{"id":2213,"date":"2024-10-10T08:40:35","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T08:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quantum.closelycoded.site\/?page_id=2213"},"modified":"2024-12-17T10:08:21","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T10:08:21","slug":"backstory-acceptable-loss","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/events.cqt.sg\/shorts\/backstory-acceptable-loss\/","title":{"rendered":"Backstory: Acceptable Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-page\" data-elementor-id=\"2213\" class=\"elementor elementor-2213\" data-elementor-post-type=\"page\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-5922dc1c e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"5922dc1c\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-6683d3c4 elementor-absolute elementor-hidden-tablet elementor-hidden-mobile elementor-widget elementor-widget-image\" data-id=\"6683d3c4\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-settings=\"{&quot;_position&quot;:&quot;absolute&quot;}\" data-widget_type=\"image.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"92\" height=\"143\" src=\"https:\/\/events.cqt.sg\/shorts\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2024\/09\/pattern_top.png\" class=\"attachment-full size-full wp-image-591\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-66666dcf elementor-absolute elementor-hidden-tablet elementor-hidden-mobile elementor-widget elementor-widget-image\" data-id=\"66666dcf\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-settings=\"{&quot;_position&quot;:&quot;absolute&quot;}\" data-widget_type=\"image.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"160\" height=\"177\" src=\"https:\/\/events.cqt.sg\/shorts\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2024\/09\/pattern_bottom.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-image-592\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-d31c074 e-con-full e-flex e-con e-child\" data-id=\"d31c074\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-35255a5 elementor-widget elementor-widget-heading\" data-id=\"35255a5\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"heading.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"elementor-heading-title elementor-size-default\">Backstory: Acceptable Loss<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-698dafe elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"698dafe\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>A Q&amp;A with Przemys\u0142aw Za\u0144ko, winner of the First Prize in the Open Category<\/p><p><a href=\"\/entry\/acceptable-loss\">Read the story first: Acceptable Loss<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-2bc8bc4 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"2bc8bc4\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><strong>What is your background in science?<\/strong><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p>I&#8217;ve always been interested in science, even if it quickly turned out that I&#8217;m not that good at it. As a child I devoured any science book I could get my hands on. Then I discovered Stanis\u0142aw Lem&#8217;s science fiction works and I fell in love with them. As for the quantum physics, as soon as I learned about it I became fascinated with its weirdness and its thought-provoking philosophical implications. It never ceases to amaze me that our reality is so strange and wonderful. And there are so many great stories that quantum physics can inspire.<\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p><strong>How did you develop the idea for this story?<\/strong><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p>The vaguest outline of this idea has been living in my head for a few years, waiting for its time. Originally I wanted to tell a story about a general who one day thinks about destroying all the parallel universes &#8211; and then realizes that if he doesn&#8217;t, his alter egos will. At the very end, the destruction would&#8217;ve been stopped by a group of his alter egos. But this version of the story never really worked for me, it was all sci-fi ideas and no human emotions. It wasn&#8217;t until the 2017 Quantum Shorts contest that I finally found a way to make it work. The answer was simple: find a reason why someone would want to destroy the Multiverse.<\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p>Additionally, I like to think of this story as a possible sequel to my 2015 Quantum Shorts entry, &#8220;Time Management&#8221;. Both include parallel worlds and a character named Beckett&#8230;<\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p><strong>If you could move to another universe, would you? What would you look for?<\/strong><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p>If I could come back home &#8211; yes, I would! I would probably mostly look for parallel versions of my favourite artworks, books and TV shows &#8211; just to see how much different they would be. Maybe some of the TV shows that got cancelled prematurely in our world got a second chance in a parallel one? I&#8217;d love to watch those.<\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p><strong>Do you believe in the multiverse, and why?<\/strong><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p>I don&#8217;t, actually. I think it&#8217;s just a handy metaphor that allows us to better understand quantum physics. The Copenhagen interpretation always seemed more believable to me. But what do I know!<\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p><strong>What can you tell us about how you wrote the story?<\/strong><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p>The story took me a couple of days to write. I was unsure at first whether to even participate in the competition as I was quite busy at the time &#8211; luckily my girlfriend persuaded me to try! I always write on my laptop in Microsoft Word so I just sat down at my desk at home, drank some black tea and started typing. I found the voice for my main character pretty early on but then it took me a few tries to find the best way to express all of his conflicted emotions. At first I just wrote the story without counting the words and then I edited it down. I had to delete some funny lines about Oppenheimer but overall I didn&#8217;t have to cut much &#8211; the story was already pretty concise. Then I sent it to some friends, asking them to check my English!<\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p><strong>What other projects do you have on the go, or coming up?<\/strong><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p>In December I finished a novella in Polish about a dying WWII soldier who makes a deal with the devil and then tries desperately to wriggle out of it. It took me a very long time to write but I&#8217;m quite proud of it &#8211; and it&#8217;s getting published this year! In January I started writing a short horror story about a small town frozen in time that I&#8217;m very excited about. It will probably take me a few months to finish. After that? Who knows&#8230;<\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p><strong>Can you name one or two science-inspired books you&#8217;ve read in the past year that you would recommend to others? What did you like about them?<\/strong><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p>I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve read any in the past year but I can recommend two books I&#8217;ve read in the past. The first is Michio Kaku&#8217;s &#8220;Hyperspace&#8221; &#8211; it&#8217;s a fascinating exploration of several scientific concepts such as parallel worlds and spacetime. You also don&#8217;t need to know a lot about science to give it a try and it&#8217;s fun to read. I enjoyed it immensely. The second book is much harder, but also much more rewarding &#8211; &#8220;G\u00f6del, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid&#8221; by Douglas Hofstadter. It taught me a lot about mathematics, music and logic &#8211; and it was beautifully written. I probably only understood half of it but it was a great half.<\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p><strong>What appealed to you about the Quantum Shorts flash fiction competition?<\/strong><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p>I&#8217;ve never really tried writing in English before so I saw the competition as a fun challenge. I&#8217;ve always enjoyed finding creative ways to overcome limitations so the strict word count gave my brain a good puzzle to solve. It also ensured that I won&#8217;t try to turn this story into an epic seven-book saga, in which case I would probably never finish it&#8230; The possibility of winning a prize was also pretty motivating!<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Backstory: Acceptable Loss A Q&amp;A with Przemys\u0142aw Za\u0144ko, winner of the First Prize in the Open Category Read the story first: Acceptable Loss What is your background in science? \u00a0 I&#8217;ve always been interested in science, even if it quickly turned out that I&#8217;m not that good at it. As a child I devoured any [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2213","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Backstory: Acceptable Loss - Quantum Shorts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/events.cqt.sg\/shorts\/backstory-acceptable-loss\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Backstory: Acceptable Loss - Quantum Shorts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Backstory: Acceptable Loss A Q&amp;A with Przemys\u0142aw Za\u0144ko, winner of the First Prize in the Open Category Read the story first: Acceptable Loss What is your background in science? \u00a0 I&#8217;ve always been interested in science, even if it quickly turned out that I&#8217;m not that good at it. 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