Sunday 5 December 2021

Physical Impossibilities

Satan's World, III.

"Quite aside from economics...there were the dull truths of physical reality. Men can alter a world, or ruin one; but they cannot move it one centimeter off its ordained course. That requires energies of literally cosmic magnitude.
"So you couldn't ease this planet into a suitable orbit around Beta Crucis. It must continue its endless wanderings." (p. 357)

Can't they? Does it? What counts as physically impossible is entirely a matter of which sf work we are reading.

In Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars Tetralogy and Genesis, faster than light space travel (FTL) is impossible.

In Anderson's Tau Zero timeline, FTL might be possible but the crew of the Leonora Christine will never know.

In Anderson's Technic History and many other works, FTL is not only possible but routine.

In Anderson's Tales Of The Flying Mountains, gyrogravitics moves a colonized asteroid between stars slower than light.

In James Blish's The Triumph Of Time, spindizzies move an inhabited planet to the Metagalactic Center FTL.

And so on.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Of the examples you listed here, the one from Anderson's TALES OF THE FLYING MOUNTAINS seems to be the most relevant. And that story "Recruiting Nation" was about using gyrogavitics to move an ASTEROID, an object vastly smaller than a planet. And hence not impossibly beyond what could be done with geegees.

Ad astra! Sean