Copied from the Science Fiction
blog:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/28/cosmic-dawn-astronomers-detect-signals-from-first-stars-in-the-universe
My daughter emailed me the above link.
Writers
of cosmological sf, including Poul Anderson, have incorporated stellar
evolution into the plots of novels. It seems that physicists have now
detected the very beginning of that evolution.
Cosmic Dawn would
make a good title for an sf novel although the phrase has already been
used for at least two works of non-fiction. See the attached images.
I have no idea how the new discoveries can be incorporated into fiction but then I would not have been able to write
The Avatar or
Tau Zero either. Both of these novels by Poul Anderson describe a cosmic journey and the beginning of a universe. The journeys are by
T-machines and
time dilation, respectively. The time dilation occurs in an accelerating
Bussard ramjet.
Neither of these novels invokes "hyperspace" although Anderson also
imagined different versions of that. His future history series, the
History of Technic Civilization, addresses the rise and fall of
civilizations against the backdrop of galaxies, spiral arms, pulsars and
supernovae. Hopefully, Anderson's many successors can meet the
challenge of the Cosmic Dawn.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
What you wrote here about the "Cosmic Dawn" was very interesting and covers a topic I'm sure Poul Anderson would have been fascinated to use in a story or novel.
I was reminded as well of a book review I read recently in NATIONAL REVIEW about a new spy novel by David Ignatius called THE QUANTUM SPY. Briefly, it's about the rivalry between the US and China to beat the other in successfully advancing computer technology to vastly higher levels using "qubits." That is, making a computer "bit" do both a "one and a "zero" at the same time, rather than in succession. As we know, computers work by manipulating data sequentially in "bits" of either one or zero. Doubling that per bit would make computers millions of times more powerful than even the most advanced computers we have today. With all that that means politically, militarily, and economically. According to the review, such a technology may well be practical sometime during the next five years.
I can easily see Poul Anderson being fascinated by quantum computing and using it for a story, drawing our many of its implications and possible consequences.
Sean
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