Alastair Mayer's T-Space

The OPERA experiment team at CERN is again reporting (as of Nov. 18) possible faster-than-light neutrino measurements. This time they’ve been using 3-nanosecond neutrino pulses, to better pin-down the timing, and they’re still reporting seeing them show up at the detector 60ns sooner than photons would. If this holds up with other labs attempting to repeat the experiment (not until some time next year), then we’ve got some interesting new science, folks. (I’ll have more to say on that soon — some of which I said elsewhere after the September announcement.)

On the other hand, the ICARUS experiment team is saying that their neutrinos have too much energy to have ever gone faster than light. I haven’t read their paper yet, just going on what has been filtered through the popular press, so I’m not very clear on the details. That said, they seem to be basing their conclusion (high energy == slower than light) on models which don’t permit FTL in the first place. Since we don’t know how the neutrinos are going superluminal (if, in fact, they are), that seems shaky ground to be building conclusions on. But maybe I’m just being over-optimistic.

More when I get a chance.

Actually I think I’ve mentioned it here a time or two before Now I’m announcing that The Chara Talisman, the first full-length novel set in T-space, is now available in e-book and trade paperback form. (First to be published. A novel set earlier in the time-line is in progress.) This is the expansion of my Analog story “Stone Age”.

E-book versions are available from Amazon (for Kindle) and Smashwords (all formats) and should be available direct from B&N, Sony, Apple and others soon. The trade paperback version is available from Amazon (or should be, by the time you read this) as well as through bookstores (you might have to special-order it — bookstores rarely take chances on newer authors these days unless the publisher is doing a mega-marketing blitz) and my publisher, Mabash Books.

There’ll be some promotions for Chara Talisman and some of my other T-space stories going on over the next month or so, so stay tuned. I haven’t decided on the rewards yet, but I’ll be offering prizes for the first person who reports to me a typo or factual error (only one prize or reward for each typo/error) in the book. It could happen — Larry Niven had the Earth rotating in the wrong direction in the first edition of Ringworld.

(Update: added link (above) to paperback version at Amazon.)

It’s Veterans Day here in the US, Remembrance Day in Canada, the UK, and other commonwealth countries. Sometimes called Poppy Day, after the traditional symbol named from the poem “In Flander’s Fields” (where poppies grow…)

I have a book coming out today too — but that will keep.

To all veterans of the US, Canada, the UK and allied countries … thank you.