McManus, Daniel ID:2339225



McManus, Daniel ID:2339225

Honors Physics Period 6

Project B: Sci-Fi Reading

Sphere

An analysis of the physics concepts contained in Michael Crichton’s best-selling novel

Contents:

I. Introduction

II. Time Travel

III. Under Pressure

IV. The Sphere

V. The Spaceship

VI. Applications

VII. A Lesson?

VIII. For More Information

Introduction:

This assignment asks for an analysis of a science-fiction story, as it relates to physics concepts. I chose Michael Crichton as an author largely because he tends to be very true to scientific possibilities, and researches the material involved rather thoroughly. Some of his novels utilize concepts in chemistry or biology (Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Congo), and though he usually stretches the realms of probability, he has mastered the art of making it all fit.

Sphere is a novel that involves time travel, amongst other interesting and controversial themes. Most of the novel also takes place underwater, so there are interesting concepts to be seen there. Looked at from a strictly scientific point of view, the novel is highly improbable, but it is based on a foundation of reality. It is precisely the concepts that he utilizes, and stretches, that I shall be analyzing.

Time Travel:

The premise of the book lies on the idea that a spaceship is found crashed, underwater. The navy goes in to assess the situation and finds the spaceship to be American, and over 300 years old. As the novel develops, we find that the ship has indeed been sitting there for over 300 years, as the coral growth suggests (coral grows at a very predictable rate and was covering the ship), but that it was from the future. The ships log shows that not long after the ship was deployed it began heading towards a black hole, and somehow, after going into the black hole, it ended up back here, on earth, 300 and some odd years ago.

That is all shown through the ship’s log, amongst other things, but the idea itself is hard to grasp, and also hard to contradict. Little is known about the characteristics of black holes. It has been suggested that with their enormous center of gravity (which has been known to effect even light), black holes can distort time. This is obviously just a theory, and is unproven.

The concept of time travel has been seen in the past. According to some utilizations of the theory of relativity, if one were moving at a high enough speed (at or above the speed of light), time, relative to you, would be moving at a normal rate, but would be moving enormously rapidly for everyone else. Upon your return to a normal plane of existence, you might find that 50 years have passed, while you have aged only one or two, or less. This is another lofty, untestable theory, as we cannot even approach such speeds. However, it also only approaches a form of time travel that would go into the future.

In essence, Michael Crichton uses the black hole as a way to explain something that really could be explained in no other way.

The whole idea of time travel creates a strange paradox. For example, in this situation, the ship went back in time, and was discovered. Information of the mishap is held by the navy and all high government officials. In the future, when the ship is actually built and destined to take off, they will know in advance of the accident and be able to avoid it. Crichton avoids this paradox by ensuring that the information never reaches the navy or any other government office. But a paradox still remains; if the ship continues to lie there until the future when it is actually built, will there not be two of them existing in the same time?

Time travel is currently impossible, but as I’ve already stated, this problem is sidestepped by using the unknown nature of black holes.

Under Pressure:

I said before that most of this novel takes place underwater. This is because the space ship crashed in the ocean, and the team sent to investigate the matter must therefore stay underwater. Deep under the water.

They travel down to the depths in a deep-water submarine that holds four people. They have to descend slowly so that the pressure inside the cabin is allowed time to equalize with the pressure outside, which continuously grows larger.

They stay in underwater capsules designed and constructed by the US Navy. Because of the depth at which they are staying, the outside water pressure is enormous. To prevent the capsules from being crushed, they too must be pressurized, with various airlocks in between loading bays and living areas.

Also, when going outside of the capsules, they must wear highly specialized suits to be able to stand the pressure as well as the cold, as they are by this point in a very dark and cold section of the earth. They must go outside to get to the spaceship, which has another airlock (installed by the Navy) in between the water and the entrance.

What these airlocks do, on both the capsules and by the ship, is replace, within a specified area, the water with air, so as to build up a positive pressure and be able to pump the water out of the closed area. With the water removed, you have pressurized, breathable air in what is basically a little room between the water and the area you are entering.

All of these concepts (concerning pressure) are real. Any scuba diver knows these basic principles: the deeper you dive, the greater the atmospheric pressure. The ratio is about one atmosphere of pressure for every thirty feet of depth. This means that you must descend slowly to compensate for the building pressure, and you must also ascend slowly, so as to allow all the pressurized air in your system to slowly expand and escape. As volume varies inversely with pressure (the greater the pressure, the lesser the volume), the gases expand as you rise, causing potential problems. A pocket of air that was causing no harm at a hundred feet or more of depth may paralyze you if it is caught in your spinal column as you ascend. It will literally separate your spine. This is called “the bends”.

These worries have led to the use of decompression chambers. This is basically a large room (back on the surface) where the pressure is gradually decreased, so that your adjustment is also gradual, and you avoid “the bends”. At the end of the novel, the characters are forced to stay in one of these for several days, simply because of the depth at which they were staying.

The realism of this aspect of the novel is dead-on. Crichton very meticulously arranges these details, so that not only the concept remains true, but the application as well. The structures he describes are used both by the Navy and by deep-water construction crews. Decompression chambers are widely used by anyone who must descend to great depths. Airlocks are also widely used. This aspect of the novel remains fairly true to reality.

Photo by Brian Hamill.

Photo by Nathan Johnson.

The Sphere:

The title obviously implies that there is some sphere involved in the plot. That sphere is found in the space ship, in what seems to be a cargo bay. Its dimensions are huge; it has a diameter of about twenty feet. It has a perfectly smooth surface except for a few carved designs in one space. It is a soft, golden color.

This is the center of the novel’s plot. Basically, the sphere is something the ship picked up on its travels, but none of the scientists of present day knows what it is. As the plot develops, it seems that somehow, the scientists seem to find a way inside the sphere, but they keep that secret from everyone else. Though they don’t initially know it, the sphere gives them the power to create, or “manifest”, things. For example, Harry, one of the scientists, mentions that he likes shrimp (to eat). Not long afterwards, there is a multitude of shrimp outside the capsule, ready to be caught and eaten.

Some of the manifestations are not so harmless: jellyfish that attack one of the Navy crew members, poisonous sea snakes, and later, a giant squid that attacks the capsule and kills many of the characters. Once the scientists become aware of this power to “manifest”, the capsule is all but destroyed, and most everyone is dead. Upon their return to the surface, they agree on a story to tell the Navy officers, and use the power to create some video-tapes that would confirm their story. They also use the power to destroy the space ship and the Sphere. Thus the aforementioned paradox is avoided.

The physics involved here is rather strange; it would seem that there is none. The events are beyond improbable: they are, according to our current knowledge, impossible. First, the creation of something from nothing. We will ignore the biology involved (the shrimp had no digestive tract and the jellyfish no nervous system) and go straight to the law of conservation of matter and energy, which we need for both chemistry and physics. It states that neither matter nor energy may be created or destroyed, though they may change form. A paper burns, and it is converted to smoke, but the matter is not lost.

The shrimp, the jellyfish, the snakes, the squid; they all came from nowhere, from nothing. They were just suddenly....there.

Beyond that, they all seemed to have a driving force behind them. Communication? This part is possible, though improbable. Communication might occur through waves of some sort, emitted with some vague idea of what the person wanted. The nervous system functions through electricity; that is how information is carried throughout our body. That is the most basic form of thought. Might a person in a certain mood carry a particular electric current that emits a particular frequency wave that would transmit this mood? An angry person’s thoughts thereby “manifest” into a giant squid that attacks the capsule, but also specifically targets the people within. Though not impossible, it is highly improbable.

The Spaceship:

The spaceship itself could propose various problems, as the physics of space travel are complicated, I’m sure. But little is revealed about the craft. Crichton reveals that the hull is made from an unknown alloy, and that it is very strong. Within the hull is a layer of radiation shielding, with a structure of lead. Beyond that is the ship itself.

The structure of the ship seemed to have taken little damage, though one would expect at least some damage from impact. There are two possible explanations for this.

First, the hull is enormously strong, and the impact simply did no harm. Second, and more intriguing, did the ship go into the black hole and come out in the middle of the ocean, under billions of tons of water? Again, as we know little about black holes, this remains a possibility. The hull itself was built to withstand great pressures, so there should be no problem once under the water.

The inside of the ship also seemed unharmed either by impact or age (remember that it is over 300 years old). All the lights worked, as did most other electronics. The only explanation for this is the vast superiority of electronics and design in the future.

Applications:

The most directly useful concept used in this novel is that concerning pressure. As I mentioned earlier, pressure is something divers of all sorts must know about. Pressurized gasses also have different properties. For example, the pressurized air you breathe from a scuba tank has a lower concentration of oxygen, as it can be a poisonous gas. However, this means that there is a higher concentration of nitrogen, which when breathed for too long a period can cause what is known as nitrogen narcosis. Basically you feel drowsy, you lose coordination, and your concern for time and safety becomes diminished. This can be very dangerous in the already dangerous world under the water.

Decompression is also very important for divers. The characters in this novel spent nearly a week very deep under water, and had to spend many days decompressing. Even leisure divers who go to see wrecks at depths of no more than a hundred feet must be aware of the dangers. Decompression is not always necessary, but if a problem arises, it becomes necessary.

The other concepts (time and space travel, the powers of the sphere) are not something we use in everyday life, but the limits must be kept in mind. The law of conservation of matter and energy, for example, is a very basic principle.

A Lesson?

Obviously, there is more to the plot of Sphere than what has been discussed in this report. Basically, it is as follows:

The scientists discovered the sphere in the bowels of the ship, but did not at first discover its power. When things started to go awry, they assumed that some sort of extraterrestrial form of intelligence, perhaps relayed through the sphere, was at play.

They were cut off from the surface by a typhoon, and were forced to face this menace alone. It created malicious jellyfish, poisonous sea-snakes, and ultimately a sinister giant squid, and each in its own way was attacking the people inside the habitats. Only later do they begin to realize that there is no alien force at work at all....only themselves. They were given the power to create whatever they wanted, and instead of using this power for good, they unwittingly manifested the darkest regions of their minds.

I think the first lesson in this novel lies in the ship itself. It was yet another fine example of man trying to overcome forces we cannot fully comprehend. It was a futuristic Titanic that collided with an iceberg of the blackest of ice.

The biggest lesson lies in the sphere. It was perhaps a mirror that revealed the darker side of human nature; throughout history, we have striven to succeed in our own perceived Darwinian struggle, and in the process, we have thrived on destruction. Here, with the sphere, the scientists were shown their own dark side. Even within the best of people lies the Jungian Shadow, the basic animal instincts that have been a part of our species since its conception.

For More Information:

Crichton, Michael Sphere copyright 1987 Random House

The novel.

or

for information on the movie based on Michael Crichton’s novel (contains information on movie production, but more pertinently on the suits and underwater environments used, as well as airlocks)



for information on decompression illness, or “the bends”, as well as statistics, a real story of someone who suffered this condition, and various photos



more information about the possible aversive affects of scuba diving and the use of compressed air.



Information and discussion of the physics of time travel and the paradoxes inherent in time travel.

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