# science of the day before its day *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 02 Dec 1999* > 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. --- ### Michael Andre-Driussi *02 Dec 1999, 08:30* > Mark Millman wrote: > My purpose had been to point out that the theory in the text is, > regrettably, undermined rather than bolstered by the theory of > its day. The idea of the white hole was already on its way out > when Wolfe was writing SotT, to say nothing of UotNS. Right, I understand that (cf. "Wolfe's impishness" in "BaD sCienCe" post), so I should have written "science of its day" as "science of the day before its day." But the clunky phrase had not gotten past my internal censor. (BTW, I'm not so sure about the example you gave from "Silhouette"--the non-Einsteinian return travel route bit--since I took it as being not necessarily "science valid within the framework of the tale" but an indication of how wigged out and factionalized the starship crew had become. Old superstitions arise in troubled times, old concepts find new political purpose.) We should also note the same Wolfe trick in using discredited saints, too. White Holes (197n model) from Big Science; Catherine from Big Religion (since she was not "on her way out"--she was OUT). =mantis= ---