'The Basin': Speed Of Light [Draft 1.0]

 

All Images: Brunel Way, Southwest Bristol, April - August 2023

Above the Basin, the flow rate intensifies into a rapid pulse. When electric and magnetic fields change in time, they interact to produce a travelling electromagnetic wave, measured in the blip of auto-glass. The speed of light is, of course, just one of several ‘fundamental’ or ‘universal’ physical constants. These are believed to apply to the entire universe and to remain fixed over time. The switch-gear remains visible, despite an overall film of degradation. Multi-axles hammer and the deck shivers through our soles. The spectrum shifts and shuddering loads are subjected to competing forces - augmented by an attendant menu of sound-events. In the description there is a link to create that inevitable trance sound. How busy can it get?

Light, noise and emissions dictate the micro-climate on this level. It is an arena in which quantum fluctuations produce evanescent energies and elementary particles - ‘deteriorating at a significant rate’. Sediment and hydrocarbons are driven into the observer’s face. Rubber granulates. Sheets of hiss shift over the clattered repeat and sirens dopple through the roar. Backlit clouds fray, releasing dazzling shards to slice off inclined glass and sculpted contours. Light from different directions must have different speeds, which should be detected by measuring the return speed. Standing water is atomised and the vehicles diffuse into a sprayed miasma. As redshift moves toward the observer, then a blue shift will be observed. Filthy waves and occasional small components are hurled to the margins. If the wave source moves toward the observer then the person will feel the frequency of the water wave is increasing. In the afternoon, traffic levels two and a half times higher re-emerge from a barrage of heat, onto desiccating tarmac.

The filters employ opportunism and no little jeopardy. You need to imagine a car driving on a huge flat surface. You need to imagine that the car can only move at one speed - say, 60 miles per hour or so. Such moments are seized without forgiveness, and coupled with ongoing road-water and gritting salt ingress. Tolerances are severely tested. The bridge consists of a considerable number of inherent high-risk construction design features, which include post-tensioning or half-joints, and tendons in box-beam bottoms. The car lobby, of course, shudder at the idea. The comments fill up with metrics, snobbery or hate mail (some days it will easily reach six figures). Why do they have those particular values? What do they really tell us about the physical reality around us?

Supply chains are clearly indicated. These short-lived phenomena might seem to be a ghostly form of reality but they do have measurable effects, including electromagnetic ones. The imperative is headlong and adjusting time (beating the barriers and the occasional swing). It had to be included to prompt the behaviour change necessary for the entire project to work. The orange gates stand retracted as logistical solutions serve your sheet material needs. Events are catered and parcels forced. Prime packaging is serviced by an outsourced procession, causing an accelerated depreciation of the network. Elevated commerce cuts across the tidal trades. The wave speed change is actually caused by the absolute movements in the global reference frame. If we put another wave source below the observer - and let them move together at the same speed perspective, the two waves coming from two different directions should have the same frequency. Buses shuttle to marginal estates (in different directions at various different times), and while that happens there will be a ‘reference group’ which will bring in local people. We stand at an organ of admittance. The city consumes and evacuates, upscales and downsizes, deploys and discharges.

Different centuries were stripped into the map here, but the plan already accelerates towards ‘catastrophic failure’. Urban colleagues had to make some unsupported assumptions. Concerns included issues with elastomeric and roller structural bearings and expansion joints between all elevated structural deck areas, ineffective waterproof membranes throughout all bridge deck areas, and a sub-standard parapet system. Alternate futures falter - and are now deteriorating at a significant rate, as exorbitant remedies are threatened. These possibilities are entertaining to think about, and they might well be real in adjacent universes - but still the central issue remains. Time drains into the Basin and the universe is an infinite test. Everything is quite paradoxical and therefore impossible. Attachments to the crescent and the garden-centre remain strong (anthropic reasoning might well suffice to explain why). On both the Eastern Approach option and the Western Approach, the largest number of answers to the questions were that the plans would be ‘worse’.