In The Enemy Stars, teleportation is instantaneous because the carrier wave is gravitational, not electromagnetic. In "Nor Iron Bars," when a spaceship assumes negative mass in order to make an FTL interstellar crossing, the ship collapses into the microcosm which is the only realm where mass can be negative and where it also turns out that parapsychological phenomena like telepathy and teleportation occur. Negative mass gives the ship some of the properties of a Dirac hole, meaning that it has to be echoed somewhere else in the universe by an electron and can be in two places simultaneously. Reverting to positive mass, it returns to the macrocosm but in the other location and thus has made an interstellar crossing of eight hundred light-years. However, the process weakens molecular bonds, making the ship's hull permeable to oxygen so that it cannot be reused.
In "Beep"/Quincunx, as in Cities In Flight, the above mentioned property of a Dirac hole is used to develop an instantaneous interstellar communicator. See The Dirac Transmitter.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
One thought I had was that a FTL drive which so badly weakens a spaceship that it can only be used once comes with consequences. A colonizing or exploration expedition would have to STAY wherever they went, even if there were no planets suitable for human beings at a particular solar system. No chance to simply write off System A and go on to investigate System B, etc. Surely this would heavily discourage any attempts at settling other worlds? Only the desperate or reckless would emigrate stone cold BLIND like that!
Sean
Sean,
Of course. These faults were found on the test flight. Another means of FTL had to be found!
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Good! Only goes to show I'm not as familiar with Blish's works as I should be.
Sean
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