I don’t have a good explanation for how they can breathe, how they see without interacting with light, how they can hear clearly when matter isn’t really touching them and therefore can’t conduct sound, etc.
That is obviously due to a phase shift in the quantum fields, which is correlated to the mass of the interacting matter (through the Higgs field). This leaves you interacting with light stuff like air and light, but prevents you from interacting with solid stuff like walls (and potentially force fields, if that would fit the episode).
Of course, artificial gravity affects the mentioned phase shift by bending spacetime.
And now I must go, before my handwaving creates enough energy to form a black hole.
They can’t? I should watch that series again… Anyway, good point, but of course they can’t, because the phaseshift forces truly massless particles (like photons) into a state of quantum entanglement.
That means photons hitting them, create an entangled twin that only exists long enough for them so see their surrounding. The “original” photon however just passes through making them invisible to others. Energy from the surrounding is used to create the twin, cooling the surrounding shortly. However, since the twin is immediately reabsorbed (and the entanglement broken), you basically can’t detect the effect.
That is obviously due to a phase shift in the quantum fields, which is correlated to the mass of the interacting matter (through the Higgs field). This leaves you interacting with light stuff like air and light, but prevents you from interacting with solid stuff like walls (and potentially force fields, if that would fit the episode).
Of course, artificial gravity affects the mentioned phase shift by bending spacetime.
And now I must go, before my handwaving creates enough energy to form a black hole.
Your technobabble is on point, you should be in the writers’ room!
Then how come other people can’t see them?
They can’t? I should watch that series again… Anyway, good point, but of course they can’t, because the phaseshift forces truly massless particles (like photons) into a state of quantum entanglement.
That means photons hitting them, create an entangled twin that only exists long enough for them so see their surrounding. The “original” photon however just passes through making them invisible to others. Energy from the surrounding is used to create the twin, cooling the surrounding shortly. However, since the twin is immediately reabsorbed (and the entanglement broken), you basically can’t detect the effect.