The typo in the title aside, I'm quite pleased with the cover. Looks very snazzy! And there's plenty of time to fix the cover type . . . .
Checked with Jaime Costas this morning. The title has already been fixed. It's definitely THE HAZARD OF CONCEALING. Singular.
The thing that often puts me at odds when discussing these things is that either I can't understand other people or they can't understand me. I will try. The wave function collapse is a metaphor. Whether or not the cat is dead is a set of probabilities, which is called the wave. Nothing happens when you actually look, you just find out what IS, and that is called the collapse. Sure, all the possible states can be expressed by the imagining pre-observer, but to say that all of them exist (the many-worlds theory) until you actually observe and collapse the wave? Isn't that like believing everything you think? I'm being a little like Einstein here when I ask, but isn't there an objective reality about which we are ignorant until we discover the hidden parameters? I am sorry if this is thread diverting. Maybe it isn't. Can we discuss time travel in this thread? I hope so. As to your other question: No. I'm a niner. I didn't want them to re-make (and totally change) TOS. I wanted my damn DS9 movie!
In the current context, the problems of Spock sitting on information that could make Starfleet the baddest mofos in the galaxy in very short order. Logically, the information should be withheld to prevent further damage to an already damaged timeline. Also, logically, the information should be freely given since the timeline is already screwed up beyond recognition, all bets are off, so Spock might as well do what he can to ensure that the Federation be made the baddest mofos in the galaxy in very short order.
It's not even just up to Abrams, so... Oh, is it? I suppose it's important to be technically precise about made-up stuff. I suppose.
^Well, to touch on the quantum mechanics discussion, too, the wave of probabilities of what the next two movies might be has not yet collapsed, so, for now, we are both right.
I love the cover for the Hazard of Concealing, like the cover for Refugees, am ambivalent toward the cover for More Beautiful Than Death, and hate the cover for Seek a Newer World.
Actually that's not correct. The multiple states of the particle are real, not merely a metaphor for human uncertainty. A quantum particle can exist in multiple states at once (a superposition), but if it interacts with a larger ensemble of particles -- such as a measuring device or a living observer -- each of the particles in that ensemble will take on their own superposed states in response. In one interpretation of quantum physics, the decoherence model, the particles in the ensemble all have different superposed states that average out to a single macroscopic "classical" state. Everything that interacts with the particle reacts to it as though it were "collapsed" into one state. But in the Many-Worlds interpretation... well, I'll quote Harry Kim from Places of Exile: Either way, it's the single classical state that's an illusion, a simplification of what's really going on. To make a rough analogy -- imagine that you have mixed feelings about something a friend says, but you choose to act as though you're unambiguously happy about it. Or else you choose to get mad about it. Or whatever. In any case, even though multiple states still exist within you, the other entities you interact with only perceive one, and the interaction constrains you to behave as though you're in a single, resolved state. It would be wrong to say you were only in one state all along and your observers didn't know which one until they asked. You really were in multiple states, and still are after the interaction, but your observers only measure one. (That's the decoherence version. In Many-Worlds, the timeline splits and one of you acts happy, one acts mad, etc. But in each individual timeline, the observers only see one of your multiple states.) No. This is one of the most pervasive misunderstandings of quantum theory -- that it's somehow saying "thinking makes it so." Any interaction with the larger universe causes the multiple states of the isolated particle to behave as if they've collapsed into a single state. Observation by an intelligent being is merely one example of such an interaction. The reason scientists speak of it specifically in terms of observation and measurement is because that's the context in which scientists work, and scientists prefer to speak about their specific results rather than broader generalizations. They don't say "This is cosmic truth handed down from on high," they say "This is the result of our experiments and observations." Unfortunately, to the ears of the non-scientist, the emphasis on observers comes off sounding much more mystical. Not in the sense I think you mean. Objective reality is far more ambiguous than subjective reality. In relativity, our perceptions of time, motion, and distance are functions of our frame of reference, and there is no absolute value for any of them. Similarly, in quantum physics, our measurements of the universe's state are only partial, a consequence of the way we measure, and the underlying reality is far more complex. Anyway, the point for the purposes of this conversation is that Many-Worlds is a solid, if unproven, scientific theory and thus a sound basis for science fiction. The premise of multiple timelines existing side-by-side is vastly more plausible than the premise of one timeline being "rewritten" by time travellers -- a concept that doesn't even make any logical sense, because if one thing changes into another, that requires the passage of time, a before and an after, and how can a single moment in time come before or after itself? If there are two versions of the same instant, then by definition they coexist simultaneously rather than one "changing" into the other.
I'm with you there but I think the hopes of a DS9 movie died long ago, before the final TNG movie. As for the new reality I am all for it because we have no idea what will happen. Will Khan be discovered or will David be born? For that matter will Tuvok be born? We have the Star Trek universe we know & now a whole new one to explore. I find that idea fascinating.
Thus causing anguish for readers of the highly popular DS9 post-series novels when the stories and characters fail to match up with the new canonical material.
Popular among the readers, granted (at least, based on reactions observed by me on exactly one internet forum, i.e. here). Among the general Trek fans, not so much. Had such a movie ever been considered, I sincerely doubt that the anguish of a handful of people would have been a concern to those involved.