An introduction to compass
Why do we want to introduce compasses to heptapods?
Ash and I chose to introduce a compass to heptapods mainly because we would like to present the direction determination based on reference objects in human life. According to the author’s description in the book, heptapods’ body structures are different from humans. They are “radially symmetric, and any of their limbs could serve as an arm or a leg (Chiang 5).” They have seven limbs on their body in total. “Seven lidless eyes ringed the top of the heptapod’s body (Chiang 5).” As a result, when walking around, heptapods do not need to turn their body around even just slightly. We suppose that with their special body structures, heptapods can sense or feel the surrounding world around them at the same time.
However, in the human world, people need to turn their bodies to a certain direction when going to or heading somewhere. That is because we can only easily sense things that are in front of us, given that our eyes and nose and other body parts that help with feeling the world are focused on the front side of our body. We need to turn in a certain direction to better tell the road we are walking. Given the above reasons, humans have a direction determination system that is based on themselves. As people turn around, they generate the concepts of “front”, “back”, “left”, “right”, “above” and “below”. This system is clearly useless for heptapods to understand, since creatures that do not turn their bodies won’t need these concepts.
Another direction determination system of human beings is the one that is based on reference objects. Normally, the basic reference object is the earth, the planet that people live on. To better understand the absolute positions, people created concepts of “north”, “south”, “west” and “east”. These concepts are useful when people are trying to point out a certain position to someone else, or finding a particular place on the map. We think this kind of direction determination system will also work for creatures like heptapods. Obviously there’s no left or right ideas in their mind, but the direction determination based on reference objects can really help them to convey information and better communicate with one another.
Why are we presenting compasses in this way (in the picture)?
We want to introduce the principle of the compass to the heptapods and show them how it works. This picture shows the principle of. The materials of compasses are magnetic. The magnetic pole will repel the same magnetic pole and be attracted by different magnetic poles. When putting a magnet in a magnetic field, it will point in a certain direction.
In this picture, we drew some curves that cross each other at both ends.They are the magnetic induction line of the earth, which shows the direction of a magnetic field and the direction a compass will point to. It is a visualized picture of the magnetic, showing the principle of the compass.
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