"'The basic quantities of [Tahirian] dynamics are not mass, length, and time, but energy, electric charge, and space-time interval.'" (p. 272)
Mass and energy are inter-convertible;
length and time are two dimensions of space-time;
does everything with length also have electric charge?
The quantities somehow connect.
"'I think Ajit must be right in his opinion, [Tahirian] society went more and more conservative for a variety of reasons. Although -'
"The wind shrilled. 'Yes?' prompted Nansen after several seconds.
"'I don't know.' He heard the trouble in her voice. 'Something else in the equations - what they imply -'" (p. 273)
She speaks, she is troubled, she pauses and the wind shrills, right on cue: Poul Anderson's ever-present Greek chorus. The menace is not from hostile aliens but from something in the equations, something more basic.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteSomething in those Tahirian equations troubled Ajit because it did not seem quite CORRECT to her. A possible flaw in the reasoning? Hence we now get that Greek chorus!
Ad astra! Sean