Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter recently released a new book called The Long Earth. i'm not talking about the book but the concept its based on. The idea is that a scientist invented a device and spread the directions to make it on the Internet. It's easy to make and involves some simple electronics from Radio Shack and a Potato. it has a switch labled East and West. When you click the switch you find yourself on another world.
Here are the rules:
1. There are no other humans on ANY of the other worlds... at least not ont he thousands peopel have visited in the 15 years since the devices were made. It's all wild with no cities or any other people anywhere.
2. You can't bring any iron with you. There is iron on the other worlds and you can smelt it there, but it doesn't step with you.
3. You can only take what you can carry.
4. You have to go one world at a time. To get back you have to go through all the ones you went through to get where you are. No skipping.
5. When you go to another world 99.9999% of people imediately feel like they've been kicked in the stomach and spend about 15 minutes throwing up.
6. As far as they can tell, there is no limit to the number of worlds.
7. Time is the same. You step at sunset and it's still sunset.
8. Space is the same... so using the stepper in a thirty story building is a bad idea.
9. They are different worlds and masny have had natural disasters. Volcanoes, floods, earthquakes, continents sinking. Also they have life forms many of which are deadly. Unless someone has been there before you don't know what the world is like.
10. You can't step into a solid object so if the next world is impossible so for example if it's an ice age you have to get above the ice to get there.
Now the question is, do you go and if so... how far?
