THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
03/29/02 -- Vol. 20, No. 39
El Presidente: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
The Power Behind El Pres: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
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Topics:
Famous in Peoria
H G Wells, Roger & Me (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Famous in Peoria
Two articles on alternate history ran in the Peoria Journal Star
March 28:
http://www.pjstar.com/news/entertainment/g40095a.html
http://www.pjstar.com/news/entertainment/g80042a.html
A certain "Evelyn C. Leeper" was quoted in them.
===================================================================
TOPIC: H G Wells, Roger & Me (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I have been a fan of H. G. Wells for a good many years. Though I
could not have been more than two or three at the time, I remember
seeing the George Pal THE WAR OF THE WORLDS on its first release.
It is the first film I remember seeing in a theater. I hated it
at the time, but three or four years later I think I was very
anxious to see it again.
Concerning Wells's science fiction novels, one of the things that
has struck me is that, while his ideas seem far-fetched compared
to say those of Jules Verne, frequently they are not quite so
fanciful as they first seem. They do have a certain late 19th
century plausibility about them. I have more than once found what
at first seemed like at first like bad science. On rereading the
book I discover that he had already thought out my objection and
answered it. When you read his exposition you generally discover
that he has given the idea more thought than they might at first
seem to have.
For example an invisible man would seem to have some physical
problems. Invisible eyes could not focus light and hence would be
effectively blind. However, Wells says that his invisible man is
not entirely invisible. The retinas of his eyes are not quite
invisible, but if he is careful they are not seen. Even so he
would not have useful vision, but at least Wells recognized that
invisible eyes were a problem.
In his review of the recent film THE TIME MACHINE, Roger Ebert
points out what would appear to be a technical error in the novel
that inspired that film. He said "The time machine has an uncanny
ability to move in perfect synchronization with the Earth, so that
it always lands in the same geographical spot, despite the fact
that in the future large chunks of the moon (or all of it,
according to the future race of Eloi) have fallen to the Earth,
which should have had some effect on the orbit. Since it would be
inconvenient if a time machine materialized miles in the air or
deep underground, this is just as well."
I responded in my review in an open note to Roger Ebert, "You ask
in your review why the Time Machine stays in one place rather than
at a particular set of coordinates in space with the Earth flying
away from under it. I had puzzled that one myself, but years ago
decided it makes sense. The Time Machine is a physical device
that creates a field in which funny things happen with time. Like
most matter we see, it has been captured by Planet Earth and is
carried with it. It is not immovable, it just is not moved
relative to the earth."
"People do not move it because it moves through their time too
fast for them to see. But the pull of gravity is instantaneous
and binds it to the earth just the same way it binds us. In the
1960 film the machine even moves a little relative to the Earth
when the traveler hits the brakes too suddenly. Then the forward
movement in time gets dissipated into gyroscopic motion in three
dimensions. The machine spins around and topples to its side. A
plane moves forward in the sky, but it still maintains its
momentum and travels pretty much with the Earth."
Mr. Ebert (who I can proudly say has read my film comments before)
apparently saw this comment. He responded in his Film Answer Man
column, "OK, OK. So then what happens when it reappears in a space
already occupied by another physical object?"
The short answer is that the traveler would not fare very well.
He would probably end up embedded in the matter much like Robert
Lansing ends in the film THE 4D MAN. Not to confuse things with
yet another piece of fiction, but Brigadoon, the magical village
that appears just one day a century, stays in one place on the
surface of the earth. Most days people can hike and camp over
that land without causing a problem. The people of Brigadoon,
when they exist, always feel firm ground under their feet, but the
ground supports the village only one day a century. If someone
erects a building on that land, there could be trouble when the
village returns. Speed Brigadoon's cycle up infinitely, from 100
years to zero so it is moving continuously through time, and you
have what is happening in THE TIME MACHINE.
Now the longer answer. I am trying to give an accurate
representation of the concept in the novel, not an argument that I
think is good physics. The time machine moving in time interacts
with the physical world, that is light, matter, and time, with the
strength of interactions being reduced to 1/S of the standard
level of interactions where S is the rate at which time has been
speeded up.
How fast does the time machine go? It moves about seven billion
hours into the future in a time that, based on the description,
could easily be about seven hours for the passenger. S is very
roughly about a billion (or 1,000,000,000).
Why does the time machine appear to be invisible? Wells uses the
term "presentation dilution." He likens the time machine speeding
past too fast to be really seen. A better analogy might be a
spinning propeller blade. One sees through it to the wing behind
it with the image slightly dimmed. The amount dimmed is the ratio
of the area subtended by the propeller blades to the 360-degree
circle. If the ratio were as small as 1/S, the dimming might not
be noticeable at all. Similarly, you do not see the time machine
as it passes you going through time. In its case, however, it
works like a calculus differential. [We are talking about the
limit of something like the Brigadoon case as the cycle time goes
from a century to zero.]
Why can you move your hand through the space that the moving time
machine should be occupying? The real reason two objects cannot
occupy the same space at the same time is not that they are solid.
They are not when you get down to the atomic level. There are
basic forces on the atomic level that cause them to repel each
other. If those forces could be reduced by a factor of 1/S, one
object might pass through the other much as the arms of different
galaxies occasionally pass through each other.
If one can move one's hand into the space of the time machine,
shouldn't it sink into the floor? Actually, no. The force of
gravity is reduced to G/S. It means there is not much weight to
support. This whole time the floor is persistently pushing back
whenever the time machine is there. Just as the people of
Brigadoon always feel the force of the ground beneath their feet,
so the time machine is constantly supported by the floor.
What happens when the time machine stops at the same location as a
physical object? Wells did think about this, at least if you
consider a body of air to be a physical object. When the time
machine starts and stops there is always a rush of mention of wind
or of tinkling glassware. This is an admission that the machine
and its passenger do displace a body of air. Wells seems to think
that the air can be easily pushed aside. What might be more
likely is that the passenger would aerate his body, which might
not be such a good thing. If what the time traveler is displacing
is something a good deal stiffer, like rock, he would end up
embedded in it or perhaps even suffused with the rock which would
certainly prove fatal. [-mrl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
I can sympathize with people's pains, but not
with their pleasure. There is something
curiously boring about somebody else's happiness.
-- Aldous Huxley
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