Sunday 26 September 2021

Vance Hall

So far, The Van Rijn Method has presented "The Saturn Game" followed by the first four items in the Earth Book. Next come the first two installments in the career of David Falkayn, originally collected in The Trouble Twisters. Falkayn is an apprentice, then a journeyman.

The first Falkayn story, "The Three-Cornered Wheel," is introduced by someone called Vance Hall who claims to be commenting on the philosophy of Noah Arkwright. Hall summarizes some technological history:

uranium fission disproved the idea that it was impossible to release energy from atoms;

lasers disproved the idea that energy projectors/"ray guns" were impractical;

artificial positive and negative gravity fields disproved the idea that spacefarers must always be subject to acceleration pressure;

the quantum hyperjump disproved Einstein's light speed limit.

The apparent continuity from fission and lasers to gravity control and hyperjump makes this sequence seem very plausible.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And we actually know "Vance Hall" was right about nuclear energy. And I hope we will begin to see technological advances similar to the others he listed, esp. a FTL drive!

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

There are hints -- developments of the Alcubierre drive hypothesis -- that Einstein's own field equations leave open the possibilities of FTL.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

I hope so much that is true! The really hard part would be making a FTL drive an engineering, nuts and bolts practicality. I think simply getting off Earth and into space in a real way would help enormously for such an effort.

Ad astra! Sean