The Judge's List John Grisham. The Stand Stephen King. Never Ken Follett. The Lincoln Highway Amor Towles. It Ends with Us Colleen Hoover. One Charmed Christmas Sheila Roberts. The Eye of the World Robert Jordan. Murder in Her Stocking G.
Shanna Kathleen E. By getting up close to the looking glass, I was able to point to various heptapod body parts, such as limbs, digits, and eyes, and elicit terms for each. It turned out that they had an orifice on the underside of their body, lined with articulated bony ridges: probably used for eating, while the one at the top was for respiration and speech. There were no other conspicuous orifices; perhaps their mouth was their anus too.
Those sorts of questions would have to wait. I also tried asking our two informants for terms for addressing each individually; personal names, if they had such things.
Their answers were of course unpronounceable, so for Gary's and my purposes, I dubbed them Flapper and Raspberry. I hoped I'd be able to tell them apart. The next day I conferred with Gary before we entered the looking-glass tent. What do you want me to do? Would you act out a few verbs while I type the written form on the computer?
If we're lucky, the heptapods will figure out what we're doing and do the same. I've brought a bunch of props for you to use. Gary demonstrated each one with a charming lack of self-consciousness; the presence of the video cameras didn't inhibit him at all. In their writing, however, things weren't as clearcut. For each action, they had displayed a single logogram instead of two separate ones.
Perhaps their verbs could be written as affixes to a noun. If so, why was Flapper writing the noun in some instances but not in others? I decided to try a transitive verb; substituting object words might clarify things. Among the props I'd brought were an apple and a slice of bread.
First the apple, then the bread. Then we repeated it with the slice of whole wheat. Raspberry left the room and returned with some kind of giant nut or gourd and a gelatinous ellipsoid. Raspberry pointed at the gourd while Flapper said a word and displayed a logogram.
Then Raspberry brought the gourd down between its legs, a crunching sound resulted, and the gourd reemerged minus a bite; there were corn-like kernels beneath the shell. Flapper talked and displayed a large logogram on their screen. Next we got spoken and written names for the gelatin egg, and descriptions of the act of eating it.
The written form, another large logogram, was another matter. They join the logograms by rotating and modifying them. Take a look. He turned to look at the heptapods, impressed. Highly neat. We can't simply cut their sentences into individual words and recombine them; we'll have to learn the rules of their script before we can write anything legible.
It's the same continuity problem we'd have had splicing together speech fragments, except applied to writing. In the days that followed, they readily taught us their language without requiring us to teach them any more English. Colonel Weber and his cohorts pondered the implications of that, while I and the linguists at the other looking glasses met via video conferencing to share what we had learned about the heptapod language.
The videoconferencing made for an incongruous working environment: our video screens were primitive compared to the heptapods' looking glasses, so that my colleagues seemed more remote than the aliens. The familiar was far away, while the bizarre was close at hand. It would be a while before we'd be ready to ask the heptapods why they had come, or to discuss physics well enough to ask them about their technology. The heptapods at every looking glass were using the same language, so we were able to pool our data and coordinate our efforts.
The logograms weren't arranged in rows, or a spiral, or any linear fashion. Instead, Flapper or Raspberry would write a sentence by sticking together as many logograms as needed into a giant conglomeration.
This form of writing was reminiscent of primitive sign systems, which required a reader to know a message's context in order to understand it. Such systems were considered too limited for systematic recording of information. Yet it was unlikely that the heptapods developed their level of technology with only an oral tradition.
That implied one of three possibilities: the first was that the heptapods had a true writing system, but they didn't want to use it in front of us; Colonel Weber would identify with that one. The second was that the heptapods hadn't originated the technology they were using; they were illiterates using someone else's technology.
The third, and most interesting to me, was that the heptapods were using a nonlinear system of orthography that qualified as true writing. I remember a conversation we'll have when you're in your junior year of high school.
It'll be Sunday morning, and I'll be scrambling some eggs while you set the table for brunch. You'll laugh as you tell me about the party you went to last night. I didn't drink any more than the guys did, but I got so much drunker. I'll really try. Do you think I'm an idiot? It will remind me, again, that you won't be a clone of me; you can be wonderful, a daily delight, but you won't be someone I could have created by myself.
The military had set up a trailer containing our offices at the looking glass site. I saw Gary walking toward the trailer, and ran to catch up with him. Once we were inside, I went to the chalkboard and drew a circle with a diagonal line bisecting it. But only one is a representation of speech. Every human written language is in this category. There's no correspondence between its components and any particular sounds.
It's not picture writing, it's far more complex. It has its own system of rules for constructing sentences, like a visual syntax that's unrelated to the syntax for their spoken language. Can you show me an example? I turned the monitor so he could see it. In their written language, however, a noun is identified as subject or object based on the orientation of its logogram relative to that of the verb.
Here, take a look. This morphology applies to several verbs. That modulation is applicable to lots of verbs. It's essentially a grammar in two dimensions. But those are all very specialized; we couldn't record this conversation using them. But I suspect, if we knew it well enough, we could record this conversation in the heptapod writing system. I think it's a full-fledged, general-purpose graphical language.
Why use two languages when one would suffice? That seems unnecessarily hard to learn. For the heptapods, writing and speech may play such different cultural or cognitive roles that using separate languages makes more sense than using different forms of the same one.
Maybe they think our form of writing is redundant, like we're wasting a second communications channel. Finding out why they use a second language for writing will tell us a lot about them. But I don't think we should ignore either Heptapod A or B; we need a two-pronged approach. So are we ready to start asking about their mathematics?
Patience is a virtue. You'll be so excited that you'll make preparations for weeks beforehand. You'll ask me about coconuts and volcanoes and surfing, and practice hula dancing in the mirror. You'll pack a suitcase with the clothes and toys you want to bring, and you'll drag it around the house to see how long you can carry it.
You'll ask me if I can carry your Etch-a-Sketch in my bag, since there won't be any more room for it in yours and you simply can't leave without it. Eventually you'll agree to pack fewer toys, but your expectations will, if anything, increase.
It appeared that a semagram corresponded roughly to a written word in human languages: it was meaningful on its own, and in combination with other semagrams could form endless statements. When it came to sentences in Heptapod B, though, things became much more confusing. The language had no written punctuation: Its syntax was indicated in the way the semagrams were combined, and there was no need to indicate the cadence of speech. There was certainly no way to slice out subject- predicate pairings neatly to make sentences.
When a Heptapod B sentence grew fairly sizable, its visual impact was remarkable. If I wasn't trying to decipher it, the writing looked like fanciful praying mantids drawn in a cursive style, all clinging to each other to form an Escheresque lattice, each slightly different in its stance. And the biggest sentences had an effect similar to that of psychedelic posters: sometimes eye-watering, sometimes hypnotic.
I remember a picture of you taken at your college graduation. In the photo you're striking a pose for the camera, mortarboard stylishly tilted on your head, one hand touching your sunglasses, the other hand on your hip, holding open your gown to reveal the tank top and shorts you're wearing underneath.
I remember your graduation. That entire weekend, while you're introducing me to your classmates and hugging everyone incessantly, I'll be all but mute with amazement. I can't believe that you, a grown woman taller than me and beautiful enough to make my heart ache, will be the same girl I used to lift off the ground so you could reach the drinking fountain, the same girl who used to trundle out of my bedroom draped in a dress and hat and four scarves from my closet.
And after graduation, you'll be heading for a job as a financial analyst. I won't even understand what you do there, I won't even understand your fascination with money, the preeminence you gave to salary when negotiating job offers.
I would prefer it if you'd pursue something without regard for its monetary rewards, but I'll have no complaints. My own mother could never understand why I couldn't just be a high school English teacher. You'll do what makes you happy, and that'll be all I ask for. As time went on, the teams at each looking glass began working in earnest on learning heptapod terminology for elementary mathematics and physics.
We worked together on presentations, with the linguists focusing on procedure and the physicists focusing on subject matter. The physicists showed us previously devised systems for communicating with aliens, based on mathematics, but those were intended for use over a radio telescope.
We reworked them for face-to-face communication. Our teams were successful with basic arithmetic, but we hit a road block with geometry and algebra. We tried using a spherical coordinate system instead of a rectangular one, thinking it might be more natural to the heptapods given their anatomy, but that approach wasn't any more fruitful. The heptapods didn't seem to understand what we were getting at.
Likewise, the physics discussions went poorly. Only with the most concrete terms, like the names of the elements, did we have any success; after several attempts at representing the periodic table, the heptapods got the idea. For anything remotely abstract, we might as well have been gibbering. We tried to demonstrate basic physical attributes like mass and acceleration so we could elicit their terms for them, but the heptapods simply responded with requests for clarification.
To avoid perceptual problems that might be associated with any particular medium, we tried physical demonstrations as well as line drawings, photos, and animations; none were effective. Days with no progress became weeks, and the physicists were becoming disillusioned.
By contrast, the linguists were having much more success. We made steady progress decoding the grammar of the spoken language, Heptapod A. Peculiar, but not impenetrable. Much more interesting were the newly discovered morphological and grammatical processes in Heptapod B that were uniquely two-dimensional. Depending on a semagram's declension, inflections could be indicated by varying a certain stroke's curvature, or its thickness, or its manner of undulation; or by varying the relative sizes of two radicals, or their relative distance to another radical, or their orientations; or various other means.
These were non-segmental graphemes; they couldn't be isolated from the rest of a semagram. And despite how such traits behaved in human writing, these had nothing to do with calligraphic style; their meanings were defined according to a consistent and unambiguous grammar. We regularly asked the heptapods why they had come. Perhaps they were scientists, perhaps they were tourists. The State Department instructed us to reveal as little as possible about humanity, in case that information could be used as a bargaining chip in subsequent negotiations.
We obliged, though it didn't require much effort: the heptapods never asked questions about anything. Whether scientists or tourists, they were an awfully incurious bunch. I remember once when we'll be driving to the mall to buy some new clothes for you. You'll be thirteen. One moment you'll be sprawled in your seat, completely un-self-conscious, all child; the next, you'll toss your hair with a practiced casualness, like a fashion model in training.
You'll give me some instructions as I'm parking the car. All the credit cards stay with me. We'll get out of the car and I will start walking to the mall entrance. After seeing that I won't budge on the matter, you'll quickly reformulate your plans. You can come with me, just walk a little ways behind me, so it doesn't look like we're together. If I see any friends of mine, I'm gonna stop and talk to them, but you just keep walking, okay?
I'll come find you later. I am not the hired help, nor am I some mutant relative for you to be ashamed of. I've already met your friends; they've been to the house. You don't care about me at all! Living with you will be like aiming for a moving target; you'll always be further along than I expect. I looked at the sentence in Heptapod B that I had just written, using simple pen and paper.
Like all the sentences I generated myself, this one looked misshapen, like a heptapod-written sentence that had been smashed with a hammer and then inexpertly taped back together. I had sheets of such inelegant semagrams covering my desk, fluttering occasionally when the oscillating fan swung past. It was strange trying to learn a language that had no spoken form.
Instead of practicing my pronunciation, I had taken to squeezing my eyes shut and trying to paint semagrams on the insides of my eyelids. There was a knock at the door and before I could answer Gary came in looking jubilant.
That's great; when did it happen? Let me show you what it is. The light ray travels in a straight line until it hits the water; the water has a different index of refraction, so the light changes direction. You've heard of this before, right? The path is the fastest possible route between these two points. But light travels more slowly in water than it does in air, and a greater percentage of this path is underwater. So it would take longer for light to travel along this path than it does along the real path.
It would also take longer for light to travel along this path than along the actual one. In other words, the route that the light ray takes is always the fastest possible one. And this is what the heptapods responded to? Moorehead gave an animated presentation of Fermat's Principle at the Illinois looking glass, and the heptapods repeated it back. Now he's trying to get a symbolic description.
And not ordinary calculus; you need the calculus of variations. We thought that some simple theorem of geometry or algebra would be the breakthrough. You think the heptapods' idea of what's simple doesn't match ours? There are lots of physical principles just like Fermat's. When did physics become so minimalist? You see, Fermat's Principle of Least time is incomplete; in certain situations light follows a path that takes more time than any of the other possibilities. It's more accurate to say that light always follows an extreme path, either one that minimizes the time taken or one that maximizes it.
A minimum and a maximum share certain mathematical properties, so both situations can be described with one equation. Almost every physical law can be restated as a variational principle. The only difference between these principles is in which attribute is minimized or maximized.
In mechanics, it's a different attribute. In electromagnetism, it's something else again. But all these principles are similar mathematically. I think this is the wedge that we've been looking for, the one that cracks open their formulation of physics.
A film adaptation of the story by Eric Heisserer, titled Arrival and directed by Denis Villeneuve, was released in Louise Banks the day her daughter is conceived. Addressed to her daughter, the story alternates between recounting the past: the coming of the aliens and the deciphering of their language; and remembering the future: what will happen to her unborn daughter as she grows up, and the daughter's untimely death.
The aliens arrive in spaceships and enter Earth's orbit; devices resembling large semi-circular mirrors appear at sites across the globe. Dubbed 'looking glasses', they are audiovisual links to the aliens in orbit, who are called heptapods for their seven-limbed radially symmetrical appearance. Louise and physicist Dr. Gary Donnelly are recruited by the U. Army to communicate with the aliens, and are assigned to one of nine looking glass sites in the US.
They make contact with two heptapods they nickname Flapper and Raspberry. In an attempt to learn their language, Louise begins by associating objects and gestures with sounds the aliens make, which reveals a language with free word order and many levels of center-embedded clauses.
She finds their writing to be chains of semagrams on a two-dimensional surface in no linear sequence, and semasiographic, having no reference to speech. Some of the techniques listed in Stories of Your Life and Others may require a sound knowledge of Hypnosis, users are advised to either leave those sections or must have a basic understanding of the subject before practicing them.
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