pauldrye

Traveller author here (I co-wrote the GURPS: Traveller supplements for the Sword Worlds and Interstellar Wars period). Been continuing on self-publishing using the open-license version, Cepheus Engine in recent years. Free world book here on DTRPG, its own setting but compatible with the Long Night period.

In the case of velocity, all neutrinos move at essentially the speed of light (they have the slightest amount of mass which slows them down, each of the three types of neutrino a different mass compared to the other two but still very, very, extremely low masses). Only neutrinos less than 2 eV are noticeably slower than light, and that's quite a low energy. The almost-exactly-light-speed has been confirmed by, among other methods, comparing bursts of neutrinos from supernovas and other intense sources to the photons coming from the same sources.

The photons move at the speed of light by definition and MeV and GeV energy neutrinos show up in detectors at the exact same time down to as close as we've been able to measure it (roughly one part in a billion, I think it is).

The lands around it being ruled by the Sultan of Swing, no doubt.

Yes, but it doesn't matter enough. The square-cube law means that the mass being supported goes up faster than the area of the layer doing the supporting does. So each additional brick on the bottom still ends up carrying more weight as the pyramid gets taller.

Depends on the compressive strength of the material. Sooner or later the weight of the pyramid above the base exceeds the base's ability to support it. Considering that a mountain is basically a stone pyramid, Everest has to be in the neighbourhood of how tall you could go -- call it 10-12 kilometers high. Other materials would do better.

I had a quick re-read I think you might be right! I'm wondering if I picked it up from the movie instead.

Oh, I've read all of his stuff! It's a red letter day for me when a new story is published. None since 2019, though.

My odd choice of his would be Seventy-Two Letters. I find him most interesting when he follows through in the consequences of an old disproven scientific theory or theological explanation of the universe, and he manages to fit two of them in here.

He's written some "Notes" on the story when it was printed in his first short story collection and said that it has the same theme but that he wasn't inspired by it directly. The roots were Paul Linke's play "Time Flies When You’re Alive" and the principle of least time in optics -- if you treat light as a ray, it has to know its future destination in order to know the path with the shortest time it will take to get there (though not if it's a wave). Then there's a bunch of diagrams and discussions about the principle's implications for free will that will stretch your brain. It's pretty fun.

It's based on a short story called "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. He's published only eighteen stories in his career (starting in 1990), nothing longer than a novella and mostly short stories. Despite that they've won him four Hugos, four Nebulas, and six Locus Awards. He's worth reading, is what I'm trying to say.

It's the only one in English unless you allow things like "The absolute value of -20".

She might like Little Kitty, Big City. You're a cat, it's an open world, you explore, make friends, and wear hats.