{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1483", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1483, "subject": "How Big the fountain", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1999-04-05T17:11:00+00:00", "last": "1999-04-06T02:09:57+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1999-04-05T17:11:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) How Big the fountain", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In my reading, the possible paradox would be whether or not the white\nfountain exists, not \"if it exists then why can't it be seen from\nUrth.\"\n\nBecause it can be seen from Urth. It just isn't as impressive as a\nfull moon or a hot air balloon.\n\nIF the white fountain is a \"white hole\" that is roughly equal in mass\nto the black hole eating at the heart of the old Sun, AND IF the\nblack hole is a mini-black hole as would fit the description of\neffects in the text, THEN the white hole would have a small diameter.\n\n\"How far can you see the light from a motorcycle's headlight?\"\n\nA black hole with the mass of Jupiter would have a diameter of 560\ncentimeters; one with the mass of Earth would have a diameter of 1.6\ncentimeters.\n\n\"It depends on how far away the motorcycle is, and if it is moving\nthen it will become more visible as it gets closer.\"\n\nSeverian is gone from Urth for 40 years. If the fountain is\ntraveling at .5 c for 40 years (ignoring deceleration times) then it\nhas crossed 20 light years; it was 20 light years away when he left.\nIf it is traveling faster, it has covered a greater distance (up to\naround 40 light years); if it is traveling slower, it has covered a\nshorter distance. In any event: it is within 40 light years of Urth.\n\n\"There are literally thousands of stars within the Local Bubble alone\nthat outshine our star. To illustrate the point, we have marked on\nMap C an obscure star in Puppis called HD 44594, which is just too\nfaint to be seen by the naked eye. HD 44594 is in fact the twin of\nthe Sun--the nearest match to our star that astronomers have been\nable to pin down. Just as we do not rate HD 44594 highly, someone in\nthis star's planetary system--if it has one--would regard our Sun as\na totally insignificant star, invisible without a telescope, even\nthough it lies only 80 light years away\" (Henbest & Couper, THE GUIDE\nTO THE GALAXY, p. 185).\n\nThe \"solar twin\" (with a diameter like that of the Sun) cannot be\nseen without a telescope, yet it is only 80 light years away.\n\n\"The German astronomer Wilhelm Gliese has made a detailed study of\nthe nearest stars to the Sun. Within 16 light years of the Sun--the\nregion where we =probably= have a complete inventory, even of the\nfaintest stars . . . \" [emphasis mine] (ibid.).\n\nEven in the 20th century, with advanced optical telescopes and radio\ntelescopes, etc., our knowledge of our stellar neighborhood is\nlimited to 16 or 20 light years. Beyond 20 light years things get\nprogressively more fuzzy, spotty. It is much easier to see the big\nstars--our nearest solar twin is out there, lost to naked eye at 80\nlight years.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "1999-04-06T02:09:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: How Big the fountain", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Mon, 5 Apr 99 17:11:00 GMT mantis wrote:\nIn my reading, the possible paradox would be whether or not the white\nfountain exists, not \"if it exists then why can't it be seen from\nUrth.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Because it can be seen from Urth. It just isn't as impressive as a\nfull moon or a hot air balloon.<<\n\n and:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The \"solar twin\" (with a diameter like that of the Sun) cannot be\nseen without a telescope, yet it is only 80 light years away.<<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " and:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Even in the 20th century, with advanced optical telescopes and radio\ntelescopes, etc., our knowledge of our stellar neighborhood is\nlimited to 16 or 20 light years. Beyond 20 light years things get\nprogressively more fuzzy, spotty. It is much easier to see the big\nstars--our nearest solar twin is out there, lost to naked eye at 80\nlight years.<<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " All true. But Sev, at least, can see his \"star\", his \"white fountain\" as\nfar back in time as when Typhon and Ymar were alive. See the last line of\nchapter XXXV, _Urth_:\n\n\"Before we walked into the darkness beneath the trees, I looked up and\nbeheld myself through their frost-blighted leaves.\"\n\n This implies that Sev's \"star\" should have been visible to the naked eye\nfor however many millennia had passed between Typhon's reign and Sev's,\npresumably getting brighter, to some degree, all the while. That's why I\nsaid what I did about time-travel paradoxes; they're unavoidable. Not to\nmention why the \"fountain\" should have been one of the three emblems on\nSev's mausoleum, ancient when Sev was just a boy.\n\n This only serves to show that the Physics can not be reconciled with the\nFiction. For time-travel stories it just comes with the territory. In a\nsimilar vein, someone(s) tried to deduce the dimensions of the Whorl from\ndistances given in the text and the laws of physics as applied to the\nmotions of \"floaters\" and such. IIRC, they couldn't be reconciled either.\nNor, IMO, should Wolfe be criticized for it; he made the Whorl exactly as\nlarge as it needed to be to hold his story, and no smaller.\n\nRoy" } ] } ] }