"'The basic quantities of [Tahirian] dynamics are not mass, length, and time, but energy, electric charge, and space-time interval.'" (p. 272)
Mass and energy are inter-convertible;
length and time are two dimensions of space-time;
does everything with length also have electric charge?
The quantities somehow connect.
"'I think Ajit must be right in his opinion, [Tahirian] society went more and more conservative for a variety of reasons. Although -'
"The wind shrilled. 'Yes?' prompted Nansen after several seconds.
"'I don't know.' He heard the trouble in her voice. 'Something else in the equations - what they imply -'" (p. 273)
She speaks, she is troubled, she pauses and the wind shrills, right on cue: Poul Anderson's ever-present Greek chorus. The menace is not from hostile aliens but from something in the equations, something more basic.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Something in those Tahirian equations troubled Ajit because it did not seem quite CORRECT to her. A possible flaw in the reasoning? Hence we now get that Greek chorus!
Ad astra! Sean
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