...it actually sounds pretty neat to lump gravity in with space and time as a gradient of particle states to which we subjectively assign meaning; would that be the same with electromagnetism? can we think of each of them as a spectrum rather than a force or continuum?
but it's worth bearing in mind that even models as abstract as quantum field theories are still highly subjective and made-up cartoons based on metaphors-built-upon-metaphors to extend outward from the things our brains are built to be good at processing and our empirical experiences actually contain
QFT would essentially argue that all the so-called "contiuum forces" are really excitation gradients in the quantum fields of the associated force-mediating bosons, and all the so-called "particles" are really localized excitations in the quantum fields of those bosons and the elemental fermions
QFT also supports the representation of solid state lattice vibrations as excitations of the "phonon" field, and lets you use quantum mechanics' mathematical structures to represent scattering events between those phonons and other particles (e.g. you use phonon-electron scattering to explain how resistivity changes with temperature)
Exacerangutan
all of this makes sense, granting I'll have to look up what bosuns do and how to define phonons (solid state lattice = atomic structure of solids where the atoms can get excited and fall out of formation under the right stimulus? or something else?)
and yeah basically, if you think of the simplest picture of solids as being crystals, there's a fairly simple lattice structure that just repeats over and over
and you can represent all motion of atoms within that lattice (i.e. vibrations including thermal energy and sound waves) as phonons, via the wave-partial duality of quantum mechanics
Meanwhile I'm also cackling at how the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is a hard limit in computing because if you're working with a single electron you're not allowed to know where it is or the computer crashes XDDD
but fun worldbuilding things that occur to me offhand from all this are that the Trousers of Time work by collapsing the wavefront, the entire universe being one particle defined by and defining every potential thing that could happen to or because of it, the ever-popular simulation theory
and whether black holes are actually saving reality by leaking information and preventing All Of It from accruing at one place, that visual of matter that passes an event horizon no longer existing but ALSO falling forever, information as an arrangement of matter rather than a description of it,
increasing informational load capacity by loading more layers of information into carefully-built epigrams and cryptic verses (~words can be powerful, powerful words!~), communication via gravity waves, and how we are the universe thinking about itself.
(also don't go digging alone in there apparently Le Source is super racist BUT! The good news is it's like Witchworld or DnD, in that it's a Shared World where plenty of authors who are NOT, TRASH, have made great stuff out of it!)
which is, why I haven't done a deep read of all that, after getting tired of realizing most of it was just "my poor tiny mind is too feeble and helpless to survive the slightest change of worldview"
it talks with electrical impulses, has complex patterns of communication, pauses when other fish are speaking, pauses longer before saying a lot at one time, mostly stops talking when isolated from other fish, and sometimes even ditches or switches traditionally gendered language patterns
dear superhero writers: animals that use electricity to map their surroundings, communicate complex ideas, and commit murder already exist, give your metahumans electrocytes
They look like land instead of water and are called hafgerdingars (Icelandic, 'sea hedges'). An important point, though, is that haferdingers show land that actually does exist, albeit much further over the horizon than it appears, while the 'water' in heat mirages is a reflection of the sky.
PhD: gravity is a scam created by quantum reality to sell more relative dimensions in spacetime
lmk if any of that did/didn't make senseOH
"phon"=sound!
People: mmm yes capitalism
Me: that's what quantum reality WANTS you to think