"Theor looked across long gray waves to the shore." (p. 36)
However, some of what he sees is directly described by the omniscient narrator to a Terrestrial reader. We are informed that the baggage animals, "kanniks," are "...vaguely like six-legged, squamous tapirs..." (p. 36) Obviously, this is not Theor's description of them.
How do Theor's Jupiter and the real Jupiter differ from Earth? Earth has an oxygen atmosphere, a solid surface much of it covered by liquid water and a dense molten core. Theor's Jupiter has a "...monstrous atmospheric ocean - mostly hydrogen..." in which he rides a beast that flies or swims, turbulent elements, a "...queasy...surface..." much of it covered by liquid ammonia, and, presumably, a dense core of some kind. (pp. 21, 36)
My layman's impression of current scientific understanding is that Jupiter comprises turbulent gasses increasing in density all the way down to a very dense core but without any solid surface on which masses of liquid could congregate? Thus, life, if there is any, would float, fly or swim through the "atmospheric ocean" but would not have legs with which to walk on a (nonexistent) surface?
29 comments:
Hi, Paul!
While I agree our current knowledge of, and understanding of what Jupiter is conflicts with what you are reading in THREE WORLDS TO CONQUER, that was not due to any error on Poul Anderson's side. Recall, the book was published in 1964 and it would be natural for Anderson to base his description of Jupiter on what was then known or thought of that planet.
It might also be interesting to compare what THREE WORLDS TO CONQUER says about Jupiter to how that world was described in WE CLAIM THESE STARS! (pub. 1959). Altho only two chapters of that Flandry story is set on Jupiter. Also, if you can find it, the discussion of what an astronomy textbook from that period says about Jupiter might also be interesting.
Sean
Of course it wasn't an error. Somewhere (in that SFWA article?), PA acknowledged that what he wrote in the Technic History about land masses on Jupiter and Betelgeuse having planets had become outmoded. When I compare a story about Mars, Venus, Jupiter etc with later knowledge of that planet, I take it for granted that we compare the fiction with the later knowledge out of interest, not to cast aspersions on the fiction. It is quite amazing how much new knowledge has been gained in our lifetimes.
Hi, Paul!
I agree, we know vastly more than we did half a century ago. I go to CENTAURI DREAMS to get some idea of both advances in astronomical knowledge and of what boldly thinking dreamers hope and plan to do in space.
Sean
Hi, Paul!
I forgot to mention in my previous note that Poul Anderson revised "Honorable Enemies" for the Gregg Press edition of AGENT OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE to take into account later thinking about Betelgeuse. But since that was in the late 1970's there might have been still more advances in knowledge or thought about that star.
Sean
An sf novel based on pre-1925 astronomical knowledge would assume that our galaxy is the entire universe! Maybe sf authors could start writing retro-fic based on scientific knowledge of past decades?
Hi, Paul!
Hmmm, a rather intriguing thought. But I'm sure most SF writers would prefer to base their fiction on the most up to date CURRENT knowledge available to them.
Sean
Mostly, yes. But I find that one-galaxy universe intriguing. Imagine FTL ships exploring to its limits and one launching out into the void in search of other universes.
Hi, Paul!
ACtually, there might be something to that idea! I recall reading in one of Isaac Asimov's astronomy books that many billions of years from now the galaxies will be so widely separated from each other that light from them will no longer be detectable. That would turn each galaxy into a "universe" for its inhabitants. Explorers venturing from such an "island universe" would be plunging into the totally unknown in such a scenario.
Sean
But the galaxies by then will have dimmed and not be as we know them. Arthur C Clarke said beings living then might envy us who knew the universe when it was young.
Hi, Paul!
True, in the scenario we are discussing, the galaxies will be aging, fewer and fewer new stars coming into existence, etc. And, as seems likely, the Big Bang theory as developed by Fr. Georges Lemaitre and others who accept the oscillating cosmos hypothesis is true, the aged, dying universe will contract and crash together to cause a new Big Bang. Then a new, expanding cosmos will begin. Poul Anderson used these or similar ides for TAU ZERO.
Sean
297. In addition to the oscillating universe theory, I have also read that the present cosmic expansion is too rapid ever to be reversed by gravity. In that case, this current universe would just expand and cool forever.
Hi, Paul!
That is one hypothesis I have also read about. But I don't really know enough to adequately comment. Except, if that happens, the heat death of the cosmos will mean the end of everything, of all life, stars as well as intelligent races. I think Sandra Miesel commented on how such theories affected Poul Anderson's work in her monongraph, AGAINST TIME'S ARROW: THE HIGH CRUSADE OF POUL ANDERSON.
Needless to say, I prefer the oscillating universe hypothesis!
Sean
In the oscillating theory, all life will end in the collapse. Completely unrelated life would start a long time later in the next cycle. But, in the alternative theory, although this universe would end, others could start somehow just as this one did.
We have passed midnight here and the number of page views rose to 316.
And 5 in the 1st 10 minutes of today.
Hi, Paul!
I do realize unrelated, unknown forms of life would arise in the next cosmos after the Big Bang if the oscillating universe hypothesis is true. But I don't see how any life can survive once the entire universe dies (if the other theory is correct). There would be no energy, no resources, no means on which some kind of life could subsist. Such a cosmos reminds me in part of the "hell universe" found in OPERATION CHAOS.
And I rejoice that 316 persons have visited your blog!
Sean
That would be true of this universe. There may be others. Even in this universe, energy would still exist, just not in a useable form. Randomness involves the possibility of some of the energy flowing uphill or of a new singularity being generated. How did our universe start in the first place?
Also, the AI in HARVEST OF STARS and GENESIS hoped to use the energy of particle decay to prolong consciousness endlessly after Full Entropy.
I think we are nowhere near knowing any ultimate answers yet.
Hi, Paul!
But, when this cosmos of our reaches a state of complete entropy I don see how any form of "consciousness" could survive if no there was absolutely no energy of any kind which it could use.
As for how our universe began, my view as a Catholic, is that God, as the ultimate GROUND for all that exists, created the cosmos at the Big Bang. I do not think there could have been an eternal, never ending series of Big Bangs which had no beginning. Because, if so, that necessarily means some kind of matter or energy had no beginning or source. An idea I do not believe.
Sean
I also do not understand how consciousness can survive full entropy. I merely note that it is envisaged in PA's speculations. He even seemed to think there were 2 possible ways to do it.
I think energy can exist without a source. Something must. One possibility is an infinite beginningless past. Another is an earliest moment that is like the North Pole. Travelling to and beyond the Pole takes us south again but through a different hemisphere so travelling to the earliest moment would take us futurewards again but through a different volume of space.
Hi, Paul!
Yes, I remember from works like GENESIS how Poul Anderson speculated on how "consciousness" might survive full entropy. They are certainly interesting and worth thinking about despite skepticism.
I still don't think any kind of matter/energy can last eternally and have no beginning or source. It seems to me that to say it does comes close to calling that matter/energy "God." And your last sentence also reminded me of an early Anderson story called "Flight to Forever," which uses a very similar idea in the plot.
Sean
Why can't impersonal energy exist through infinite time without beginning or end as the source of all phenomena?
Hi, Paul!
Because I don't think a THING like "energy" could have existed for all eternity. Some ONE, or if you like, some THING created that "energy" in the first place.
Sean
By "thing", we mean an impersonal entity/substance/object etc? But why can't such a thing always have existed? If it was in fact brought into existence by something else, then had that something else always existed?
"Someone" means a person, ie, a self-conscious being. However, I think that self is recognised as such only by contrast with other, like up and down, left and right etc. Thus, a single self cannot have pre-existed everything else.
Hi, Paul!
Yes, if that "thing" we call "energy" was created in the first place by something or Someone else, then that Creator had to have existed from all eternity. Which means I believe God, because He is GOD, was indeed self conscious from all eternity. If not, then logically He would not be God.
Sean
But I don't see why energy had to have been created. If God can always have existed, then why not energy?
In the Samkhya-Yoga philosophy, one material substance (or simply "matter") and many souls have co-existed from all eternity. In the Yoga Sutras, all souls reincarnate through material bodies except one which is eternally free and is revered as "God" but did not create matter. The eternal existence of matter or energy seems just as possible to me as the eternal existence of a soul.
Hi, Paul!
Because a "creature" like "energy" could not logically have been uncreated and have existed from all eternity. And for it exist at all means it had to have been created by Someone else.
I'm sorry we seem unable to agree. I'm basing myself here on Aristotle's arguments for the existence of an Unmoved Mover who is the first cause of all things.
Sean
To call energy a "creature" (ie, created) is to beg the question. And I don't think this is a logical issue. Logic is merely consistency between propositions without which we would not succeed in saying anything. Thus, of a proposition, p, which can have any factual content, eg, "energy exists eternally", logic says only: not (p and not-p); either p or not-p; if p, then p; if p, then not not-p. None of this affects whether p itself is true or false. That is a factual, not a logical, issue.
My logic examples were all of p's relationships to itself - non-contradiction, self-implication etc. But, of course, p is also logically related to other propositions symbolised by q etc. Thus:
{if (if p, then q) and p, then q}. The conclusion, q, logically follows from the two premises, (if p, then q) and p, but whether or not those premises are true is an empirical, not a logical, question.
Aristotle thought that anything that moves is moved by something else. I don't know Greek but I think that in Latin "to move" and "to be moved" are the same word. In modern physics, the state of rest and the state of motion in a straight line at uniform speed are identical so there is no absolute rest. Bodies in space move around each other because their mass generates gravity, not because they would be at "absolute rest" unless an external entity imparted motion. Properties perceived in an object should be presumed to be natural properties of that object unless there is some reason to think otherwise. Thus, bodies are naturally (not supernaturally) in motion. Change is basic to existence and science discerns the laws of motion.
I am not sure about the grammar of the Latin so will have to check. It is appropriate that philosophical discussion arises out of PA's sf as it does out of Wells' THE TIME MACHINE.
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