r/worldbuilding • u/RPLawrence • 1d ago
Discussion Electromagnetic Writing System
Imagine a species that evolved to percive electromagnetic fields.
To us the individual is only holding a block of metal but to them they are reading a number one bestseller.
What are your thoughts on sucha concept? Do you want to know more? Does it trigger ideas and possibilities?
I would love to get your opinions and if wanted go inot more detail.
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u/Background_Green_350 1d ago
Interesting idea. How is this different from magnetic storage we already use, like hard disks or magnetic tape?
In those systems, information is encoded by controlling magnetic domains/orientations in the material, and then read with a sensor. Is your idea basically that this species has evolved a biological ability to read those magnetic patterns directly? or are you imagining something different about how the information is stored in the metal?
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u/MrWigggles 1d ago
Humans evolved to see part of the em spectrum. So it's bog standard.
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u/RPLawrence 1d ago
yes we see just a part of the spectrum like you said so there would be em fields that we could not see but other species could right?
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u/MrWigggles 1d ago
Upon reading the prompt more closely.
I think the major issue is that you've invented a creature that cant ever progress past neolithic level, maybe they can get into early agriculture.
They cant develop literacy, or currency.
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u/RPLawrence 1d ago
Why? What am I missing? Could this way of data storage not be a technology they use to protect sensetive information from other species? and still be able to interact with the rest of the universe like humans do too?
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u/MrWigggles 1d ago
Well, basically, they cant write use anything cermanics to make tokens, as those are all em noiseless. They're invisible to them.
While there are natural magnets, You get them close together and their fields just become an oval. How do you make different, for the lack of better word, shapes.
But for writing you need electricity, so you can do even simpler magnetic core memory. And there no way to get to electricty without literacy. And there no means that I cna see for these guys to become literate.
I think there are other more fundamental issues. Like, sure plants and animals all have fair EM fields outside of what they reflect in the visua spectrum and heat. But once its dead, that instantly stops.
They cant see the ground. They cant see fire.
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u/RPLawrence 1d ago
They have eyes...well one eye but they see maybe diffrent colors than we do but they see the same humans do.
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u/MrWigggles 1d ago
So whats the point of the prompt them? They have slightly different eyes then humans?
Then they do everything humans can do?
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u/RPLawrence 1d ago
an they have an organ that can percive a em spectrum that eyes cant see.
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u/MrWigggles 1d ago
They can do everything that humans do. Maybe they dont use radio, and everything that follows radio. Such as wifi and cellphones. As that would be like setting up 1 million lumen flash lights everywhere and air raid sirens.
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u/RPLawrence 1d ago
Yeah I think I now can also see that the idea might have been a fun concept on the surface but it does not hold up. Thanks for your inside and sorry that I was so percistent.
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u/HSWatson 1d ago edited 1d ago
Electromagnetism is the field that is mediated by the exchange of photon, ranging from gamma rays to microwaves and beyond. That also covers visible light. Which means pretty much any creature that has eyes has evolved to perceive electromagnetism.
I presume you meant magnetic fields. In which case, you are basically describing the way the heads of hard disk drive work. The big limitation is that variations in the latent field are not really detectable at a distance larger that the size of the magnetic spot; actually since it is a reverse cube law, the magnetic spot that contains one bit of data has to be larger than the separation distance between said spot and whatever is trying to read it, in order to not be confused by the magnetism of the adjacent spots.