You have some cheat codes for real life, but they're expensive to use. Can they still be used?
While smashing heavier and heavier particles together to create super heavy elements 122, 123, and 124, scientists noticed that these collisions created strange, random-looking electromagnetic waves. Upon further inspection, it turned out that these waves have patterns. The patterns repeat, but with small changes every time.
After decades of research, the scientists were able to prove that this was the world's source code.
By modifying and sending out the electromagnetic waves in specific patterns, they were able to do things that were thought to be physically impossible, such as teleporting objects.
The scientists were able to create machines that had the capability to produce the following "commands":
- Add a force to an object (from fractions of a nano-newton to several tera-newtons)
- Move (teleport) an object
- Clone an object (They can't create an object as it was too complex to figure out)
- "Delete" an object
- Slow down or speed up time for everything, or a specific object (but can't stop/reverse time)
- Change physical constants (such as the gravitational constant)
- Change how an object interacts with the higgs field (giving it more weight or less weight, even 0 weight). Mass stays the same.
- and some others.1
The machines aren't terribly expensive to make (say, \$50 million) but are prohibitively expensive to operate. They are out of the reach of almost all civilians and corporations (say, \$250-500 million/hour) due to the energy cost and the several Olympic sized swimming pools of coolant required to keep the machine from overheating.
Seeing that there is a huge cost to run the machine, could there be anything that it could be used for, or would the cost make the machine useless?
1You can add additional "commands" if you think they would be helpful, but the scientists are still in their early stages. They can't revive people, they can't cure people or anything of that like. Just basic physics defying actions.
EDIT: The machine isn't magical. It can't create energy but instead re-distribute it from the rest of the universe. The universe's total energy won't change no matter how many times you create something/delete something. Teleporting creates small temporary wormholes, and slowing or speeding up time makes the object act as if it's going fast or slow relative to the rest of the universe.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/23582. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
Whoever has this machines and the resources to operate it, basically has absolute power. It is the ultimate weapon (just delete your enemies). It will allow you to go to space easily. It will allow you to mass produce any item (which of course will rise a few interesting questions: If you perfectly clone an original Rembrandt painting, is the clone also an original Rembrandt painting?). Basically, the first one who gets to operate this machine and has no qualms will rule the world.
Once you rule the world, economic questions are, of course, moot.
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