(i) While living with his parents, he skims through and somehow synthesizes:
Theory of Functions
Nuclear Mechanics
Handbook of Chemistry and Physics
Principles of Psychology
Thermodynamics
Rocket Engineering
Introduction to Biochemistry
(ii) He designs, constructs and uses a new weapon to kill the outlaws attacking the town.
(iii) While advising the government of the North American Union, he immures himself "...in that incredible nest on the Continental Divide..." (6, p. 100)
We never see this "nest," which is mentioned only once.
(iv) He descends as if from Sinai with:
the atomic motor
the power-transmitting beam
the complete mathematical theory of turbulence
hundreds of transformative inventions -
- although he cannot devise "'...an ideal political solution...'" (ibid.)
(v) He has his own defenses up in the mountains and does not want a government guard.
(vi) He had not known that the Siberians, like the North Americans, had established a lunar base fifteen years previously but, now that he has been told, he might be able to make a force-screen.
(vii) He designs an interplanetary spaceship and goes as captain on the first flight to Mars.
(viii) The Siberians on Mars might not make a direct attack on the North American camp because "'...all the world has a healthy respect for Alaric Wayne.'" (12, p. 139)
In numbers of scientific discoveries and inventions, Wayne, a mutant, matches Anderson's Joel Weatherfield, an alien. However, unlike Weatherfield, Wayne is minimally a series character because he features both in "Chain of Logic" and in "The Children of Fortune," both of them collected in Twilight World.
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
That list of books studied by Alaric Wayne makes me wonder if they were actual textbooks used by Poul Anderson when he was a student at Minnesota State University.
Sean
Sean,
We might google the titles and see what comes up.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I might do that. If I find that some of these titles were pub. in the 1940's and early 1950's, the chances would be pretty good they were used by PA.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I looked up the Chemical Rubber Company's HANDBOOK OF CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. And Poul Anderson may well have used the 29th to 32nd editions (1945-1950) while at the University of Minnesota. These editions would also fit in with Alaric Wayne's earlier life, when we see him reading such books in "Tomorrow's Children."
Sean
I have now checked out online all of the titles listed above as among the books studied by Alaric Wayne, and I found two which came up as books Poul Anderson may himself have read as a university student. These were: the Chemical Rubber Company HANDBOOK OF CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS, 29th to 32nd editions (1945-50); and William James THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY (Henry Holt, 1890). Albeit, probably later reprints of James book.
Sean
Good research.
I have some editions of the Handbook of Physics and Chemistry (The Rubber Handbook) from the 1970s and 80s. I also used an earlier edition from my father's bookshelf before getting the 56th edition (1975-76).
The Rubber Handbook has an immense amount of useful data eg: the physical properties of an enormous number of chemical compounds, tables of Integrals of functions, etc.
Also things less useful in the last few decades like tables of logarithms, or trigonmetric functions, which are more easily found using a calculator.
Kaor, Jim!
That HANDBOOK would certainly be useful to the time travelers stranded in the Antonine Rome of Stirling's TO TURN THE TIDE.
Ad astra! Sean
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