Recently on this blog, we contemplated fictional accounts of Jupiter in Poul Anderson's "Call Me Joe" and in James Blish's "Bridge," then hypothetical discoveries of antigravity in "Bridge" and in Anderson's ...Flying Mountains, mentioning other works en route. Soon we will again see Jupiter, in ...Flying Mountains.
We have just read past yet another Andersonian moment of realization. Don Bell says:
"'...it's difficult to see how we could -'" (p. 139)
- then drops his cigarette, stares and says:
"'Or could we?'" (ibid.)
We know the signs but as usual will have to wait to be told the answer.
The Milky Way is still with us together with other heavenly bodies:
"...uncountably many frost-cold stars, the curdled ice of the galaxy, and Jupiter." (p. 153)
("Curdled" appears a few times in The Milky Way Thread.)
I must eat and run across town to the Gregson.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I was reminded of this bit from the beginning of Section 3 of Part Two of ORBIT UNLIMITED: "An infinite blackness flashed: stars beyond stars, to the bright cataract of the Milky Way and on out to other galaxies and flocks of galaxies..."
Ad astra! Sean
People do get flashes of inspiration. They're just rare. Most scientific progress is getting anomalous results on tests which contradict current theories
Eg; the Michelson–Morley experiment which attempted to discover the relative speed of light through the "luminiferous aether".
They got severely negative results... which led to the eventual discarding of the aether theory and the rise of Relativity.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, most of the time that is how real scientific progress gets made.
Sometimes there are rare individuals who get genuine flashes of inspiration, such as Nikola Tesla.
Maybe a similar rarity will, in a flash of insight, get an idea leading to a real FTL drive?
Ad astra! Sean
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