The mutant time travellers of Anderson's There Will Be Time inhabit a different single immutable timeline.
His Time Patrollers believe that they inhabit a single mutable timeline although it is impossible to formulate a coherent account of all the events that are described as occurring in the Time Patrol series.
The patrons of Anderson's Old Phoenix inhabit multiple timelines.
An immense dimensional framework would be necessary to incorporate such diverse scenarios into a single multiverse.
However, we find similar theoretical language and practical examples in the Time Patrol universe and in the Old Phoenix multiverse.
According to a Time Patrol instructor, both instantaneous transportation and travel into the past require infinitely discontinuous functions for their mathematical description and also involve:
"'...the concept of infinitely-valued relationships in a continuum of 4N dimensions, where N is the total number of particles in the universe.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Time Patrol" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, December 2010), pp. 1-53 AT 2, p. 9.
According to Valeria Matuchek:
"'Nobody's proved, in my world, whether there's an infinity of [universes], or whether the number's finite but enormous - N factorial, to be exact, where N is the total number of matter and energy particles that exist....'"
-Poul Anderson, A Midsummer Tempest (London, 1975), xii, p. 101.
OK. "N" means the same in both cases but, in the first case, there is a single continuum with 4N dimensions whereas, in the second case, there are possibly N factorial continua!
Secondly, there is a common practical example.
As far as the Time Patrol is concerned:
"'...suppose I went back and prevented Booth from killing Lincoln. Unless I took very elaborate precautions, it would probably happen that someone else did the shooting and Booth got blamed anyway.'"
-"Time Patrol," 2, p. 15.
And for Valeria:
"'...suppose I happened to meet Abe Lincoln here...given a lot of time together, I probably couldn't resist warning him against Ford's Theater. Lord knows what that might do to his world. Make a new continuum? I'm not sure if that's possible.'"
-A Midsummer Tempest, xi, pp. 93-94.
The host of the Old Phoenix performs the same function as the Time Patrol by preventing conversations that would result in an Abraham Lincoln that was going to be assassinated by Booth not being assassinated by Booth.
And the scenarios have similarities because they have a common creator.
(Lastly, Sheila and I now live on Lincoln Rd, Lancaster.)
18 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The US had to endure three assassinated presidents in less than 40 years before people got serious about providing security for presidents.
Would anyone have tried to warn Archduke Francis Ferdinand if he had visited the Old Phoenix?
I recall how Mine Host Taverner had to interrupt Einstein when a discussion he was having veered into dangerous territory in "House Rule."
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
In the US "Lincoln" almost always means or refers to Abraham Lincoln one way or another. In the UK "Lincoln" means or refers most often to the county of Lincolnshire, the city of Lincoln, the earldom of Lincoln, or one of the earls of Lincoln.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I know that, of course. Is there any connection between the two Lincolns?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
None that I know of. Abraham Lincoln's family was of English origins, with his ancestor Samuel Lincoln settling in MA, in 1637.
Ad astra! Sean
Hope you're happy at the new address!
As for Franz Ferdinand, all you'd have to warn him about was not taking a wrong turn on the way to the hospital to visit the men injured in the bombing...
Thank you. Yes. Smaller house. Bigger garden. Closer to daughter.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I forgot how there were two assassination attempts on Francis Ferdinand that evil day of June 28, 1914. The first attempt injured several of the persons with him, which was why he wanted to see them. But someone forgot to inform his driver of the change itinerary. Yet another implausible "coincidence"--Satan or the Shadowspawn were working hard that day!
The archduke should have cancelled all other official functions that day after the first assassination attempt. Perhaps by recalling that hypothetical Old Phoenix warning.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: it's to his credit that he wanted to visit the men injured in the attempt on him. He was a disagreeable man, in most respects, but far from stupid -- he was against any policy that risked war with Russia, for example. And he insisted on maintaining his marriage to his wife, despite official displeasure.
(BTW, I think that if he'd become Emperor he would have repudiated his promise to not make her empress or his son by her his heir, since the promise was compelled.)
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely! Going to visit those injured men reminded me of how Tsar Alexander II, instead of immediately leaving the site where he was assassinated in 1881, insisted on staying so he could help the wounded. A second terrorist dashed up with the bomb that mortally wounded the Tsar.
I also recall how Edward Crankshaw, in his unsatisfactorily named THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF HABSBURG, discussed how, despite his faults, Francis Ferdinand was in many ways right. Yes, however irritating Serbian intrigues were, FF did not want war with Belgrade or its patron Russia.
I think it should be stressed that, whatever his difficulties were with Kaiser Franz Josef, FF had only the deepest personal respect for his uncle. Yes, it's possible Francis Ferdinand would have insisted on his wife becoming Empress consort, not a morganatic wife. Just one of those "what ifs" of history.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: also, after the annexation of Bosnia in 1908 by Austria-Hungary (they'd occupied it since the 1870's, but it was still formally part of the Ottoman Empire) the Russians were feeling humiliated and also stronger, so they wouldn't put up with any more bossing around.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I remember that, re Bosnia/Herzegovina. One complication being that the Treaty ending the Russo-Turkish War of 1876-78 was Austria-Hungary being allowed the option of annexing those two provinces after all other interested powers were warned. But I can see pan-Slav crazies in Russia getting angry and putting pressure on Nicholas II and his gov't to object/prevent that annexation.
I recall reading of an anxious Bismarck worrying that a "d----- fool thing in the Balkans" would trigger a war between the great powers.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yes, he said the whole of the Balkans wasn't worth the "bones of one Pomeranian grenadier". But by 1914, the Great Powers had invested a lot of prestige there -- and there was the question of the partition of the Ottoman Empire, which everyone expected to happen soon.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I recall that as well, what Bismarck said about a Pomeranian grenadier. He wanted Germany to be satisfied with had been gained by 1871. But many expansionist minded Germans wanted more lebensraum. And that simply could not be achieved without conflicts with other great powers.
Yes, by 1914 all the great powers, one way or another, had invested too much prestige there to feel they could back down in a really serious dispute without too much loss of face.
The Ottoman Empire was another problem, with no one wanting Russia to get its hands on Constantinople. Albeit, during WW I, a desperate France and the UK agreed to Russia getting Constantinople after the war.
Ad astra! Sean
Russia regarded Constantinople as "ours" because they'd wanted it for a long time -- not least, to control the exit from the Black Sea, which was crucially important to Russian trade, notably its export of grain and other agricultural products.
They'd probably have gotten it a lot earlier, except that the other Great Powers were bound and determined that they -not- get it.
For that matter, the Ottoman Empire survived as long as it did because the European Great Powers couldn't agree on how to split it up. They were rather taken aback by the successful revolts of the Balkan Christian peoples.
Stirling: You suggested that the Greeks would have done better in their war with the Turks post WWI if the Turks hadn't had help from Lenin. I suppose Czarist Russia would have regarded the Greeks holding Constantinople as 2nd best to Russia holding it.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Jim!
Mr. Stirling: If we can go by Anderson's THE DANCER FROM ATLANTIS the Russians had been trying to get Constantinople as long ago as the reign of Jaroslav the Wise of Kiev circa 1040. When the Eastern Empire was still itself a great power.
Yes, the Grand Princes/Tsars of Muscovy/Russia had sound strategic reasons for coveting Constantinople, to say nothing of that getting mixed in with grandiose claims of being the Third Rome!
Alexander II just barely and possibly could have seized Constantinople in 1878 if he hadn't been afraid of how all the other great powers would have opposed that,
Yes, the Ottoman Empire survived as long as it did not because anybody loved the Turks, but because the Powers couldn't agree on how to divvy it up. The Russians did succeed in wresting the Crimean and parts of the Caucasus from the Turks and Persians. The successful revolts of the Christian Balkan peoples against their hated Muslim oppressors was yet another complication.
Jim: Possibly, esp. if a Tsarist Russia which survived WW I achieved a de facto protectorate over Greece.
Ad astra! Sean
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