Editing Reference:RAWA/Age information

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'''Q:''' Is it possible for two people to write and age that is identical? What if they used different words, but were describing the same thing?

'''A:''' It is possible, but not probable. Like flipping a normal coin 10 billion times and getting "heads" every single time... possible, but not probable. :)
(Aside from the fact that if you flipped 1 coin per second every second of every day, it would take about 320 years to conduct the experiment once...)


'''Q:''' Can you recreate an age? Not like when you make changes, and try to do it over. What if you made an age, and then something happens to the book. Could you "rewrite" in a new book? I am guessing that it would not be exactly the same.

'''A:''' You are correct. The chances of writing a Link to the same world twice (even by writing the two Descriptive Books verbatim) are extremely remote.


'''Q:''' In BoA, when Gehn starts getting really off with Atrus about the 37th Age, Gehn starts undoing changes made in Linking Book. When Atrus went back to the Age, the natives were fairly hostile and were speaking a language that he doesn't understand.

Now, what does this mean?

'''A:''' It means that Gehn tried to change something that had already been observed in the Age. The contradiction forced the Book to link to a very similar, but different Age.


'''Q:''' RAWA, is this quantum mechanics a bit like the argument about a tree in a forest? If it falls and there's no-one there to hear it, does it make a noise?

'''A:''' I apologize that my description of quantum mechanics confused more people than it helped. That's why I'm a programmer and not a teacher. Successfully explaining things like this is not one of my strengths.

The short version of the story:

Observation is the key to knowing whether an addition to a Book will be a change (further defining the current Age) or a contradiction (forcing a link to similar, but different Age). Quantum theory explains why all the Ages a writer can describe already exist (Atrus is right, Gehn is wrong), and tells why observation is so critical. It also shows that science fact is much stranger than science fiction.