Absolutely Normal Chaos Quotes

Then I thought, boy, isn't that just typical? You wait and wait and wait for something, and then when it happens, you feel sad.

What happened?” I croaked, and she came to my side, offering me a cool drink. “You’re fine,” she soothed. “Both of you are fine. Just lie still.” “But…how did I come to be here?” “You and my son passed out. No one knows how or why, but a lot of people lost consciousness. The Cokyrian commander summoned physicians to treat everyone, then my Lord Landru found you and brought you both here.” “I need to go home. My mother must be frantic.” I struggled to sit upright, then fell back, my head pounding, nausea sweeping through me that was so debilitating I would have gladly traded it for a hangover. “Shaselle, are you all right?” It was Grayden, his voice weak and confused. His mother replaced the damp cloth on my brow, then went to offer him something to drink. “I think I will be,” I managed in response. I heard voices in the foyer, then Lord Landru strode into the parlor. “She’s there, Cannan,” he said, and my uncle approached, his atypical worry lines relaxing when he realized I was conscious. “How are you, Shaselle?” “Never better.” He laughed in pure relief. “I’m going to let you rest here for a while yet. Then I’ll return and take you home. But you’re going to be just fine.” “What went wrong, Uncle? Everyone was so happy, and then…it was chaos.” “I know. There was a disturbance--Hytanican caused, I’m afraid. But the Cokyrians were only too eager to respond. Feebly armed Hytanicans in various stages of inebriation were no match for sober, well-armed and well-trained Cokyrian soldiers. It would have been a bloodbath had it not been for Commander Narian.” Cannan shook his head, as if trying to figure something out. “I’m not sure what he did, but he must have been anticipating trouble. He released some type of poison--no, not a poison. But some type of airborne substance that knocked everybody off their feet. Shut the fighting down at once.” He placed a hand on my cheek, brushing away a few wisps of my hair. “You no doubt feel poorly right now, but I’ve been told the effects wear off in a few hours. You’ll be back to normal after that.” “Captain, sir?” It was Grayden. My uncle gazed over at him in surprise. “Yes?” “This may not be the ideal time to ask, but, would you please permit me to court Shaselle?” There was stunned silence in the room, then loud laughter. “I’d be a fool to deny you a chance with my niece. Assuming Shaselle favors the idea.” “I do, Uncle,” I assured him, easily slipping back toward sleep, images of Grayden and Saadi drifting through my head. Then a remembrance of Queen Alera and Commander Narian came to the forefront--how deferential he had been with her when I had been caught with that dagger, how she had looked at him. And I knew two things with absolute certainty. She was in love with him, and he had to be a good man.

This weird behavior is a manifestation of quantum sync. All liquids become highly ordered when cooled to very low temperatures. Normally they freeze into a crystal. But the two isotopes of helium, helium-3 and helium-4, never solidify, at least not at ordinary pressures. They remain liquids all the way down to absolute zero.

The theory also showed that superconductivity is not a mere extension of ordinary conductivity. Previously it had always seemed paradoxical that the best normal conductors, copper and silver, are feeble superconductors; they do not superconduct even when the temperature is a thousandth of a degree above absolute zero. Seen in the light of the new theory, however, that finding began to make sense. Good conductors are good precisely because their conduction electrons ignore the lattice. But by encouraging the electrons and the lattice to go their separate ways, these materials never give Cooper pairs a chance to form. Remember, the pairing mechanism relies crucially on an electron’s ability to deform the lattice (like the bowling ball rolling on the waterbed) so that a second one can follow in its tracks. If the waterbed is so stiff that the first bowling ball can’t make a groove in it, there’s no chance that a second one will follow. So good conductors are lousy superconductors, because they can’t form the necessary Cooper pairs.