From: sallylb@netcom.com (Sally Smith)
Subject: QL: Sam's soul vs. body leaping
Summary: THE answer
Keywords: BODY!!!
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 23:19:53 GMT

It's his entire body, folks. Always has been. To clear up the
confusion for you new folks who haven't read this a million times
(hope the old hands will bear with me), I quote from the FAQL:

			Quantum Leap FAQL

Created by: Quantum Buc (buc@world.std.com) and 
	        Debbie Brown (dmb7229@ultb.isc.rit.edu)
Updated by:  Sally "Lucky Bitch" Smith (sallylb@netcom.com)

8.   Why could Sam see when he "replaced" a blind man?  Would he be able to 
     hear as a deaf person?

Sam is physically leaping through time, his mass being exchanged with
that of the leapee.  Sam, not sharing the handicap, will not exhibit
it.

To quote the Source Himself (Don Bellisario):

"...when Sam leaps in and bounces somebody out, I like to think of it
this way: ... if that person was hit by a car and they broke their leg
and hit the street and _then_ Sam leaped in, Sam would not have a
broken leg. But if Sam leaped in and was crossing the street and was
hit by the car, then Sam would have the broken leg."

In other words:

He does not share handicaps or injuries suffered by the leapee before 
his leap in, but will sustain injuries suffered while he is there.  

14.  How is it that when Sam leaps into a leapee who is shorter/smaller 
     than he is, people around him don't notice a difference in size?

I belive it is a question of topology.  I'm not very good at it, but
consider the following argument.  The QL maps everything from a different
time into a frame of reference relative to Sam.  (And vice versa for the
host.)  Sam doesn't see what really happens, but rather what happens
relative to his host. [Doug van der Veen] 

It's all a matter of relativity.  Consider a spaceship 10 meters long.  
Send it off at 99.4% of the speed of light and it will seem to be only 
1 meter long to anyone still on earth, while still seeming like 10 to 
those on board.  Gravity can do the same sort of thing; put an object 
deep into a gravity well and it will seem shorter.  The point is the 
ship is in a different 'reference frame' than the earth, and the object 
in the well is in a different frame then the observer floating outside 
it, and things like length (also duration) are not the same across ref-
erence frames. [Larne Pekowsky]

So here's the theory: when Sam leaps his whole body leaps (explaining
things like "Blind Faith"), but it is mapped into a different reference 
frame.  If you look through a warped piece of glass, things seem to be a 
different size and shape.  The same thing happens with a warped region 
of space (cf. "Gravitational Lenses.")  When Sam leaps the space cont-
aining him is warped in such a way that not just length, but all physical 
properties are altered.  And, of course, the only person in Sam's ref-
erence frame is Sam, so when he looks at himself he sees what he has 
always seen, but when he looks in a mirror the photons have passed 
between frames, and so he sees the leapee. [Pekowsky]

To answer the original question, when Sam, 6ft, has leaped into
someone 5ft7 and is talking to someone, they look at the leapee's eyes,
he sees them looking at his eyes, and likewise he looks down, but the 
person he's talking to sees the leapee looking straight.  Which is 
really right? Neither, or both!  It's the same as asking 'how long 
is the spaceship really.' The answer is completely dependent on what 
frame you're in because certain physical properties have no absolute 
existence. [Pekowsky]

As for how this ties into superstrings - current thought is that strings
don't just define particles, but also in some sense define space and time
themselves (ref: "Superstrings: A Theory of Everything?" edited by PCW
Davies).  When Sam leaps he takes the strings comprising his body and 
'soul,' into a region of space made up of the strings of the person he's 
replacing.  [Pekowsky]

--------------------------------------
And from the primer:

		THE "QUANTUM LEAP" PRIMER
		Created by: Sally Smith (sallylb@netcom.com)
		Updated by: Deb Brown (dmb@world.std.com)
		Further updated by: Sally Smith


 When he leaps, Sam actually physically replaces the leapee in
the past, (they're in the future, to keep things even), the leapee's
aura (and Sam's in the "future") is what the people around him see; he
only knows who he's leaped into when he looks in the mirror.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Trust me boys and girls, I once heard Don Bellisario give a ten-minute
discourse on this to the entire set, with copious examples (It was,
BTW, one of the funniest things I've ever heard).

To repeat:

IT'S SAM'S WHOLE BODY THAT'S LEAPING.

Hope this clears up the confusion.

Sally

-- 
Sally Smith (510)790-0608  sallylb@netcom.com (I was sally@tardis.tymnet.com)
I'm unemployed--these opinions *must* be mine!
"Don't investigate this too closely." -- Don Bellisario, re: "Quantum Leap"

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