Subject: (urth) Problematic element in chronology

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Fri, 27 May 2011 23:53:51 +0000

I got to thinking about the distance from Urth to Blue today and after looking up some stuff I found a problem.

On Blue, SilkHorn explains to prospective astral travellers that they can, if they peer for some time, see a dim red star - this is of course Sol, etiolated by the black hole inside it.  

I looked up some stuff, and as near as I can tell, they following is true:  Sol (currently) has an absolute magnitude of 5.  That means it would be barely visible from 50 light years away.  Red Sol will be even dimmer.

But if the Whorl only travelled 50 light years, relativistic time dilation will have been fairly insignificant.  Specifically, there's no reasonable way that you could 'lose' more time than the distance you travelled in light years.  On this basis, the Whorl was launched no more than 350 or so years ago in Urth time.

On the whole, I put this down to Wolfe not fretting too much about the details - I still think there is supposaed to be a relativistic time dilation factor of up to five or six, even if it is contradictory in some ways (it also fails because the energy needed to accelerate the Whorl to such a velocity would have been more than enough to replace the solar energy deficit, and Typhon would surely have repurposed the Whorl drive for this).

But if the physics is correct, the Whorl has little in the way of time dilation, and Typhon lived only about 350 years before Severian.

- Gerry Quinn

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From: António Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 28 May 2011 09:08:12 +0000

Gerry Quinn wrote:
> On Blue, SilkHorn explains to prospective astral travellers that they
> can, if they peer for some time, see a dim red star - this is of course
> Sol, etiolated by the black hole inside it.

But we only have the narrator's word for it, and the narrator isnt 
omniscient.

> On the whole, I put this down to Wolfe not fretting too much about the
> details (...)

I don't think it's that.

I think GW fretts paranoidly about the details when the details matter.

When the details are unimportant I think he nontheless handles them with 
some care.

When, as in this case, the details depend on knowledge no one has within 
the story, he's free and willing to improvise.

When the details depend on knowledge no one has period, he's almost 
obliged to improvise. One of the things that makes 'hard' sf so 
ridiculous is its datedness. As-of-time-of-writing scientific consensus 
dates a work even more than cassette tapes do. Constraining a story by 
scientific boundaries is not different from constraining it by 
technological ones.

Of course, it's one thing not to be limited by science, and another to 
contradict it too much (cf. a story I've read recently which places 
Sanskrit 11k years in the past). Unless it's got a good reason behind 
it, it comes across as just uninformed.

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Sat, 28 May 2011 18:36:11 +0000

I think the main reason the NS/LS/SS universes differ slightly (maybe) 
is that Wolfe is too busy paying attention to the stories themselves to 
rack his brain to try to recall some detail from a previous book.

You can only keep that stuff in your head for so long, and if you are 
engaged with a new story and new characters, there is no real need to.

On 5/28/2011 5:08 AM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:
> When the details are unimportant I think he nontheless handles them 
> with some care.
>
> When, as in this case, the details depend on knowledge no one has 
> within the story, he's free and willing to improvise.
>
> ridiculous is its datedness. As-of-time-of-writing scientific 
> consensus dates a work even more than cassette tapes do. Constraining 
> a story by scientific boundaries is not different from constraining it 
> by technological ones.
>
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From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Sat, 28 May 2011 18:42:46 +0000

From: "Ant?nio Marques" <entonio at gmail.com>

> But we only have the narrator's word for it, and the narrator isnt 

True enough... but in most Wolfe including all of the Solar Cycle, we only 
have the narratopr's word for *everything*.  One has to ask why he should 
lie, or make a mistake?  And if he hasn't seen the star, why should he say 
it is visible, whereas if he has, why should he mistake a particular star 
for Sol?

> the story, he's free and willing to improvise.

But SilkHorn must have chosen the star for some reason - he hardly picked it 
at random.  If he incorporates some of Pas, albeit not yet fully 
assimilated, it may be that he has access to full knowledge with respect to 
the Whorl's trajectory..

> obliged to improvise. One of the things that makes 'hard' sf so ridiculous 
> is its datedness. As-of-time-of-writing scientific consensus dates a work 
> even more than cassette tapes do. Constraining a story by scientific 
> boundaries is not different from constraining it by technological ones.

The speed of light and the distance from which the Sun is visible aren't 
going to change with tomorrow's research.  Some science is permanent.

I think he either (1) didn't think of this point, (2) supports a 350-year 
chronology between Typhon and Severian, or (3) thought it would be cool to 
have Sol visible even if the physics doesn't work.  I think Wolfe is quite 
happy to gloss over lots of dodgy science if it fits the story 
(realistically, it's obvious - leaving aside physics for the moment, 
absorbing not just memories but *memories coordinated into a personality* by 
eating corpses is obviously impossible.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: Sergei SOLOVIEV <soloviev at irit.fr>
Date: Sat, 28 May 2011 20:51:33 +0000

Dear Gerry,

please, have a look at Red Giants (final stage of evolution of sun-like 
stars). Obviously,
the sun in the "BotNS" entered this stage - the atmosphere of the star 
becomes very large
and red (the temperature drops, but the total luminosity is much 
greater). There are many such stars
in our vicinity. The dim star mentioned by Silkhorn maybe thousands 
light years away.
(Red giants, like Aldebaran, that are 50 - 60 light years from here, are 
among the most
bright stars.)

It does pose other problems, I agree. Red giant may have a diameter like 
Venus orbit,
and if Urth were at the same distance as Earth, it would be burned (even 
if the
temperature of the surface of the star is less). I don't know whether 
Gene Wolfe
did take all this physics into account, maybe not, but I am sure he did know
about red giants.

Possible explanation. In Typhon's time or earlier the technical power of 
humanity
seems to be sufficient to make the distance of Urth from the Sun greater, to
prevent its burning or swallowing by the Sun. Maybe it was done. Notice 
that in the BotNS there is
no clear indication how long is their year, I don't remember anything about
the names of the months, that there is 12 months (or other number, maybe
17), how much days is in one month, how much days in a year, how much
hours in one day. There are watches - yes - but I think all concrete 
indications
are eliminated (deliberately?) by GW. The mass of the sun when
it becomes Red Giant doesn't change, so the orbital period for
more distant orbit has to be longer. By the way, if their year is longer,
it may explain the "too rapid" ascencion of Severian to power.

After the end of the rule of Typhon the technical might dropped 
considerably,
and the humans could probably do nothing any more about the orbit of
Urth etc. The energy output of Red Giants is very unstable, so,
if later it got weaker, the Urth may become cold place threatened
by glaciers, and nobody had energy or knowledge to do anything.

I think (I repeat myself) that GW tried to be very careful about scientific
details. Do not take for granted the idea that inside the old sun there is
a black hole. It is something that is presented as common idea in Severian's
times, but I don't see from the text that GW himself thinks that.
I sounds "mythologically" beautiful, but it was easily accessible 
information to GW
in 70-es, and even more easily later, that black hole will swallow very 
quickly
all the atmosphere of the red giant. It would by the way be an explosive 
process
that would burn everything a couple of light years around
(kind of supernova). An encounter of a real black hole
with a white fountain would be also extremely explosive - not just tides.

Remark. I think that my views about the importance of human and 
psychological
side are slightly distorted on the list, I do not reject mythological 
and "gnostic" meaning
at all, I just don't agree when the abstract symmetry of these schemas does
contradict the truth of characters described by GW as I see it from
the text. (I'll try to develop it in another mail.)

Best regards

Sergei

Gerry Quinn wrote:
> can, if they peer for some time, see a dim red star - this is of 
> course Sol, etiolated by the black hole inside it. 
>  
> I looked up some stuff, and as near as I can tell, they following is 
> true:  Sol (currently) has an absolute magnitude of 5.  That means it 
> would be barely visible from 50 light years away.  Red Sol will be 
> even dimmer.
>  
> But if the Whorl only travelled 50 light years, relativistic time 
> dilation will have been fairly insignificant.  Specifically, there's 
> no reasonable way that you could 'lose' more time than the distance 
> you travelled in light years.  On this basis, the Whorl was launched 
> no more than 350 or so years ago in Urth time.
>  
> details - I still think there is supposaed to be a relativistic time 
> dilation factor of up to five or six, even if it is contradictory in 
> some ways (it also fails because the energy needed to accelerate the 
> Whorl to such a velocity would have been more than enough to replace 
> the solar energy deficit, and Typhon would surely have repurposed the 
> Whorl drive for this).
>  
> But if the physics is correct, the Whorl has little in the way of time 
> dilation, and Typhon lived only about 350 years before Severian.
>  
> - Gerry Quinn
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Sun, 29 May 2011 09:51:48 +0000

On 5/28/2011 3:51 PM, Sergei SOLOVIEV wrote:
> greater).

This is not obvious to me. Details of shadows' boundaries and of dawn 
and dusk (the same thing, since they are the boundaries of the earth's 
shadow) are much as they are today. The solar disc might even have 
shrunk slightly if the "50,000 leagues" turns out to be a 
misinterpretation of the moon appearing larger than the sun instead of 
being roughly equal as they do today.

> did take all this physics into account, maybe not, but I am sure he did

And we are equally sure that Skuld still appears in the sky of 
Severian's time.

> all the atmosphere of the red giant.

Not if it is a quantum or merely small black hole, or a swarm of several 
suggested by the black beans. They are too small to eat much even in the 
impressively dense core of the sun, but their gravitation could could 
disturb the sun's burn rate by supression of light element fusion via 
gravitational containment and/or premature instigation of heavy element 
fusion in an asymetrical patter, cutting down on overall energy output.

It can also keep the intermediate layers disrupted so that energy 
transfer to the outer layers is decreased, or possibly increased then 
decreased. Stars are amazingly complex and contrary that way, like when 
supernova explosions turn out to be primed by the collapse of the core 
and the end of fusion there.

> It would by the way be an explosive
> process

Er, the white hole is already extremely explosive. Anything that comes 
out arrives at escape velocity for the entire universe, and the energy 
is blue-shifted accordingly. But the White Fountain is almost much 
smaller than the sun, with which the earth cohabitates already.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Sun, 29 May 2011 16:41:20 +0000

From: "Sergei SOLOVIEV" <soloviev at irit.fr>
> and red (the temperature drops, but the total luminosity is much greater).

I agree with Jeff that the red giant idea has a lot of problems, especially 
when really the only thing it is needed to fix is a likely small slip by 
Wolfe with regard to the visibility of Sol from Blue.  There is no evidence 
that the Sun looks especially large as seen from Urth, and we have Typhon's 
assertion that the solar output decreased rather than increased.

> it may explain the "too rapid" ascencion of Severian to power.

Wolfe is indeed vague about time but mostly with regard to long times (he 
even says so in an appendix - arguably defending himself neatly in advance 
against threads such as this!)  Children don't seem to age in a matter of a 
few years, though I cannot think of any specific proff that years are much 
longer than now.  Nobody mentions it, though.

> with a white fountain would be also extremely explosive - not just tides.

Jeff has proposed some alternatives.  Personally I think the simplest thing 
is to believe that there is indeed a black hole in the sun, as everyone in 
the story agrees.  It may not be swallowing the sun rapidly due to the 
formation of an accretion disk which pushes infalling matter away from it. 
On first principles, one might expect such a black hole to make the sun 
hotter, but it would be hard to prove that no mechanism exists that could 
cause a reverse effect!

As for the white hole, one might expect an explosive encounter, but since 
white holes don't actually exist it is hard to be sure of one's predictions 
in that regard.  Wolfe has also referred to a form of anti- matter which is 
repulsive to gravity.  If such anti-matter exists, it seemingly has negative 
energy, and it might be that the White Fountain also does, in which case it 
might conceivably just cancel out the black hole.when it collides, leaving 
only second-order perturbatory effects.

> side are slightly distorted on the list, I do not reject mythological and 
> "gnostic" meaning

I agree with you in general, although I don't quite go so far as to think 
that character studies are the major focus of Wolfe's work - I think they 
are important to him, and theories that do violence to character are proably 
wrong.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Sun, 29 May 2011 17:00:32 +0000

On 5/29/2011 12:41 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
>
> Jeff has proposed some alternatives.  Personally I think the simplest 
> thing is to believe that there is indeed a black hole in the sun, as 
> everyone in the story agrees.  It may not be swallowing the sun 
> rapidly due to the formation of an accretion disk which pushes 
> infalling matter away from it. On first principles, one might expect 
> such a black hole to make the sun hotter, but it would be hard to 
> prove that no mechanism exists that could cause a reverse effect!
>
> As for the white hole, one might expect an explosive encounter, but 
> since white holes don't actually exist it is hard to be sure of one's 
> predictions in that regard.  Wolfe has also referred to a form of 
> anti- matter which is repulsive to gravity.  If such anti-matter 
> exists, it seemingly has negative energy, and it might be that the 
> White Fountain also does, in which case it might conceivably just 
> cancel out the black hole.when it collides, leaving only second-order 
> perturbatory effects. 

Is there wiggle room (in terms of Popular Mechanics-level 1970s theory) 
for a theory of black holes that makes them basically a reverse of 
(nonexistent) white fountains? That is: can a black hole be thought of 
crudely as primarily a "drain"?

Keeping in mind that any set of beings capable of "bringing" a white 
fountain ought to be able to pull off the reverse. As far as we know, 
every star has a pair of sealed pipes (labeled IN and OUT) that can be 
opened and hooked up to a pump and an energy source or drain. You just 
have to know your way around the the sub-basement and interior walls as 
well as the local building codes and approval processes. ;)

Or, just ignore the accretion disk and other effects because they 
interfere with the story. Done.

I might note that Typhon referred to the effect on solar output as 
amounting to a few percent at most. If you "figure" (calculate or 
assume) that that's enough to cool Urth, you don't really need to 
calculate the effect of processes that are poorly understood anyway and 
probably have a margin of error larger than that few percent.

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From: Sergei SOLOVIEV <soloviev at irit.fr>
Date: Sun, 29 May 2011 18:53:30 +0000

You say it is not obvious - let me quote Wolfe (from "Return to the Whorl",
chapter "He took me with him" - written by Hoof -)

"The Red Sun was rising behind us, and the old falling-down city was between
us and it. It was so big and so dark, like a great big coal buried in ashes.
You could look right at it , and the whole city was dark against it (...) 
You could see how big that city was, and it was bigger than I ever imagined (...)
But against the Red Sun like that, you saw how little the city was,too. This
is hard to explain. The city was immense. Huge. (...) So it was all so big
that when you looked at it, it was hard to breathe. But the sun kept rising
and rising, and Nessus was little."

Severian may be so acquanted to his Red Sun that he does not think it
anything special. Hoof comes from the planet with ordinary yellow sun,
and he is immediately impressed. (It is possible, of course, that GW
didn't think too much about the size of the sun when he wrote TBotNS,
and decited to be more precise later - but I think this quotation proves
that he represents the Red Sun as a Red Giant.)

Also, somewhere in the "BotNS" it is mentioned 
A /Brief History of Time/  (written by Stephen Hawking, subtitled "From the Big Bang to Black Holes", but the author and subtitle are
not mentioned by Wolfe). One of artefacts of our place and time
in Wolfe's Solar cycle. (I would make a list
of such curiosities.) It means that Wolfe himself knew
the book, and probably knew well the science of black holes
of our time.

Best

Sergei

Gerry Quinn wrote:
>> please, have a look at Red Giants (final stage of evolution of 
>> sun-like stars). Obviously,
>> the sun in the "BotNS" entered this stage - the atmosphere of the 
>> star becomes very large
> I agree with Jeff that the red giant idea has a lot of problems, 
> especially when really the only thing it is needed to fix is a likely 
> small slip by Wolfe with regard to the visibility of Sol from Blue.  
> There is no evidence that the Sun looks especially large as seen from 
> Urth, and we have Typhon's assertion that the solar output decreased 
> rather than increased.
>
>
>> Possible explanation. In Typhon's time or earlier the technical power 
>> of humanity
>> prevent its burning or swallowing by the Sun. Maybe it was done. 
>> Notice that in the BotNS there is
> Wolfe is indeed vague about time but mostly with regard to long times 
> (he even says so in an appendix - arguably defending himself neatly in 
> advance against threads such as this!)  Children don't seem to age in 
> a matter of a few years, though I cannot think of any specific proff 
> that years are much longer than now.  Nobody mentions it, though.
>
>
>> in 70-es, and even more easily later, that black hole will swallow 
>> very quickly
>> all the atmosphere of the red giant. It would by the way be an 
>> explosive process
> I agree with you in general, although I don't quite go so far as to 
> think that character studies are the major focus of Wolfe's work - I 
> think they are important to him, and theories that do violence to 
> character are proably wrong.
>
> - Gerry Quinn
>
>
>

---

From: Fernando Gouvea <fqgouvea at colby.edu>
Date: Sun, 29 May 2011 19:44:49 +0000

Alas, /A Brief History of Time/ was published in 1988, while BotNS was 
1980-83 and even /Urth of the New Sun/ was 1987.

Fernando

On 5/29/2011 2:53 PM, Sergei SOLOVIEV wrote:
> Also, somewhere in the "BotNS" it is mentioned A /Brief History of 
> Time/  (written by Stephen Hawking, subtitled "From the Big Bang to 
> Black Holes", but the author and subtitle are

-- 
=============================================================
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Carter Professor of Mathematics
Colby College
5836 Mayflower Hill               Editor, MAA Reviews
Waterville, ME 04901              http://www.maa.org/maareviews

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From: Sergei SOLOVIEV <soloviev at irit.fr>
Date: Sun, 29 May 2011 20:14:39 +0000

Maybe it's my error, but it was some very similar title mentioned
by Wolfe, I will try to find what it was exactly. More
special books by Hawking appeared earlier, I've read Hawking and
Ellis on black holes in 70-es -
/Hawking/, S.W.; /Ellis/, G.F.R. (/1973/). The Large Scale Structure of 
Space-Time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Best

Sergei

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Sun, 29 May 2011 21:00:15 +0000

> that he represents the Red Sun as a Red Giant.)

Interesting quote, but I don;t think it really proves anything about the 
size of the sun.  It looks big on the horizon, just as the Moon does.  But 
Hoof hasn't really said anything about its actual apparent size here.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Sun, 29 May 2011 22:50:25 +0000

> Space-Time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

I'm also sure that Wolfe read Hakwing in the 70's, because Hawking 
discovered that small black holes evaporate in 1974, disappearing in a 
final burst of radiation. They could be formed in the big bang, but 
wouldn't have lasted until the present day, unless they happened to find 
their way to a place of high density matter to increase rate elementary 
particles managed to hit their tiny event horizons. A place like a 
stellar interior.

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 00:48:22 +0000

From: "Jeff Wilson" <jwilson at io.com>

> particles managed to hit their tiny event horizons. A place like a stellar 
> interior.

I don't think the issue of small black holes matters to BotNS - the black 
hole described is absorbtive, and thus large enough to have a low 
temperature.  In the context of black holes, there's actually not much 
margin between the temperature of a stellar interior and that of outer 
space.  They are either colder or hotter than either, and those that persist 
are certainly colder.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 01:21:14 +0000

No dia 28/05/2011, ?s 19:42, "Gerry Quinn" <gerryq at indigo.ie> escreveu:
>> But we only have the narrator's word for it, and the narrator isnt omniscient.
> 
> True enough... but in most Wolfe including all of the Solar Cycle, we only have the narratopr's word for *everything*.  One has to ask why he should lie, or make a mistake?  And if he hasn't seen the star, why should he say it is visible, whereas if he has, why should he mistake a particular star for Sol?

I think it's reasonably obvious: he visited a red sun, he saw a red sun in the sky, bingo, he thinks they're the same. That's just one possible explanation which I find more plausible than a GW oversight. 

>> When the details are unimportant I think he nontheless handles them with some care.
>> 
>> When, as in this case, the details depend on knowledge no one has within the story, he's free and willing to improvise.
> 
> But SilkHorn must have chosen the star for some reason - he hardly picked it at random.  If he incorporates some of Pas, albeit not yet fully assimilated, it may be that he has access to full knowledge with respect to the Whorl's trajectory..

Interesting, but I don't recall his having access to special knowledge anywhere else. 

> 
>> When the details depend on knowledge no one has period, he's almost obliged to improvise. One of the things that makes 'hard' sf so ridiculous is its datedness. As-of-time-of-writing scientific consensus dates a work even more than cassette tapes do. Constraining a story by scientific boundaries is not different from constraining it by technological ones.
> 
> The speed of light and the distance from which the Sun is visible aren't going to change with tomorrow's research.  Some science is permanent.

Hence my having said you can't go too much against some basic stuff. 

> I think he either (1) didn't think of this point,

Not in character. 

> (2) supports a 350-year chronology between Typhon and Severian,

Makes no sense to me. 

> or (3) thought it would be cool to have Sol visible even if the physics doesn't work.

...and thought to himself there would be no dearth of possible explanations so let's do it. Mirrors? Folded space-time?

>  I think Wolfe is quite happy to gloss over lots of dodgy science if it fits the story (realistically, it's obvious - leaving aside physics for the moment, absorbing not just memories but *memories coordinated into a personality* by eating corpses is obviously impossible.

So we think, but then again it's not like we've much of a portfolio to show as a species.

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 02:56:48 +0000

On 5/29/2011 7:48 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> I don't think the issue of small black holes matters to BotNS - the
> black hole described is absorbtive, and thus large enough to have a low
> space. They are either colder or hotter than either, and those that
> persist are certainly colder.

Where is it described?

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 18:21:57 +0000

>> persist are certainly colder.

Standard theory (you can find it in Wikipedia etc.) has the temperature of a 
black hole inversely proportional to its mass.  A solar mass black hole has 
a temperature of about a ten millionth of a degree.  An earth-mass black 
hole has a temperature of a fiftieth of a degree.  A black hole massing a 
million tons would have a temperature of 10^14 K.

Ignoring mass transfer, a black hole with a mass of a million million tons 
would be in thermal equilibrium with the Sun's core, at a temperature of 
10^8 K.  Such a black hole would have an event horizon only one micron in 
diameter, so it wouldn't find it too easy to swallow a lot of matter.

Multiply the mass by another factor of 200000, and the black hole is finally 
black, with a temperature of 500 K, and a diameter of 20 cm.

Any larger black hole would be colder and larger, both in proportion to its 
mass.  I think we are to assume that the black hole in the Sun is cold and 
reasonably large.  In truth it's hard to imagine that it would have the 
effects described in BotNS; I assume Wolfe is winging it.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 18:36:28 +0000

-
From: "Ant?nio Pedro Marques" <entonio at gmail.com>

>> True enough... but in most Wolfe including all of the Solar Cycle, we 
>> only have the narratopr's word for *everything*.  One has to ask why he 
>> should lie, or make a mistake?  And if he hasn't seen the star, why 
>> should he say it is visible, whereas if he has, why should he mistake a 
>> particular star for Sol?
>
> I think it's reasonably obvious: he visited a red sun, he saw a red sun in 
> the sky, bingo, he thinks they're the same. That's just one possible 
> explanation which I find more plausible than a GW oversight.

I find it hard to see why he would pick on a particular red star.

>> I think he either (1) didn't think of this point,

I disagree, it is not a very obvious point.

>> (2) supports a 350-year chronology between Typhon and Severian,

Hard to know.  I don't think he does either, but then again 350 years is 
plenty time for a lot of autarchs.  Overall I do think the Whorl was 
intended to travel relativistically, and the Urth time since launch is 
between 1000 and 2000 years, but I don't think 350 years is impossible (and 
it would solve the problem of why Typhon, with the energy to drive the Whorl 
relativistically at his disposal, did not use a fraction of this energy to 
replace the diminished heat of the Sun!)

> ...and thought to himself there would be no dearth of possible 
> explanations so let's do it. Mirrors? Folded space-time?

There's quite a dearth of explanations arising naturally out of the story! 
We know of know sun-like stars that we just happen to see at twenty times 
the distance they wuld normally be visible.

>>  I think Wolfe is quite happy to gloss over lots of dodgy science if it 
>> fits the story (realistically, it's obvious - leaving aside physics for 
>> the moment, absorbing not just memories but *memories coordinated into a 
>> personality* by eating corpses is obviously impossible.
>

I think that Wolfe knows this is not really possible but happily wrote it 
anyway.  I think he strives for scientific versimilitude when he can, but 
such versimilitude is far from perfect.  And why should it be - he is 
writing science fiction stories, not science textbooks. If the science were 
correct readers could reasonably ask for their money back!.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 21:32:03 +0000

On 5/30/2011 1:21 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> Standard theory (you can find it in Wikipedia etc.)

I mean, where is the black hole described in BotNS? How is it 
characterized sufficiently to make those proceeding inferences?

> of a black hole inversely proportional to its mass. A solar mass black
> hole has a temperature of about a ten millionth of a degree. An
> earth-mass black hole has a temperature of a fiftieth of a degree.

Something on the order of an earth-mass black hole with hand-sized even 
horizon is what I had in mind. This would imply that the White Fountain 
would be of a similar magnitude and why it would do such a job on Urth 
as it passed along.

> In truth it's hard to imagine that it would have the effects
> described
 > in BotNS; I assume Wolfe is winging it.

Oh, of course. I'm just saying that a hypermass of a vague order of 
magnitude can have effects that qualitatively resemble what's in the book.

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 21:39:48 +0000

On 5/30/2011 1:36 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> I think that Wolfe knows this is not really possible but happily wrote
> it anyway. I think he strives for scientific versimilitude when he can,
> but such versimilitude is far from perfect. And why should it be - he is
> writing science fiction stories, not science textbooks. If the science
> were correct readers could reasonably ask for their money back!.

Right on! Science fiction is so called because it appeals to the 
authority of science to suspend disbelief. However, appeals to authority 
aren't scientific, so science fiction inherently diverges from 
scientific accuracy. Ergo, accuracy in the science is nice but absolute 
correctness (another unscientific concept) is not required.

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 23:23:14 +0000

> characterized sufficiently to make those proceeding inferences?

It's described as black.  That gives it a minimum mass of something like 
10^18 tons and a temperature under (say) 500 C.  So it's not what we think 
of as a mini black hole, and it will last for billions of years (except 
maybe if it interacts with a White Fountain).

> would be of a similar magnitude and why it would do such a job on Urth as 
> it passed along.
>

I too think that it is supposed to be that size.  Realistically I find it 
hard to imagine a black hole injected into the Sun doing anything other than 
age it prematurely, which will make it hotter, rather than colder.  For the 
purposes of the story, I ignore that - and I would not expect the majority 
of readers to even have an opinion on the subject.  My physics may be wrong 
or right, but even to have such an opinion I probably need to know more 
physics than most.  If one doesn't think about it too much, a cooling effect 
is plausible.

And maybe, as David Stockhoff suggests, it is intended just to act like a 
drain.  Perhaps the Hieros can make it work that way.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 00:37:08 +0000

On 5/30/2011 6:23 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> It's described as black.

And this description is to be found where?

---

From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 14:21:41 +0000

Gerry Quinn wrote (30-05-2011 19:36):
>>> should lie, or make a mistake? And if he hasn't seen the star, why should
>>> he say it is visible, whereas if he has, why should he mistake a
>>> particular star for Sol?
>>

How many are there, recognisably red, in his sky?

> I disagree, it is not a very obvious point.

I find it obvious as can be in context.

> plenty time for a lot of autarchs. Overall I do think the Whorl was intended
> to travel relativistically, and the Urth time since launch is between 1000
> and 2000 years, but I don't think 350 years is impossible (and it would
> solve the problem of why Typhon, with the energy to drive the Whorl

I do find the relativistic speed of the Whorl troubling *if* it comes from 
the Whorl's technology alone.

> There's quite a dearth of explanations arising naturally out of the story!

This is the guy who thinks there's an obvious explanation in the story for 
Apu Punchau's miracle.

> the distance they wuld normally be visible.

Sorry, I didn't get this sentence.

> I think that Wolfe knows this is not really possible

But hoe do you know it isn't? Of course it isn't given our understanding of 
how it works in our universe, but what have we got to show for ourselves 
that gives us the authority to say 'this is impossible'?

> but happily wrote it
> such versimilitude is far from perfect. And why should it be - he is writing
> science fiction stories, not science textbooks. If the science were correct
> readers could reasonably ask for their money back!.

The more so since correct science is something that hasn't been observed in 
the wild.

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 14:59:37 +0000

> How many are there, recognisably red, in his sky?

I don't know.  There are twenty or so dim red stars in our sky, but most are 
variables.  Still, even if there is only one, I don't see why he should 
assume that that particular star must be Sol without having some reason to 
do so other than its colour.  And why would Wolfe deliberately have him make 
this mistake?

> I find it obvious as can be in context.

We must agree to differ then.  I didn't think of it immediately at all.  One 
has to make a link between relativistic time dilation and the distance 
travelled, which isn't the direct link usually made in popular accounts.  I 
don't remember anyone bringing the matter up.

>> intended

Where else would it come from?  There's no indication that it was anything 
other than a personal propject of Typhon's.  Besides, if he could have 
called in favours from aliens to build or drive it it, why could he not have 
done the same with regard to building a modest orbital space heater?  (Could 
double as a weapon, frying enemies like ants - Typhon would have loved it!)

> This is the guy who thinks there's an obvious explanation in the story for 

I don't remember talking about Apu Punchau, or whatever this miracle is. 
But anyway, if you can think of an obvious explanation, by all means let's 
hear it!

> Sorry, I didn't get this sentence.

The second 'know' should have been 'no'  (I don't no why I make such typos, 
but I am often catching them!)

> But hoe do you know it isn't? Of course it isn't given our understanding 
> of how it works in our universe, but what have we got to show for 
> ourselves that gives us the authority to say 'this is impossible'?

If we can't say this is impossible, we know nothing at all, and I don't 
accept that.

>> writing
> The more so since correct science is something that hasn't been observed 
> in the wild.

I disagree.  For example, I think "Stars are distant suns" is correct 
science.  They are not holes in a celestial sphere letting in the light of 
Yesod, or candles held by floating angels, or some such alternative 
explanation.

Wolfe has said various things like "how do you know a godling cannot be 50 
feet tall, and just constructed differently from humans?"  And that is fair 
enough.  Nevertheless, I think he misses or decides to ignore scientific 
facts quite often when the story demands it.  One example discussed some 
time ago was the angular velocity of the Whorl and its effect on floaters. 
It was generally accepted that these are incompatible with the size of the 
Whorl.  But Wolfe wanted the Whorl to be big, and he was satisfied with 
science that had the appearance of possible versimilitude (if that is not a 
redundant expression, but I think people will know what I mean).  He doesn't 
want anything to scream "this is really impossible", but I, at least, don't 
think the visibility of Sol from Blue screams that, even if it is an 
unusually clear difficulty once one spots it.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: Sergei SOLOVIEV <soloviev at irit.fr>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 15:00:17 +0000

Moses made Jews wander 40 years through Sinai. If you take the shortest 
way, it is
at most a few hundred kilometres. What makes you think that the Whorl had
taken the shortest path to its destination? It could very well go with 
relativistic
speed and make a detour. It seems also that the plan might include that 
the Whorl
will come back and repeople Urth (Ushas) after the floods etc. - in the end
of the Short Sun cycle it is going to be repaired and travel again - to 
go where?
Some hints are also in the end of "The Urth of the New Sun".

Sergei

Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
>>>>>> course
>>>> should
> I do find the relativistic speed of the Whorl troubling *if* it comes 
> from the Whorl's technology alone.
>
>>>> or (3) thought it would be cool to have Sol visible even if the 
>>>> physics
>>>> doesn't work.
>>>
> This is the guy who thinks there's an obvious explanation in the story 
> for Apu Punchau's miracle.
>
> But hoe do you know it isn't? Of course it isn't given our 
> understanding of how it works in our universe, but what have we got to 
> show for ourselves that gives us the authority to say 'this is 
> impossible'?
>
>> but happily wrote it
> The more so since correct science is something that hasn't been 
> observed in the wild.

---

From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 15:30:50 +0000

Perhaps the only the Rajan could see the light of Sol's sun. He was only 
asking the others to imagine it. Perhaps he wasn't seeing it with human 
eyes. Just sayin'.

There was a discussion on this list between Mantis and (I think) Jerry 
Friedman some years ago about the distance between Urth and Blue based 
on 350 years of travel, 500 years of travel, 1000 years of travel.

Don't we know (based on the vase Lemur destroyed) that they've been in 
transport for just over 500 years? Assuming this all occurs during the 
time of Severian's childhood., that just suggests an overall time 
dilation of 2, right? That's fast, mind-blowingly fast, but not 
impossibly fast.

J.

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 15:58:36 +0000

On 5/31/2011 9:59 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> Where else would it come from? There's no indication that it was
> anything other than a personal propject of Typhon's. Besides, if he
> could have called in favours from aliens to build or drive it it, why
> could he not have done the same with regard to building a modest orbital
> space heater? (Could double as a weapon, frying enemies like ants -
> Typhon would have loved it!)

This is the reason why I asked about evidence that the Whorl was all 
Typhon's doing some time ago. If some salvageable stellar technology was 
involved, that could explain a lot about the Whorl and perhaps about 
Jonas' missing port. Spare engines and other gear looted from an orbital 
dock could make the Whorl go relativistic on their own virtues without 
the energy being available for warming Urth.

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 17:33:34 +0000

> of the Short Sun cycle it is going to be repaired and travel again - to go 
> where?

It's not easy to turn a relativistic asteroid!  And it doesn't seem like 
they stopped anywhere en route, so why waste all that energy?

If Typhon wanted to repopulate Urth at a later time (but he says nothing of 
any such plan when he meets Severian in BotNS) he could have put sleepers on 
Lune or something.  But anyway he had no reason to make any such plan.

My impression is that the Whorl is intended to be repaired and explore 
further among the stars.  Perhaps that was the original plan, derailed by 
the death of Pas.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 17:39:47 +0000

From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at gmail.com>

> asking the others to imagine it. Perhaps he wasn't seeing it with human 

He says it will be visible to everyone.
"Soon it will be evening," he said. "If we still haven't gone, we'll go up 
onto the roof of this house. Standing on the tiles I will point and you will 
peer until at last you see a certain dim red star. It's a long, long way 
from here. Think of it now, the sky like black velvet strewn with diamonds 
in the bottom of a grave, and among the diamonds a minute drop of blood.

[The grave imagery echoes Silk's dream early in BotLS.]

> Friedman some years ago about the distance between Urth and Blue based on 
> 350 years of travel, 500 years of travel, 1000 years of travel.
>
> time of Severian's childhood., that just suggests an overall time dilation 
> of 2, right? That's fast, mind-blowingly fast, but not impossibly fast.

I think there is a fair amount of text suggesting that the journey took in 
the region of 300 years subjective.  I assume the vase was already old when 
it was brought aboard.

Time dilation factor of 2 or 6, I'm not sure it matters all that much.  The 
energy needed is equal to the Whorl's mass multiplied by the time dilation, 
and in either case is enormous!

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: Sergei SOLOVIEV <soloviev at irit.fr>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 18:29:34 +0000

By the way, I don't remember any mention of a fuel used by landers. They
depend for AI part on "cards" (much like chips nowadays) but... Does
any of the personages say/ask/wonder about that? Also, how does the Long 
Sun work?
(The description makes me think about some fusion technology,
but I don't think there are any clear indications. And I think that no form
of fusion can provide sufficient energy to accelerate Whorl to near-light
speed. Roughly, fusion converts about 1% of mass into energy, and the
mass of an accelerated body grows - very roughly, if the mass grows
twice, you have to spend at least an equivalent of this mass in energy.
This with very high efficiency, not as our chemical rockets.
Similar for braking. Antimatter? In the beginning of this voyage Whorl 
had to have
about half of its mass in stored antimatter? Gamma-rays if it annihilates
in the Long Sun?)

Sergei

Gerry Quinn wrote:
>> Perhaps the only the Rajan could see the light of Sol's sun. He was 
>> only asking the others to imagine it. Perhaps he wasn't seeing it 
>> with human eyes. Just sayin'.
>
> "Soon it will be evening," he said. "If we still haven't gone, we'll 
> go up onto the roof of this house. Standing on the tiles I will point 
> and you will peer until at last you see a certain dim red star. It's a 
> long, long way from here. Think of it now, the sky like black velvet 
> strewn with diamonds in the bottom of a grave, and among the diamonds 
> a minute drop of blood.
>
>> There was a discussion on this list between Mantis and (I think) 
>> Jerry Friedman some years ago about the distance between Urth and 
>> Blue based on 350 years of travel, 500 years of travel, 1000 years of 
>> travel.
>>
>> Don't we know (based on the vase Lemur destroyed) that they've been 
>> in transport for just over 500 years? Assuming this all occurs during 
>> the time of Severian's childhood., that just suggests an overall time 
> I think there is a fair amount of text suggesting that the journey 
> took in the region of 300 years subjective.  I assume the vase was 
> already old when it was brought aboard.
>
> Time dilation factor of 2 or 6, I'm not sure it matters all that 
> much.  The energy needed is equal to the Whorl's mass multiplied by 
> the time dilation, and in either case is enormous!
>
> - Gerry Quinn
>

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 18:34:13 +0000

Sergei SOLOVIEV wrote:

> but I don't think there are any clear indications.

I suspect the landers do use fusion technology, but we really don't know.

> And I think that no form
> Similar for braking. Antimatter? In the beginning of this voyage Whorl had
> to have

I believe the Long Sun is powered by Illudium Fosdex.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

---

From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 21:24:52 +0000

Gerry Quinn wrote:
> I don't know. There are twenty or so dim red stars in our sky, but most
> are variables. Still, even if there is only one, I don't see why he
> should assume that that particular star must be Sol without having some
> reason to do so other than its colour. And why would Wolfe deliberately
> have him make this mistake?

It was my impression he makes a very similar mistake (in structure) 
somewhere else, but I can't put my finger on it.

> We must agree to differ then. I didn't think of it immediately at all.
> One has to make a link between relativistic time dilation and the
> distance travelled, which isn't the direct link usually made in popular
> accounts. I don't remember anyone bringing the matter up.

I think it was even discussed recently. Not to take anything away from you, 
but those familiar with astronomy - I'm not - would probably see it at once. 
That's why I find it so strange that GW would overlook it.

> Typhon would have loved it!)

Oh, I meant the relativistic voyage could be something for which the Whorl 
had only provided the ignition, but was then maintained by exploiting some 
trick of space-time or something.

> I don't remember talking about Apu Punchau, or whatever this miracle is.

The 'guy' I meant was GW.

> But anyway, if you can think of an obvious explanation, by all means
> let's hear it!

For instance, I find Sergei's speculation - that the Whorl didn't go 
straight to Green/Blue, which doesn't mean it stopped along the way - just 
an example of how our assumptions may be too simple.

> The second 'know' should have been 'no' (I don't no why I make such
> typos, but I am often catching them!)

Ok. I meant there was nothing stopping us finding explanations that don't 
involve violating science but we just don't have the imagination to do it. 
It's not unlike the Gordian Knot. '- Oh, no, Alex can't have untied the knot 
because science tells us it can't be untied.' '- Uh, he cut it.'

> If we can't say this is impossible, we know nothing at all, and I don't

No. We can say red blood cells aren't miniature firemen. What we can say 
about memories or personality is much weaker.

> science. They are not holes in a celestial sphere letting in the light
> of Yesod, or candles held by floating angels, or some such alternative
> explanation.

'Stars are distant suns' was science once, nowadays it's data as it can be 
directly observed. It's being data that makes it 'correct'.

> Wolfe has said various things like "how do you know a godling cannot be
> 50 feet tall, and just constructed differently from humans?" And that is
> fair enough. Nevertheless, I think he misses or decides to ignore
> scientific facts quite often when the story demands it. One example
> discussed some time ago was the angular velocity of the Whorl and its
> effect on floaters. It was generally accepted that these are
> incompatible with the size of the Whorl. But Wolfe wanted the Whorl to
> be big, and he was satisfied with science that had the appearance of
> possible versimilitude (if that is not a redundant expression, but I
> think people will know what I mean). He doesn't want anything to scream
> "this is really impossible", but I, at least, don't think the visibility
> of Sol from Blue screams that, even if it is an unusually clear
> difficulty once one spots it.

Again, I think he goes to great lengths not to contradict basic science, 
which I think that's how it should be. It appears our only difference is in 
judging the importance of this specific detail. But even we agree that there 
is little one can conclude, story-wise, from it.

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 21:44:03 +0000

> The 'guy' I meant was GW.

Is there anyone here who is still puzzled as to how Sev was able to 
withold the rising sun, then restore it? It wasn't obvious to me before, 
but it is obvious in retrospect, the way a good mystery "should."

---

From: Andrew Mason <andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 22:03:27 +0000

Sergei Soloviev wrote:

. It seems also that the plan might include that
> of the Short Sun cycle it is going to be repaired and travel again - to

I don't think Typhon knew about the floods when he started the Whorl
project - they seem to have been revealed by Severian in the last year
of his (Typhon's) reign.

> Some hints are also in the end of "The Urth of the New Sun".

Are you thinking of the people landed from the sky? It seems as if
they come from Tzadkiel's ship - the line in question is certainly
cryptic, but I can't see what it could mean if they didn't. And in any
case, I don't think Wolfe knew about the Whorl when he wrote _Urth_ -
didn't he say that it was only while he was working on _Long Sun_ that
he realised it was about Typhon? Which would imply that it wasn't part
of his original plan for Urth.

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the Whorl is, at the end,
returning to Urth - but if so, I don't think it's part of the original
plan, Typhon's or Wolfe's.

---

From: David Duffy <davidd at qimr.edu.au>
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:36:19 +0000

> and in either case is enormous!

I can't remember what evidence we have that the Whorl travelled at 
relativistic speeds.  If not, then a trip of 50-70 light years [rough 
limit of visibility since we don't know the absolute magnitude of the 
dimmed sun] at 0.1 c...

CHeers, David Duffy.

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2011 14:49:00 +0000

From: "David Duffy" <davidD at qimr.edu.au>
>> I think there is a fair amount of text suggesting that the journey took 
>> in the region of 300 years subjective.  I assume the vase was already old 
>> when it was brought aboard.
>>
>> Time dilation factor of 2 or 6, I'm not sure it matters all that much. 
>> The energy needed is equal to the Whorl's mass multiplied by the time 
>> dilation, and in either case is enormous!
>

The only evidence that it travelled at relativistic speeds is the seemingly 
greater passage of time on Urth since the launch.  In BotNS, Severian gives 
the impression that Typhon lived at least 1000 years ago (though it's a bit 
vague, and people of that era are vague about time anyway).  In the Short 
Sun trilogy, Rigoglio also gives us the impression that much longer than 350 
years has passed at Nessus - it feels like up to 2000 years.

I would argue that one possible reading is indeed that only 350 years passed 
on Urth - that is time for a lot of history, and nobody really comes out and 
gives an exact time except maybe Cyriaca says 'chiliads' once.  But on Urth 
maybe they say 'chiliads' like we say 'yonks'.  This would solve a couple of 
physics issues.

I don't really believe the 350 year reading, though, I think Wolfe winged 
the physics and that the red star being visible was a mistake.

I suppose one could even hypothesise that the dream travellers go to the 
future and come back, but there's no obvious reason why that should happen.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:03:50 +0000

Gerry Quinn wrote (01-06-2011 15:49):
>> relativistic speeds. If not, then a trip of 50-70 light years [rough limit
>> of visibility since we don't know the absolute magnitude of the dimmed
>> sun] at 0.1 c...
>
> vague, and people of that era are vague about time anyway). In the Short Sun
> trilogy, Rigoglio also gives us the impression that much longer than 350

Can the speed of time, if such a thing exists, be slower the more one goes 
from Urth to Blue? (Independently of gravity, of course(?); I'm not talking 
about classical relativity but some workable disuniformity of the speed of 
time across the universe.)

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:12:21 +0000

> from Urth to Blue? (Independently of gravity, of course(?); I'm not 
> talking about classical relativity but some workable disuniformity of the 
> speed of time across the universe.)

Anything is possible in SF.  But it begs the question of why the evolution 
of stars seems to progress at the same rate everywhere!

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:23:37 +0000

Gerry Quinn wrote (01-06-2011 16:12):
> Anything is possible in SF.

'Workable', come on.

> But it begs the question of why the evolution of
> stars seems to progress at the same rate everywhere!

Or does it raise it?
But now, seriously speaking, is it really so firmly established that, say, 
the evolution of stars seems to progress at the same rate everywhere? I 
don't know, I'm asking. Last minimally serious readings I did on 
astrophysics were in the very early '90s. I'm not sure the question of 
uniformity of Physics across the universe (barring singularities) was 
settled by then.

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie>
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:27:37 +0000

> uniformity of Physics across the universe (barring singularities) was 

It's still not settled.  But here we have the situation of visible stars 
that are a very short distance away and in the same galactic milieu.  If 
time were going 2-6 times slower for regions 100 light years away, wouldn't 
we notice considerable anomalies in the ages of stars and star clusters, the 
distribution of metals etc.

There are also questions of simple mechanics.  Wouldn't such an effect 
disrupt galactic rotation, and perhaps other effects such as doppler and 
gravitational red shifts from moving gas jets etc.

We are talking about distances that are small in relation to a galaxy - how 
does galactic formation change is time progresses at radically different 
rates at arbitrary regions?  And if the regions don't move with the galaxy, 
shouldn't we see interesting effects at the interfaces?  It's a whole new SF 
novel in itself!

Of course Vernor Vinge made radical speculations abuout the speed of light 
as a  function of distance from the centre of the galaxy in _A Fire Upon The 
Deep_, and nobody called him on the astrophysics.  But that's because it's 
science fiction, not science.  We don't need to nitpick such issues, IMO.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:30:17 +0000

Gerry Quinn wrote (01-06-2011 17:27):
>> Last minimally serious readings I did on astrophysics were in the very
>> early '90s. I'm not sure the question of uniformity of Physics across
>> the universe (barring singularities) was settled by then.
>
> that are a very short distance away and in the same galactic milieu.

D'oh. Good point.

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:59:51 +0000

Gerry Quinn wrote:

> as a ?function of distance from the centre of the galaxy in _A Fire Upon The
> Deep_, and nobody called him on the astrophysics. ?But that's because it's
> science fiction, not science. ?We don't need to nitpick such issues, IMO.

You haven't hung around with SF fans very much, I take it.

Let me assure you that if there is any scientific wonkiness in an SF
story, there will be someone (quite possibly someone with Asperger's
Syndrome*) who will jump up at the author's next convention apperance
and whine, "But it doesn't _work_ that way!"

* Not that I'm denigrating those with AS; I have a nephew and many
friends at varying points on the autism spectrum.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

---

From: Andrew Mason <andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com>
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:33:39 +0000

Gerry Quinn wrote: > The only evidence that it travelled at
relativistic speeds is the seemingly
> greater passage of time on Urth since the launch. ?In BotNS, Severian gives
> vague, and people of that era are vague about time anyway). ?In the Short
> gives an exact time except maybe Cyriaca says 'chiliads' once. ?But on Urth
> maybe they say 'chiliads' like we say 'yonks'. ?This would solve a couple of
> physics issues.
>

There is actually one other way of reading it; suppose that Marble is
right when she says the decimal point has been misplaced, and the
Whorl has actually been travelling for 3000 years. That way we can
overcome a lot of problems - the Whorl has moved relatively slowly,
and has gone a relatively short distance from Urth; time has passed at
the same rate on Urth and on the Whorl, and there are 3000 years
between Typhon and Severian, which looks fairly plausible.

I don't actually believe this, because I can't see any reason why
everyone else on the Whorl would be mistaken. But it's a weird
passage, which it would be nice to accommodate in some way.

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2011 19:54:58 +0000

> and whine, "But it doesn't _work_ that way!"

It really doesn't work that way; that is, the _speed_ of light doesn't 
particularly change in Vinge's book, but the radical speculative means 
of transcending it do. Literal observational astrophysics remains 
largely in tact , which is why the On-Off Star is such a big deal in the 
second book.

---

From: Sergei SOLOVIEV <soloviev at irit.fr>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:38:44 +0000

I made some computations (simplified) and it seems to me that indeed
GW does not pay too much attention either to physics or to chronology. 
Very roughly,
with constant acceleration of 1 m/sec^2 it is needed about 50 years to get
to relativistic speed, and the same to slow down. But for the hollow
asteroid such as Whorl where inside you have lakes etc, 1 m/sec^2
is already too much - if its rotation imitates ordinary gravity near Viron,
the effect will be as if the flatland near the city becomes inclined 
about 10%.
What will become to all liquids? Buildings? What will happen near the poles?
The point is, I think, that we should be not very critical to technical 
details
because the "convention" (between the author and the reader) is not
very rigorous.

Sergei

Gerry Quinn wrote:
>> Moses made Jews wander 40 years through Sinai. If you take the 
>> shortest way, it is
>> taken the shortest path to its destination? It could very well go 
>> with relativistic
>> speed and make a detour. It seems also that the plan might include 
>> that the Whorl
>> of the Short Sun cycle it is going to be repaired and travel again - 
>> to go where?
> It's not easy to turn a relativistic asteroid!  And it doesn't seem 
> like they stopped anywhere en route, so why waste all that energy?
>
> If Typhon wanted to repopulate Urth at a later time (but he says 
> nothing of any such plan when he meets Severian in BotNS) he could 
> have put sleepers on Lune or something.  But anyway he had no reason 
> to make any such plan.
>
> further among the stars.  Perhaps that was the original plan, derailed 
> by the death of Pas.
>
> - Gerry Quinn
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

---

From: Jack Smith <jack.smith.1946 at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:07:25 +0000

Here are some comments of the speed of the Whorl:

     1

You have to travel very fast to get to any stars because of their great
distance.   To reach even the closest star in 300 years, you

 would need a speed of about 1.5% of light (10,000,000 MPH)

2

It would take an enormous amount of energy to accelerate as massive an
object as the Whorl to even 1.5% light speed.

 We don't know where this energy would come from.

3

A travel speed close to the speed of light would explain why only 300 years
have elapsed on the Whorl while 1000 to 2000 years  (a chiliad or 2) have
gone by on Urth

 At 95% of speed of light, Whorl time would be 300 years for 1000 Urth
years.

 At 99% of speed of light, Whorl time would be 300 years for 2000 Urth years

4

Of course, it's more complicated than that.   You have to accelerate the
ship up to a high speed, and then  decelerate to stop at Blue-Green system.

 The rate of acceleration has to be slow, or the cargo would be pressed
against the back of the ship.

 Acceleration  would have to be very low.    At an acceleration of 1/100 G,
it would take about 97 years to get up to about speed of light.

 You could then coast for 100 years, and then decelerate for 97 years,
making a total time of about 300 years ship time.

5

I'm not at all sure that Gene Wolfe made any exact calculations.  It seems
to me more likely that he just relied on time slowing down at speeds close
to the speed of light.

On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 1:38 PM, Sergei SOLOVIEV <soloviev at irit.fr> wrote:

> GW does not pay too much attention either to physics or to chronology. Very
> roughly,
> the effect will be as if the flatland near the city becomes inclined about
> 10%.
>> If Typhon wanted to repopulate Urth at a later time (but he says nothing
>> of any such plan when he meets Severian in BotNS) he could have put sleepers
>> on Lune or something.  But anyway he had no reason to make any such plan.
>>

-- 
Best wishes,
Jack
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From: Jack Smith <jack.smith.1946 at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:14:53 +0000

I copied most of this from an Excel file, and the formatting came out a
little off.  I meant to say, "A travel speed close to the speed of light
would explain why only 300 years have elapsed on the Whorl while 1000 to
2000 years  (a chiliad or 2) have gone by on Urth."

On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 2:07 PM, Jack Smith <jack.smith.1946 at gmail.com>wrote:

>  Acceleration  would have to be very low.    At an acceleration of 1/100
> G, it would take about 97 years to get up to about speed of light.
>
>

-- 
Best wishes,
Jack
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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:29:55 +0000

On 6/2/2011 12:38 PM, Sergei SOLOVIEV wrote:
> to relativistic speed, and the same to slow down.

I think you are off by a factor of 5 or so.

300,000 km/sec is 300,000,000 m/sec

/1 m/sec/sec is 300,000,000 sec

/60 for 5,000,000 min

/60 for 83,333 hr

/24 for 3472 days

/365.25 for 9.5 years

As a check, the familiar factoid of 1 year at 1 g to reach lightspeed:

9.8 m/sec/sec round up to 10 m/sec/sec

*60 for 600 m/sec/min

*60 for 36,000 m/sec/hr

*24 for 864,000 m/sec/day

*365.25 for 315,576,000 m/sec/year

/1000 for 315,576 km/sec/year

c is actually a little under 300K, so this is more like lightspeed in 50 
weeks.

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:36:14 +0000

Eeeeeyeah, but . The calculations below don't take dilation into
account. I'm just sayin'.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:53:48 +0000

> account. I'm just sayin'.

I'm assuming acceleration remains constant wrt internal Whorl time, on 
the entirely unfounded assumption that the Whorl's acceration is based 
on some internal principle. I suppose they could be catching waves on 
the unseen surf Severian's tender bobs on. This is an area where I would 
have to defer to Gerry, but I'm pretty sure that viewed externally, 
acceleration would drop off and time dilation would increase over the 
external time to prevent acceleration past the speed of light from being 
observed.  There problem for me is that length contraction also comes 
into play and that's always a pain to account for.

---

From: pinlighter <pinlighter at btconnect.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:10:06 +0000

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <danldo at gmail.com>
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2011 8:36 PM
Subject: Re: (urth) Problematic element in chronology

>> c is actually a little under 300K, so this is more like lightspeed in 50

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---

From: pinlighter <pinlighter at btconnect.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:12:05 +0000

A good rule of thumb is Olga's prayer

g y  = c

hartshorn