"Starkad," a new article, has been published on the Poul Anderson's Cosmic Environments Blog;
"The Widow of Georgios," also a new article, has been published on the Poul Anderson: Contributor Articles Blog;
I am still rereading Ensign Flandry and will post more about that novel here.
I find it easier to live imaginatively inside the Technic History than any other future history. In an earlier post, I speculated about living on Earth during the events of Mirkheim. For example, what kind of work would I do? (I would not be an Andersonian character striving to get into space at all costs.)
Right now, I have time to discuss just one aspect of Ensign Flandry:
"A philosopher with whom Flandry talked via Isinglass asserted that it was empirically meaningless to speak of a number above factorial N, where N was the total of distinguishable particles in the universe. What could a large number count?"
- Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 75.
("...large number..." should probably be "...larger number..."? That is how I read it until I had to read the passage more carefully to quote it.)
A larger number could count the particles in an imaginary or fictional universe. But, if it is illegitimate to go above N, then why speak of factorial N? And, if it is legitimate to speak of factorial N, then why not also higher multiples and powers of N?
The same philosopher says that, if you count to factorial N and keep going, then the numbers decrease! But surely N!+1 does not equal N!-1? He says that:
"The number axis was not linear but circular." (p. 76)
One of my school Maths teachers implied that our infinite number line is circular by stating that plus infinity and minus infinity are the same point but he never explained this.
There is more to say about Flandry's experiences with the sea people of Starkad but, unfortunately, I inhabit not Technic but Western civilization and here I have other duties and responsibilities!
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