Planet with infinite overlapping surface on an axis, problems of the concept

I'm beginning to build a world for a story I want to write. The world consists of a planet, roughly earthsized, with a couple of natural satellites (moons), and roughly same orbit and a similar star. The difference is, if you travelled in the east-west axis you could advance infinitely without ever reaching the same point. You could tell that you've completed a "lap" by watching at the stars. But if you went to the poles you would find"¦ A bizarre nexus that I'm yet struggling to find a good description for. Thing is, you could travel several "laps" in a single day if you are near the poles, or could take you more than one lifetime to do it on the equator, depending on your technologic level, access to vehicles and geography.

This "overlapping" where infinite places occupy the same space is limited to the planet. In fact, every "lap" receives light from the same sun and sees the same moons and stars.

As you can see I have the concept pretty much tied up, but I struggle with several caveats. I am aware that there is not a definitive "correct" answer as this is just outside the realms of real physics, but I guess we can find a workable solution.

A) How would this be perceived from space?

I have a civilization that uses the moons as "repeaters" to send back radio waves and communicate with people on all laps"¦ And a single Sun is lighting every lap"¦ So waves coming from outside might affect all laps simultaneously"¦ maybe? While this "lap" propagation does not occur if the wave is originated inside the atmosphere"¦ maybe? Just making wild guesses here.

That makes me very confused, as from the space you might get an infinite amount of reflected light from the Sun"¦ But we don't want to blind and fry everything around our planet, so maybe I should go for another explanation here"¦

B) How does one ENTER into the planet's atmosphere, and where exactly?

My guess right now is that solid matter can't enter into the planet as it would be dispersed at an infinite number of laps, thus getting fractioned in infinitely small infinite fragments. So, magic aside, space travel would be out of the question (you can't get back"¦). But maybe there is another concept that works better here"¦

Added info:

There is magic in the world, but the kind of magic accessible to sentient beings is not "world changing" or vastly defies physics. It's mostly things that affect their own bodies, so no pocket dimensions, teleportations or things like that. The world is infinite, but I'm not giving it infinite options. The planet will be earthlike almost always. Maybe there are some areas inhabited by different kind of organisms, or an especially volcano-ey and the atmosphere is full of other particles, etc"¦ But I'm not going to have areas where everything is made out of new "elements", or the earth is made of chocolate, oceans are made of flubber and deserts are made of cinnamon"¦

This also extends to civilizations. As per the story I want to tell, there is one civilization capable of "getting into space", but it's more of a steampunk kind of technology level than ours"¦ We are going to assume that steampunk civilization is simply the most technologically advanced in the world, that they are the first ones to get to that level and the world (which has been crafted by another party) is too young to have reached any more than that. The reason for this is, if I let there be more people that can throw junk into space, then in infinite possibilities there would be an infinite number of civilizations that can do it, and then space (that is out of the infinite physics-breaking world) would be full of infinite junk. Also, in some of those infinite civilizations there might be infinite maniacs crazy and powerful enough to destroy the planet"¦

You see? Infinite gives me headaches. But I have to keep it infinite for the story to work. And no, so big that seems infinite to us doesn't work either.

I've been talking of "laps" but to clarify"¦ There is not a "breaking point" of what is considered one lap or the next one, there is not a magic "line" following any meridian, so every person or group defines the start and the end of a lap from their point of origin (I guess)

There are similar questions about infinite worlds in this SE (likte this one, where one of the answers suggests a world exactly like the one I'm planning), but I think my question has not been answered before. If it has been, please notify, and know that I am sorry for not having been able to find it before making my question. Also, I didn't know wich tags would work better for this... If you have any suggestion in that regard, please comment :)

If you need any more info or clarification, just ask me in the comments and I will try to fill the gaps.

Thank you.

posted almost 9 years ago

Helwar‭

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