THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
05/13/11 -- Vol. 29, No. 46, Whole Number 1649


 Frick: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
 Frack: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
All material is copyrighted by author unless otherwise noted.
All comments sent will be assumed authorized for inclusion
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Topics:
        Be-earlied Vengeance (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
        The Future of Mankind (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
        Fearful Symmetries (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
        THOR (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
        Cubicles, BTL, and Google (letters of comment by Nathan
                and Paul S. R. Chisholm)
        Mammals (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)
        Willing Suspension of Disbelief (letter of comment
                by Kip Williams)
        WWW: WONDER and Late Middle Age (letter of comment
                by Keith F. Lynch)
        This Week's Reading (CRYOBURN and A HISTORY OF HISTORIES)
                (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

==================================================================


TOPIC: Be-earlied Vengeance (comments by Mark R. Leeper)

A headline claims, "Al-Qaida vows revenge for Osama bin Laden's
death."  Didn't they already do that ten years before the fact?
[-mrl]

==================================================================


TOPIC: The Future of Mankind (comments by Mark R. Leeper)

There is a worthwhile article about the long-term future of the
human race provided by the Boston Globe.  Graeme Wood's article
"What will happen to us?" can be found at

http://tinyurl.com/leeper-far-future

[-mrl]

==================================================================


TOPIC: Fearful Symmetries (comments by Mark R. Leeper)

I was reading about the Horizon Problem associated with the Big
Bang.  It is a startling example of there being more mysterious
symmetry to the universe than there ought to be.

We like to feel that we live in an orderly universe.  It makes us
feel that the universe is in a sort of balance that makes it more
comprehensible.  We tend to feel that we can bring our own
aesthetic to the universe and our aesthetic tells us how we expect
things to be.  I believe that it was Albert Einstein who felt that
the most beautiful theory to explain phenomena is probably the
correct one.  However, physical observation frequently shows the
universe as having either more or less symmetry than we expected.
Generally when we find this it means that our model is incorrect.
Very often this significantly changes our understanding of the
physical universe.

Modern physics began with the Michelson-Morley experiment that
found unexpectedly that the speed of light had to be the same no
matter what direction it is coming from.  That was a very troubling
symmetry that undermined physics has it had been since the time of
Isaac Newton.  Later Albert Einstein was much bothered by the lack
of symmetry between the forces expanding the universe and those
contracting it.  He had expected a perfect balance since he assumed
that universe was to some degree unchanging and constant.  And I am
not sure what the current understanding is of the imbalance between
the amount of matter and anti-matter in the universe.  They seem to
be created at the same time and they annihilate each other
symmetrically.  We would expect about the same amount of each, but
there seems to be much more matter than anti-matter.

One example of a symmetry that is hard to explain comes the
"Horizon Problem."  That is the name that has been given to an
observation that shows a symmetry that is theoretically impossible.
Suppose you are camping and have a campfire.  That gives a very
great variation in temperature in the area of the fire.  What is
right near the fire is very hot; what is a little further a way is
not quite so hot.  Maybe ten feet away things are considerably
cooler.  But if you put out the fire properly and go to bed, in the
morning the temperature of the ground near and further from the
fire pit should be very much more uniform.  Everything should be at
about the same temperature.  Why?  Well when things that are hotter
come in contact with things that are colder their temperatures seem
to equalize.  After a while the laws of thermodynamics and entropy
say that they should reach the same temperature.  But the reason
they reach the same temperature is that they are in contact with
each other.  The effect of equalizing of temperature works because
of contact.

Now consider the heat from the Big Bang that is as far back in our
universe as we can feel we have any understanding.  It was, we
think, extremely non-uniform in the amount of heat that it created.
Some of what came out of the explosion should have been at a very
different energy level than other parts.  Over time we would expect
that some of that variation should go away.  Because of contact
temperatures should locally smooth out.  And indeed that smoothing
is what seems to have happened.  If you look out into space there
is that uniform three-degree background radiation--well, 2.725 K--
that Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson detected with the Holmdel Horn.
In every direction you look, the background radiation is exactly
the same three degrees.  At first you might expect this. That is
what happened with the campfire.

But the same principle does not quite apply.  If you look into
space in one direction the background radiation is at 2.725 K.  If
you look in the opposite direction the radiation is at 2.725 K.
Well, you sort of expect some equalizing.  But that background
radiation is just a little too uniform.  The radiation you are
detecting in one direction had not had time to equalize with the
radiation you are detecting from the other direction.  We are
detecting Big Bang radiation from a billion light years to the east
and comparing it with radiation from a billion light years to the
west.  That radiation has only had time to effect things within a
radius of a billion light years from itself.  Its radius of effect
is currently billion light years.  Yet it seems to have equalized
with radiation two billion light years from itself.  This would
mean it has contact of some sort with a region of the universe that
is too far away for it to have that contact.  Light from that
source has traveled only one billion light years, so it cannot be
affecting points two billion light years away from itself.  Yet
they seem to have equalized.  And nobody can explain how.

See Wikipedia on the Horizon Problem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_problem

[-mrl]

==================================================================


TOPIC: THOR (film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: THOR is a comic-book film that gives us a different sort
of superhero, the Norse god banished from Asgard and exiled to
Earth and struggling to retrieve/earn his hammer of power.  If I
were to picture the gods in Asgard, what we see of them in this
film is not what they would look like in my mind.  Some veteran
actors like Anthony Hopkins seem over-qualified to play opposite
Chris Hemsworth in the title role.  If the concept of Kenneth
Branagh directing a 3D super-hero film seems a bit odd, he is
moderately less ponderous than he was with MARY SHELLEY'S
FRANKENSTEIN.  But the real star of this show is Bo Welch whose
production design is original and different enough to steal the
show from the actors.  Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10

Thor is sort of a new hero to me.  I never read a comic in which he
was a character.  I must have spent more time in the DC universe.
So I was learning as I went.  Bear with me, Thor-comics fans.  I
did know that this was the Thor of Norse folklore as opposed to an
ordinary Joe who is heir to the powers of Thor.  But what powers
does Thor have?  He is muscular.  But his strength is like that of
maybe ten mortals.  That is not all that useful.  He has a hammer.
How much damage can he do with a hammer?  Of course, this would be
a magical hammer, but I had no idea what it could do beyond
clobbering.  Each use would be something of a surprise, though none
of the powers turn out to be very imaginative.

I cannot say I took to the Thor character right away and perhaps
not at all.  What do I think of when I think of the Norse Thor?
This is the guy who makes the thunder and the lightning with his
mighty hammer like the god of blacksmiths.  Chris Hemsworth looked
too much like a buff surfer dude who sometimes wore Norse armor, as
it would be envisioned for a Las Vegas stage show.  It was a little
on the gaudy side.  He seems to have no trouble speaking English
for reasons unexplained except perhaps for story expediency.  On
the whole he is not a character who is really interesting.  On the
other hand where Superman is an Earth resident with a little
concern for the Planet Krypton, Thor mostly is all about what is
happening in Asgard.  He has some concern for the people on Earth,
but this film could be called THOR'S NEW MEXICO ADVENTURE.  His
mind is on Asgard.  He has an agenda of his own other than making
the world (our world) a better place.  So there is something to
him.

Thor has been up to his usual tricks of being too headstrong and
arrogant, though you would think that being the god who brings the
thunderstorms arrogance is sort of the name of the game.  But he
pushes it too far and is exiled from the realm of Asgard to the
realm of ... New Mexico?  Most people there find him just plain
weird, which is about par for the course these days.  But when he
falls to Earth he drops his best friend, his hammer.  He wants just
to pick up the hammer, but the hammer has had enough and does not
want to be taken for granted.  He must earn his hammer.  Luckily or
unluckily Thor's brother Loki is staging a coup d'etat in Asgard
and this provides Thor with an enemy to vanquish and a way to earn
back his hammer.  Along the way a pretty particle physicist teaches
him about love.

Actors Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgård, Colm Feore (completely
unrecognizable), Natalie Portman, and Rene Russo may be more than
this film really needed and a bit too much competition for Chris
Hemsworth.  He falls a little short of being believable as the god
who makes huge storms with his mighty hammer.  In THOR there is a
desperate shortage of people who really look Scandinavian enough to
be Norse gods.  The real competition for the first class actors is
Bo Welch, the production designer who gives real visual splendor to
Asgard.  My only complaint was that the central palace looked too
much like a golden pipe organ.  Patrick Doyle does the music,
surprising for a comic-book film, though it may be expected for a
Kenneth Branagh film.  Doyle's musical style is better suited to
sunny Sicily than to Norse worlds of ice and cold.  His score
follows the action rather than setting the emotional tone.

It is great to see Sir Anthony Hopkins's career panning out and his
getting to play all the great dramatic roles, you know, like Zorro,
Hannibal Lecter, Odin, the Wolfman's father, and Van Helsing.  Good
to see him out of his Shakespeare rut.  I rate THOR a high +1 on
the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.

Additional notes:

-- Kudos goes to Kenneth Branagh who showed a breakfast sequence
without a single product placement.  But come to think of it, after
his product placement in DEAD AGAIN nobody would ever trust him
with one again.

-- Of course, there was a cameo for Stan Lee.  He wrecks his pick-
up truck trying to pull the surprisingly Arthurian hammer from the
stone.

-- If you come into THOR with absolutely no knowledge of what an
Einstein-Rosen Bridge is, you will leave the film knowing even
less.

-- My wife points out that if you look in Wikipedia and it says of
Heimdallr that he is "the whitest of the gods."  You may remember
him as the black guard on the bridge.  That may be an inside joke.

Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800369/

What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/thor/

[-mrl]

==================================================================


TOPIC: Cubicles, BTL, and Google (letters of comment by Nathan and
Paul S. R. Chisholm)

Continuing his comments on cubicles from the 05/06/11 issue of the
MT VOID, Nathan writes:

I wish I could have worked at the Labs in the great days of the
late 1970s!  Alas, I was still in high school then though I *did*
visit on school trips and *really* wanted to work there.

By time I did, mid 1980s, it was still good but obviously sliding
as their cash cow as being slowly murdered.

Working at Google.  That's an interesting question.  The pressure
for never stopping working in brain fields is so great, I don't
think at this point I'd *want to*--but I wonder if it has ever been
any different?

Don't get me wrong, I have no issues with working hard at work, but
I also want a life, which seems to be something of an anathema in
the USA these days!  [-n]

And Paul Chisholm writes:

While just about everything about Google indeed makes it a great
work environment, you might be disappointed in this regard.  Most
Googlers sit in open cubicles.  Offices are rare, and private
offices are very rare indeed.  (Even the CEO, Eric Schmidt, has
sometimes shared his office.  See p. 82 of Steven Levy's excellent
book IN THE PLEX.)  There are a lot of conference rooms, and many
"phone rooms" for when one wants to make a private call.

When I left AT&T Labs in 1996, I had a private office with a door.
I wouldn't take that over a cubicle at Google, even if I had a time
machine that transported me back to 1996, and certainly not if I
had to work at any flavor of "the Labs" circa 2011. (If I could go
back to 1981 ... nah.)

On the other hand, even the Holmdel and Murray Hill cafeterias, on
their best days any time in the last thirty years, couldn't touch
any Google cafe in Mountain View or New York.

I'll stop now before this becomes a recruiting spiel. (If you'd
like a recruiting spiel, please contact me privately.-)  [-psrc]

==================================================================


TOPIC: Mammals (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)

In response to Evelyn's comments on classification in the 05/06/11
issue of the MT VOID, Fred Lerner writes:

[Evelyn writes], "If you ask a zoologist what a mammal is, he can
cite a definition: three bones in the inner ear. ... In the case of
mammals, in casual usage, a mammal is basically an animal that has
hair and bears live young."

The definition that I learned long ago is that a mammal is a
creature whose females suckle their young.  That is clear-cut, easy
to observe, and so far as I know has no exceptions.  So why worry
about the architecture of the inner ear or the mechanics of birth?
[-fl]

Mark responds:

Well, you don't want to define a zoological class by behavior.  The
whole thing is the issue of what is "easy to observe."  The three
bones of the inner ear is at worst only marginally more difficult
to observe than suckling behavior for an animal.  You find a dead
one (hopefully) and examine the bones of the inner ear.  However,
suppose we are talking about a Megazostrodon.  That is a creature
that lived 200 million years ago.  It certainly was mammal-like.
Was it actually a mammal by your definition?  Who knows?  That is
not so clear-cut and easy to observe without a time machine.  The
bones of the inner ear survive, however.  [-mrl]

==================================================================


TOPIC: Willing Suspension of Disbelief (letter of comment by Kip
Williams)

In response to Evelyn's comments on SNOW CRASH in the 05/06/11
issue of the MT VOID, Kip Williams writes, "Willing suspension of
disbelief goes just so far.  We'll happily swallow some things, and
strain at others.  Within a world that violates many laws of
physics and biology, we still demand and expect some kinds of
truth.  As I put it in an animation APA some years back, "Wile
E. Coyote would *never* do that!"  [-kw]

==================================================================


TOPIC: WWW: WONDER and Late Middle Age (letter of comment by Keith
F. Lynch)

In response to Joe Karpierz's review of WWW: WONDER in the 05/06/11
issue of the MT VOID, Keith F. Lynch writes, "The ape in Sawyer's
latest trilogy is named Hobo, not Bobo."  [-kfl]

And in response to Evelyn's comments on SNOW CRASH in the same
issue, Keith writes, "Since when has fifty been *late* middle age?"
[-kfl]

Evelyn responds, "Well, there is no precise definition of 'middle
age', so I'll fall back on the United States Census definition,
which (according to Wikipedia) lists middle age as including both
the age categories 35 to 44 and 45 to 50.  So in that definition,
fifty would be late middle age.  What would *you* call late middle
age?"  [-ecl]

==================================================================


TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

I normally leave the reviewing of the Hugo-nominated novels to Joe
Karpierz, but I do feel obliged to say that CRYOBURN by Lois
McMaster Bujold is the most lightweight, and at the same time,
annoying Hugo novel nominee I've seen in a long time.  Bujold
assumes the reader knows all about Miles, his background, and his
medical problems; nothing really happens; even the slightest hint
of danger or menace is relieved in only a few pages; and the whole
thing seems to be a very thinly veiled complaint about the mortgage
crisis.  (When they started talking about "commodifying [cryogenic]
contracts" on page 114, I fully expected the contracts to end up
being called Cryogenic Debt Obligations, or CDOs.)

In fact, Kelly Jennings is spot-on in her review of CRYOBURN in
"Strange Horizons" (02/18/11): nothing at risk for the main
characters, too much focus on the YA aspects of the story, and a
whole lot of insensitivity towards economic or social inequality.
Kelly observes that on Barryar, "counts and emperors rule so well
that industrious serfs are happy to serve."  On Kibou-daini, the
rulers are not so "enlightened", but there does not seem to be any
recognition that this is something to be concerned about.  As
Jennings writes, "On Barrayar, as Bujold has written it, this works
very well.  ...  But when [Bujold] makes the leap to a world where
people eat frozen pizza and live in tiny flats and worry about
health insurance and daycare--our world--it's a lot harder to buy
the argument that we should trust the Liege Lord, since he knows
what's best.  This is especially true when we see Miles treating
Jin like a tool he's going to use and leave behind; or when Roic
and Lord Mark, characters we are meant to like and identify with,
mock the impoverished and the ignorant for no crime other than
being impoverished and ignorant."  The main (local) characters do
end up better off through a fairy-tale sort of solution, but
everyone else is still stuck.

The fascination of fantasy with feudalism and monarchy has, of
course, been much discussed, and its "overflow" into science
fiction is not all that surprising.  The sub-genre of "science
fantasy" is full of examples.  The "Star Wars" saga may have
science fiction props, but its underlying philosophy comes from
fantasy.  So while the "Vorkosigan" saga is set in a world of
interstellar empires and all sorts of advanced technology, it's
still basically fantasy.  But when that fantasy gets moved to what
is in effect our world, we get a disconnect.

Having been disappointed by Connie Willis's BLACKOUT/ALL CLEAR as
well, I can only hope that the other three nominees are worthier
choices.

A HISTORY OF HISTORIES: EPICS, CHRONICLES, ROMANCES AND INQUIRIES
FROM HERODOTUS AND THUCYDIDES TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY by John
Burrow (ISBN 978-0-375-72767-2) is interesting only to the extent
that the reader is familiar with the works being discussed.  So
while there are a few that have achieved relatively broad appeal
(Gibbon's DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE and Prescott's
CONQUEST OF MEXICO, for example) discussions of works such as
Giovanni Villani's CHRONICLE (of the history of Florence, written
in the mid-fourteenth century) are unlikely to have wide appeal.
It is odd that this was published by Vintage for the general
public; it seems much more aimed at an academic audience.  (It did
make me want to go back and re-read Prescott, though.)  [-ecl]

==================================================================

                                           Mark Leeper
 mleeper@optonline.net


           Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are
           more pliable.
                                           --Mark Twain