George PP Martin is the co -author of a scientific book

Although the fans of A song on ice and fire It can still be hacker for the long-standing next book in the series, bestselling Sci-Fi/Fantasy Author George Pr Martin Instead, he has added a different element to his long list of publications: a reviewed physics document has just been published in the American Journal of Physics, which he co-authored. The paper extracts a formula to describe the dynamics of a fictional virus that is the central part of Wild cards A series of books, shared universe, edited by Martin and Melinda M. Snowgrass, with about 44 authors.

Wild cards grew up by Superworld RPG, in particular a long-standing campaign, revised by Martin in the 1980s, with several of the original science fiction writers who contributed to the participation of the series. (Once the unknown Neil Gaiman who once put Martin A Wild cards A story involving the main character who lived in a world of dreams. Martin rejected the pitch and Gaiman’s idea became Sand.) Initially, Martin plans to write a novel focused on his turtle on heroes, but then decided that he would be better as a shared anthology of the universe. Martin believed that superhero comics had too many sources of many different superpowers and wanted his universe to have a single source. Snodgrass suggested a virus.

The series is a major alternative history of the United States after World War II. Air extraterrestrial virus intended to rewrite DNA in 1946 was released in 1946 and spread globally, infecting tens of thousands worldwide. It is called the Wild Card virus because it affects each individual differently. It kills 90 percent of those who infect and mutate others. Nine percent of the latter end with unpleasant conditions – these people are called jokers – while 1 % develop superpowers and are known as ACES. Some aces have “forces” that are so trivial and useless that they are known as “Deuces”.

There is significant speculation of Wild cards A website discussing the science behind this virus and he attracted the attention of Ian Tregilis, a physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, who thought it could do a useful pedagogical exercise. “As a theorist, I couldn’t help but think if a simple main model could arrange the canon.” Trygilis saidS “Like any physicist, I started with the evaluations of the opposite resident, but then I came out of the deep end. In the end, I suggested, only half jokingly that it could be easier to write a true physics document than another blog post. “

Physicist enters the fictional universe …

Tregilis is naturally committed to a little desire for distrust, given that the question of how any virus can give people superpowers who oppose the laws of physics, is inherently unbearable. He focused on the origin of Wild cards The rule of the universe 90: 9: 1, adopting the thinking of a universal theorist wishing to build a coherent mathematical framework that could describe viral behavior. The ultimate goal was “the demonstration of the widespread flexibility and the usefulness of the concepts of physics by converting this vague and seemingly obscene problem in a clear dynamic system, thus putting a wealth of conceptual and mathematical instruments available to students,” writes Tregilis and Martin, Martin and Martin wrote Martin and Martin, writes Martin and Martin Martin and Martin writes Martin and Martin Martin and Martin writes Martin and Martin Martin and Martin writes Martin and Martin and Martin Martin Martin and Martin writes Martin Martin and Martin writes Martin and Martin Martin and Martin Martin and Martin writes Martin and Martin Martin and Martin and Martin writes Martin and Martin Martin and Martin, Tregilis and Martin. in their document.

Among the problems of paper is the problem of jokers and ACE, such as “mutually exclusive categories of numerical distribution, achieved for the roller of a hundred lateral matrix,” the authors write. “Still, the canon is full of characters who confuse this categorization:” Joker-Ace “, which show both physical mutation and superhuman ability.”

They also suggest the existence of “cryptocurrencies”: jokers and aces with mutations that are largely unnoticed, such as the production of ultraviolet racing stripes of someone’s heart or penetration into “Iowa resident with the power of telepathic vision line with Narwals .

In the end, Tregilis and Martin came out with three basic rules: (1) cryptocurrencies exist, but how many of them exist is “unknown and unknown”; (2) The observed turns of cards will be distributed in accordance with the rule of 90: 9: 1; and (3) viral results will be determined by a A multi -crop distribution of probabilityS

The resulting model accepts two apparently random variables: the weight of the transformation – is, to what extent the virus changes a person, or in the weight of the deformation of the joker, or of the potency of the superpowers of the ace – and the mixing angle to deal with the existence of Joker -ASES. “The card becomes this land close enough to an axis will subjectively They are present as ACE, until otherwise they will present themselves as jokers or jickeys, “the authors write.

The resulting formula is the one that takes into account the many different ways in which a system can develop (also known as a Langrangian formulation). “We have translated the abstract problem with Wild Card viral results into a simple, specific dynamic system. The average in time behavior of this system generates the statistical distribution of results, “” Trygilis saidS

Tregillis admits that this may not be a good exercise for a novice student in physics, given that it involves many steps and covers many concepts that younger students may not fully understand. Neither does he offer you to add it to the main curriculum. Instead, he recommends that seminars for higher honors encourage students to explore an open research issue.

This story originally appeared on Ars TechnicaS