Subject: (whorl) Godling size

From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at home.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 11:18:52 +0000

At 08:53 AM 4/19/2001 -0400, you wrote:

>I thought the main objection to the godlings is that in Act 1 (New Sun)
>the author goes into detail about why anything that big would have to live
>in the sea or collapse under its own weight and then in Act 3 he presents
>us with such a creature without giving us any hint of how it is possible,
>or even a sense that we're supposed to see this as a physics-defying
>miracle
>
>-Rostrum

         The gravity on the whorl is caused by centrifugal force. It is 
possible that the higher up you go, the less gravity there is? And how high 
up do you have to go? Is it possible that the large godling can exist 
because of this? I doubt if this is good enough, but maybe one of your more 
scientific types can address this.

Nutria

*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.
*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/
*To leave the list, send "unsubscribe" to whorl-request at lists.best.com
*If it's Wolfe but not Long Sun, please use the URTH list: urth at lists.best.com

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 10:19:39 +0000

Ratty Rote:

> possible that the higher up you go, the less gravity there is? And how
> high up do you have to go? Is it possible that the large godling can
> exist because of this? I doubt if this is good enough, but maybe one of
> your more scientific types can address this.

Given (1) the size of the _Whorl_, and (2) the fact that people don't
seem to moonwalk on the airship, I'd say this won't work. OTOH, the
godlings (at least, the one we see) isn't even as big as, say, an
apatosaur of the larger varieties, so I don't see any inherent problem
with them. The impression I get about the seadwellers in NEW is that
they are more like the size of young mountains.

--Dan'l

---

From: George Terry <gmterry at ucdavis.edu>
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 11:16:00 +0000

However, Pig does state his origin as being in the Mountains that Look at 
Mountains. This is much closer to pole, potentially an area of decreased 
gravity in this system...the other godlings, having come from the pole 
areas may also "benefit" from this effect.

At 10:19 AM 4/19/2001, you wrote:
>ranjit at moonmilk.com

**************************************************************************
George Terry
Computer Resource Specialist
Center for Engineering Plants for Resistance Against Pathogens
(CEPRAP)
University of California, Davis
(530)752-6531
gmterry at ucdavis.edu
**************************************************************************

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 11:37:19 +0000

> However, Pig does state his origin as being in the Mountains
> that Look at Mountains. This is much closer to pole, potentially
> an area of decreased gravity in this system...the other godlings,
> having come from the pole areas may also "benefit" from this
> effect.

Wouldn't help him when he came to Viron, though.