universes within Universes
Jan 29, 2023 22:19:11 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Jan 29, 2023 22:19:11 GMT -5
The story below is my version of a story I once read approx. 55 years ago as part of a Sci fi short stories anthology featuring classics written by famous Sci-fi writers. I have searched for it for years in order to read it again, but have been unable to find it.
So I decided to try to reconstruct it from memory. of course, my version differs from the original in many ways via deletions of parts I cannot recall clearly, and additions of my own parts, such as an elaboration of the scientist's motives and personality along with an elaboration of the final scene.
But I did try my best, and hopefully succeeded or perhaps exceeded in conveying some of the mesmerizing qualities of the original. Only a direct comparison will tell, but I haven't the original.
Of course, and of necessity, it reflects the scientific inaccuracies of the time it was written. Otherwise it could not be written as it was written. But despite those inaccuracies, I still find the original story exceedingly fascinating.
But I did try my best, and hopefully succeeded or perhaps exceeded in conveying some of the mesmerizing qualities of the original. Only a direct comparison will tell, but I haven't the original.
Of course, and of necessity, it reflects the scientific inaccuracies of the time it was written. Otherwise it could not be written as it was written. But despite those inaccuracies, I still find the original story exceedingly fascinating.
Universes within Universes?
Qualguil, the tall, white-haired, blue-skinned, humanoid astrophysicist, had always been fascinated by how large tiny things appeared under microscopic magnification. He marveled at how their intricate details escaped the attention of the unaided eye. Marveled on how a minute patch of moss seemed like a huge jungle, and how tiny creatures resembled enormous monsters. A vast world so part of his own and yet unnoticed unless brought into focus.
He also often wondered whether indeed the seemingly bondless universe, with all its billions of countless stars and planets, was merely a tiny component of a larger universe, and if that larger one was itself merely a tiny component of yet another larger one, ad infinitum. He also wondered whether his own universe was composed of other smaller ones that appeared as atoms and electrons, similar to small star systems.
Eventually, he brought his idea before his elders but had been counseled to drop the matter.
"Certain things are best left unknown because they were meant to remain unknown," he was constantly and sternly advised, but he paid them no mind. Instead, he considered these supposedly venerable wise-ones, obstacles to the attainment of crucial understandings.
Institution of superior learning that he had attended added to his difficulties by refusing to subsidize his experiments.
"Are you insane? That is impossible!" one institution representative shouted after listening to his idea.
Yet, despite the lack of support, Qualguil's intense curiosity impelled him to dedicate his entire life to finding out the truth concerning the nature of the universe, and finally, at the late stage of his life, when all had seemed totally hopeless, he finally found a way to investigate the matter. He invented a miniaturization machine which emitted a beam of energy that initiated an ongoing shrinkage of both animate and inanimate matter.
He found that inanimate matter would quickly disappear from microscope detection, but he didn't know whether it had disintegrated or had continued on its journey intact.
He found that living things perished long before reaching that enigmatically mysterious vanishing point. They suffocated when the air molecules became too large for their circulatory systems. Despite this obstacle, Qualguil decided to personally explore whatever was concealed beyond that vanishing point by going beyond it himself.
Portable air-tanks that would assure a breathable air supply along with a pressurized suit would prevent dying from decompression as air pressure would be finally lost in the spaces molecules and then between atoms, the equivalent of what he imagined was outer space in his universe.
After having assured his safety, he finally was standing confidently atop a mushroom-shaped elevated platform, directly below his miniaturization machine's nozzle before embarking on his journey, and wondering nervously what exactly he would find.
For just a very brief instant, he suddenly felt a compelling urge to abort-some kind of premonition, a fleeting sense of imminent doom, when suddenly, there was the familiar and expected loud rattling hum, followed immediately by the miniaturization machine's narrow, iridescent beam striking his body before he could react, and was enveloped in a fulgurating dark aura.
He was paralyzed and experiencing vertigo as he struggle to free himself but to no avail. Then, suddenly, in the next instant, the laboratory walls and ceiling appeared to rapidly recede from him, and the small platform upon which he had been standing, began rapidly spreading in all directions beneath him. Soon, its edges which had been just a few feet away, receded and became parts of far distant horizons and what had moments before been mere surface irregularities and scratches, became deep ditches, which gradually deepened into ditches which rapidly expanded into deep canyons, which themselves began to flatten out as the shrinking continued.
Briefly, he beheld an ant that seemed as large as an elephant, slowly and ponderously lumbering across his path. He briefly caught sight of his own reflection in its purple compound eye. It also grew gargantuan and its smooth, jet-black, exoskeleton soon blotted out everything and the bristles on its head resembled Sequoya tree-trunks.
This also quickly blurred away as he shrank farther and he soon found himself afloat in a vast sea of the ant's exo-skeletal molecules. These molecules also expanded inexorably until they dwarfed him and began disassembling into their constituent atoms which were reemerging like millions of stars in a deep infinite darkness.
So it was true! Another smaller universe!
He continued to shrink in the direction of one of the stars. Finally, to his distant right, an electron, resembling a planet, was swerving and decelerating in its orbit around the star-like atomic nucleus. Gradually it appeared to slow down, and was finally directly beneath his feet, he felt himself slowly being drawn to its surface. A growing sense of dread almost impelled him to abort the mission, but his urgent need to know goaded him on.
He was beholding mountain ranges, rivers and volcanoes. And once he had shrunken down to its gray-grassed surface, the other atoms above him were glittering like stars in a dark sky exactly how they appeared in his larger home universe. In the far distance, he beheld a vast, red-tinted ocean, and beyond that, a purple sky brimming with white roiling clouds slowly being driven in his direction by a gentle breeze.
What he had always suspected had been true. He celebrated his accomplishment. There was no longer any question about it, his lifelong curiosity had been satisfied. So there was no longer need to continue any further. Carefully he flipped the switch in his suit to halt the shrinking, and then reverse it so he could return to his world. Yet, to his horror, the process continued. Several more times he did so, but to no avail.
He watched helplessly as the surface of the electron planet he had been standing on also became molecular, and organisms he was unfamiliar with briefly coalesced and then vanished. He was now adrift amidst their molecules as had happened with the ant, and then they also disassembled themselves into their constituent atoms, and he once again rapidly descending into another universe full of nucleus-like suns and electron-like planets and he was once more being shrinking towards the surface of yet another tiny electron world.
This world was populated by scarlet-colored, twelve-tentacled mollusk-like, semi-aquatic denizens who had observed his form in the sky, and had finally recognized him for what he really was, a creature from a larger universe. They had considered him a blasphemy as son as they had detected him. An intolerable conceptual abomination unfit to exist, and only worthy of being punished for his unrestricted hubris. Although able to easily detain his shrinkage, they decided that he deserved his fate and so let him continue his infernal descent forever as punishment, despite his desperate requests for help.
Quickly, these also became gargantuan and faded from view as the inexorable diminution in size continued. This time, a strong swirling and gradually expanding breeze in the electron planet's atmosphere carried him aloft. Gradually, the swirling and expanding breeze became an expanding universe with star-like atoms orbited by planet-like electrons once again, and once again, he found himself shrinking toward yet another planet-like electron.
This time he was descending on its night-side. Below him thousands of city lights announced that it was inhabited by intelligent creatures. As he continued his descent two winged metal flying machines sped by and then returned and tilted their backward swept wings as if in a greeting. Below, the outline of streets and avenues of a great metropolis gradually took form.
The tallest of its buildings were rectangular and made of metal and glass. The smaller of brick and stone. There were endless streams of four-wheeled machines with forward lights all converging on the verdant area that he was descending to. It was an illuminated area with crowds of four-limbed creatures gazing up at him and frantically shouting and gesturing with their arms as if greeting him.
He soon found that he had been right. It was indeed a meticulously-prepared reception. The reasoning creatures on this one had detected his sudden and inexplicable appearance, and his gradual approach via their telescope. So the exact date of his arrival had been calculated and prepared for. Reservations had been made for his accommodations in the great metropolis. The planet's political dignitaries were ready to officially greet him. They had assumed that once he was there, he would stop shrinking.
But when he reached approximately their size, the denizens of this world noticed that he continued to shrink much too quickly for them to even study him or to try to intervene.
They had desperately wanted to interact with him before he would disappear, had fervently desired to know the answers to their many pressing questions. Had yearned for answers that would leave them at peace once he was finally gone.
The religious among them wanted to know if he was the Creator descending from a heavenly realm as had been promised in the prophesies of their holy book.
Atheist and agnostics wanted to know whether their hypothesis of a larger realm, from which he had descended, was accurate.
But to no avail. He had been unable to understand their language or to respond. The Miniaturization process had accelerated, and this world too was beginning to disassemble into its constituent molecular, atomic and sub-atomic parts and receded from him too quickly for a response.
All he had barely heard them utter as he was rapidly distanced from their view, was their initial greeting sound of: "Welcome to Earth!"
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A few Films among many others that were made after that story was published:
The Shrinking Man
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids 1989 The US comedy film, set in suburbia, features kids who accidentally shrink themselves with an inventor's experimental shrink ray to be a quarter-inch tall and must survive the indoors and the outdoors on a different scale.
Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves 1997 A sequel to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), the US comedy film features the inventor accidentally shrinking himself and three others. They have to get the attention of the kids who think they are home alone.
Fantastic Voyage:
The Incredible Shrinking Man 1957 The US science-fiction horror film features a man who is exposed to a radioactive cloud while on a boating trip. Over time, he begins shrinking and tries to find a cure, but at the same time, he becomes a phenomenon throughout the country.
The Incredible Shrinking Woman 1981 The US science-fiction comedy film features a housewife who accidentally ingests experimental household-product chemicals and begins shrinking. She becomes a media sensation and also the target of a company that wants to use her shrinking nature for evil.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_featuring_miniature_people
List of Shrinking people stories
www.wattpad.com/stories/shrinking