as laughing gas or intoxication, because from the frame of reference of the person that's slowed, there would be no difference. An outside observer would note they appeared to move/think/speak/whatever more slowly, but that doesn't equate to impaired mental function, I don't think.

Third test. Goes without saying. That aside, only issue is:

…approximately zero Carbon-14.

That wording feels odd.

Final test. Again, goes without saying.

1:35:11 Theta dial returned to normal value. Teams in Hazardous Environment suits open the chamber door. Hydrogen gas and high levels of neutron radiation are detected.

Oh boy, an explosion hazard. Good thing the containment procedures… clearly outlined a… ventilation system… to deal… with… No, wait, shit, BOB, DON'T LIGHT A CIG-

My downvote remains pending these issues being addressed. If I'm mistaken anywhere, please correct me.

Last edited on 20 Mar 2011 18:16 by Adam Smascher Show more

existentialsocks 20 Mar 2011 22:32

I'm also iffy on the described effects here. I'm not sure a person would feel pain due to this. I doubt very much that slowing down the speed of cognition would have the same effects as laughing gas or intoxication, because from the frame of reference of the person that's slowed, there would be no difference. An outside observer would note they appeared to move/think/speak/whatever more slowly, but that doesn't equate to impaired mental function, I don't think.

I think lowering the speed of light significantly could have weird effects on people. Mostly because different parts of the body are all moving at different speeds. Your heart is pumping, blood is moving, your lungs are inflating/deflating. If c is low enough that your blood is moving at 0.95c, while some other part of your body is moving at 0.50c, and you would probably have some strange side effects. Not that they would be the same as what's stated in the text, but weird stuff is plausible I think. Hell, slow it enough that air currents are moving at a significant percentage of the speed of light, and maybe the person would get torn to pieces.

Adam Smascher 20 Mar 2011 22:42

I think enough things would be affected by reducing the speed of light that pain wouldn't be the only effect if, indeed, it's felt at all. I'm still unsure you'd be able to move at that sort of speed, since if c is reduced, wouldn't everything else be slowed as well? Speed of neural impulses through the body and speed of muscle contraction, for example. Would it not still require absurd energies for movement approaching c?

Last edited on 20 Mar 2011 22:46 by Adam Smascher Show more

Dr_Adams 21 Mar 2011 15:20

Indeed it would. Your heart would effectively have to pump your blood from a stationary position to a significant percentage of "c" with every pump.

Smascher: you're thinking of the classic textbook example of a person who's entire body is moving in a single direction at near the speed of light. That person would observe no ill effects on his or her self.

On the other hand, if your blood is going from 0 to 0.5c with every heartbeat, bad things are likely to happen. Similarly, accelerating your hand (and a baseball) to 0.95c would probably f***k your arm up pretty bad.

Adam Smascher 21 Mar 2011 21:15

I'm not thinking time dilation. What I mean by the impaired cognition is that, to someone outside the chamber, you may appear to be moving slower. However, this doesn't translate to impaired mental function for the person inside the chamber.

As for the baseball thing, I mean yeah, it would mess your arm up. Probably, if you could do it. But I think it'd be more than just pain, and as I said, I'm not sure that you'd be able to move that fast anyway. Slow the speed of light, does everything else slow accordingly? In that thrown baseball example, the neural impulses responsible for motor control would travel at superluminal speeds. That's a big no-no as far as physics goes for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that electrons are more massive than photons, unless I'm mistaken.

I think that, from the perspective of someone outside the chamber, everything inside would appear to have slowed, as opposed to now occurring at significant percentages of c. The person inside would, assuming it wasn't outright fatal, feel no difference.

I guess that the effect may be similar to time dilation, even though the person in the chamber is stationary relative to the outside observer's frame of reference. A light clock inside the chamber would, to an outside observer, appear to tick more slowly. To the person inside the chamber, there would be no appreciable difference. Because of this and the other points I've outlined, I do not think the results of exposure to such an environment where c is reduced would be as described. I'm almost certain of this.

DoctorDiscover 01 Jun 2013 22:52

I think the reasoning for the external scientist needing psychiatric help was the terrible things that happened to the internal scientist. Just IMO.

Communism will win 20 Mar 2011 01:23

I think SCP-536 is a pretty cool guy, eh fights the laws of nature and doesn't afraid of anything. But seriously, I like this one.

In keeping with other SCPs I've seen, I might recommend changing all of the "memos" to "notes". Also, the experiment logs would probably look nicer if they were double spaced.

I'm going to assume that all of the physics bits are correct here, considering that they seem to be more or less right. I've never heard of "neutron radiation" though. Along those lines, if you plan to keep the note about the Bohr radius, I'd change it to be along the lines of "Note: This is most likely the result of a decrease of the Bohr radius (the distance at which an electron orbits the nucleus), which is inversely proportional to the speed of light."

Something about the Recovery Log is bugging me, but I'm not sure what it is. I'll think of something later, maybe.

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if your reading this your gay

Ninteen45 20 Mar 2011 13:32

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_radiation

google exists.

Communism will win 20 Mar 2011 18:40

Well, yeah, but I'm lazy.

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if your reading this your gay

GrandEnder 20 Mar 2011 03:07

I really like this SCP. It reminds me greatly of the powder game, as well as other sandbox-like games, not for the interactivity (which doesn't exist), but for the concept of interactivity. Although it's probably just because I like quantum physics, I find the idea of altering the laws of the universe intriguing. However, there was one problem, how it was recovered. That prof. thing really bothered me, it seemed like you pulled it out of no where. A simple rewrite of it with a bit of thought would fix it easily.

Last edited on 20 Mar 2011 03:09 by GrandEnder Show more

RhettSarlin 20 Mar 2011 04:03

this is pretty interesting. only beef with it is that by foundation test policies they should never have been testing on the research staff in the first place, it should have been a D-class from the getgo.

tombones 21 Mar 2011 17:12

And with that in mind, why are we defaulting to humans for initial testing? Seems a bit wasteful, even if D-class are apparently a dime a dozen in the universe the Foundation occupies. Most of the tests performed here could just as easily be performed on a rat or an apple. I realize that makes the experiments less fun to read, but it's pretty harmful to suspension of disbelief.

I still enjoyed it enough to upvote, but it's something to consider.

AgentWilson 06 Sep 2013 15:43

I agree. For testing, why even use living subjects in the first place? An inanimate object could easily display information for EM, gravity, and strong forces. The weak interaction would only really show up in a living organism or a radioactive substance, where it would be prudent to use some form of live test.

That said, the use of D-class personnel here is what I'd file under "excessive use of resources".

minmin 20 Mar 2011 04:09

This is plenty of potential for experimental logs which have been thankfully covered by the author in a good way. UV.

Dr_Adams 20 Mar 2011 08:20

The test logs remind me of the movie "The Men Behind the Sun". That's probably a good thing.
Those arent 'memo's, they're Notes.
I'll agree that it feels odd for a researcher to jump into an SCP and yell "crank this bitch up". Maybe it should be 100% Class-D testing…

Ninteen45 20 Mar 2011 13:38

seems like a shout out to that vacuum chamber test Robert Hooke did in the 1600's.

DrSevere 20 Mar 2011 16:12

I really like this one. It is one of those rare ones that is useful, but not so much that it becomes a mary-sue type SCP. If you had suggested this to me in the chat I probably would have warned you off it, as it has been tried several times and never works out, but you absolutely nailed it with this one.

My one nitpick is that I don't really like the implication that the guy who built it works for some anti-foundation agency. I would almost prefer if it was just some random crazy guy who kills himself/dies right before we recover it. That may just be me though.

After reading above, I see other people agree that the recovery log needs work. So yeah. Work on it. *insert smiley face here*

Sorts 20 Mar 2011 20:01

I love this one and I wish I had read it sooner.

Salman Corbette 21 Mar 2011 03:36

This is excellent. Enough jargon and clinical tone to make it believable, and yet the right amount of subsequent explanation.

Photosynthetic 21 Mar 2011 16:38

I really like this idea, and I like the realistic exploration of the effects of screwing with fundamental constants. That said, I'm not upvoting until some of Adam's points — particularly the one with the utter lack of specificity in contaiment procedures — are addressed. I'll be happy to help address them, if the author would like my input.

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SCP Wiki Administrator | Earth: We're all in this together.

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