I am concerned that, in this novel, Poul Anderson seems to believe that gravity has no velocity. (5, pp. 39-40) (See How Mattercasters Work.)
We are told that particles become gamma ray quanta, then particles again. Do they become quanta in the transmitter and particles again in the receiver? But the scanned object is reduced to gas which is atomically condensed and used to construct incoming persons or objects. What is sent is not quanta but a signal:
"...the only signal which relativity physics allowed to go faster than light - and, after all, it did not really go, it simply was." (p. 40)
So the signal is gravitational?
The Southern Cross is wrecked because her crew have not allowed for the massive magnetic field generated by the rapidly rotating black star:
"'Blacket effect... Magnetic field is directly related to angular velocity.'" (p. 58)
James Blish's Cities In Flight quotes Blackett as linking magnetism to gravity in a way that eventually leads to the graviton polarity generator, the faster than light drive of this future history series.
To repair the Southern Cross, her crew needs:
"'...four kilos of pure germanium!'" (p. 61)
Not gold but germanium is the standard for the interstellar currency, the Oc dollar, in Cities In Flight. Thus, we feel that Anderson and Blish very much work in the same territory.
2 comments:
It might have been plausible that gravity had no speed at the time Anderson wrote "The Enemy Stars", but since then it has been shown that *changes* in the gravity field travel at c.
The most conclusive being the observation of gravitational waves. Especially in the case of the neutron star mergers where the EM radiation and the gravitational waves crossed millions of light years to arrive at the same time.
Kaor, Jim!
Any COMPLETE COLLECTED WORKS OF POUL ANDERSON should include commentary to THE ENEMY STARS detailing what you said above. Both to show how Anderson strove to make the book as up to date as possible in 1958 and how later advances in scientific knowledge corrected what was thought known in that year.
Ad astra! Sean
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