THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
09/22/17 -- Vol. 36, No. 12, Whole Number 1981
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Wilmington and Brandywine River Art Museums Report
(comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Cassini, RIP (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Keep Away, Boys (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Fooling with Infinity (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
ARTEMIS by Andy Weir (book review by Joe Karpierz)
This Week's Reading (PARTNERS IN COMMAND) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Wilmington and Brandywine River Art Museums Report (comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
My trip report on our two-day trip to the Delaware Museum of Art
(Howard Pyle) and the Brandywine River Museum of Art (Andrew,
N. C., and Jamie Wyeth) is available at:
http://leepers.us/evelyn/trips/brandywine.htm
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Cassini, RIP (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Cassini ended its mission shortly before 7:54 a.m. EDT (1154 GMT),
September 15, when NASA received its last transmission. Contrary
to popular speculation, it was not, "My God, it's full of stars!"
NASA has released a free e-book, THE SATURN SYSTEM THROUGH THE EYES
OF CASSINI, available for download in various formats at:
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Keep Away, Boys (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I visited the Brandywine River Museum of Art, a museum that had a
great collection of paintings by N. C. Wyeth. One book he
illustrated was THE BOY'S KING ARTHUR. I always thought the title
implied they had play up the action and adventure parts of the
story so it would more appeal to a boy. It only occurred to me
today that it had that title not for what it included but for what
it omitted. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Fooling with Infinity (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Mathematics is serious stuff. It allows you to have a feel for
where a satellite is in space. You measure the amount you have to
pay the government in taxes this year. You use it to tell how much
alcohol in a person's bloodstream before he is too impaired to
legally drive. Mathematics is a serious toolbox. But there are
some tools that have a fin side. One of the fun tools is infinity.
Whatever I think of as big, infinity comes along and trumps it for
me.
How many millimeters is it to the star Polaris? No, let's get
really big. How many millimeters is it to the farthest star ever
observed? Multiply that by the largest integer anybody has ever
conceived of until just a second ago. (You see we are conceiving
of a larger number right now.) That is a really large number.
Well, no, it really is well below average for positive integers
that are out there. Think how big infinity must be. It is really
huge. Now I think that kind of size deserves some respect.
Then again, I use to look at my father's old camera. You used to
twist the lens to set how far away the object you were
photographing was. There was a scale around the lens with
distances marked. I do not remember the shortest distance you
could set the lens for, but I do remember the greatest distance you
could set the camera for. It was infinity. This scale only went
about a third the way around the lens and it went up to
*infinity*!!! You could actually set this camera to take pictures
of objects out as far as infinity. That was way further (WAY
FURTHER!!!) than the furthest star that humans have ever detected.
And this scale went only about a third the way around the lens.
Sadly the camera maker designed the lens so that the scale only
went about that third. The camera range only went to infinity and
stopped there. (Only to infinity? That's an *ONLY???*.) I wanted
to "fix" the camera so that it went to infinity and beyond. But
even so I could not interest my father in the project. Can you
imagine that? He didn't care to take pictures of what was out
there beyond infinity.
Funny things happen when you start playing with infinity. Suppose
you have an infinitely long strip of farmland with two parallel
furrows of infinite length, A and B. And you have two planters, A
and B, walking along parallel, each dropping one seed per second.
Suppose each is being followed by a bird who is stealing the seed
and eating it at a rate of one seed per each two seconds. So on
each of furrow A and furrow B there are always the same number of
seeds planted. In two seconds there will be a net one seed planted.
In two seconds the farmer will have dropped two seeds and the bird
will have stolen and eaten one.
So far it seems that each furrow will have the same number of
seeds. But while the birds are eating at the same rate, they are
choosing seeds to eat differently. The bird on furrow A always
eats the seed that has been planted the longest. And the bird on
furrow B always eats the most recently dropped seed.
What is happening at furrow A?
In the first two seconds Farmer A will have dropped seed 1 and seed
2 and the bird will have eaten seed 1. In the next two seconds
Farmer A will have dropped seed 3 and seed 4 and the bird will have
eaten seed 2. In the next two seconds Farmer B will have dropped
seed 5 and seed 6 and the bird will have eaten seed 3. After an
infinite number of seconds every seed will have been eaten. Seed N
will have been eaten after 2N seconds.
What is happening at furrow B?
In the first two seconds Farmer B will have dropped seed 1 and seed
2 and the bird will have eaten seed 2. In the next two seconds
Farmer B will have dropped seed 3 and seed 4 and the bird will have
eaten seed 4. In the next two seconds Farmer B will have dropped
seed 5 and seed 6 and the bird will have eaten seed 6. After an
infinite number of seconds every *even* seed will have been eaten.
But no odd seeds will have be been eaten. There will be an
infinite number of seeds left planted.
Farmer A will have lost all his seeds, but Farmer B will still have
as many seeds as he dropped. Clearly the power rests in the hands
of hands of the birds. Or do they have wings? Or is it claws?
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: ARTEMIS by Andy Weir (copyright 2017, Crown, 320pp, $27
hardcover, ISBN-10: 0553448129, ISBN-13: 978-0553448122, ASIN:
B06Y55SB48) (book review by Joe Karpierz)
Unlike most of the general public, I became aware of Andy Weir's
THE MARTIAN by listening to the audiobook back in early 2015. I
was not only captivated by the story, I was mesmerized by the
narration talents of R. C. Bray. Then the secret got out, the
movie was released, made lots of money, and won the Hugo for Best
Dramatic Presentation Long Form in 2016. At the end of my review
of THE MARTIAN back in March of 2015 I wrote the following: "And I
think I may just pick up the next Weir novel when it comes out."
(And you're all probably saying "wait a minute, it's not out yet".
True enough.)
Weir's new novel, ARTEMIS, takes place in a settlement of the same
name on the Earth's moon. Jazz--short for Jasmine--Bashara barely
makes ends meet as a porter in ARTEMIS, so she has a side job.
She's a smuggler, and a pretty good one at that. She plies her
trade in typical harmless items; she smuggles what she thinks will
make her some money without getting her in trouble. She has repeat
customers, and as a result has a pretty good gig going. And while
she still doesn't make much money, she makes enough money to
survive. Her goal is to qualify for and join the EVA masters--the
select group of people who are certified to take tourist out on
EVAs to see things like the Apollo landing sights. EVA masters are
paid well, so once Jazz gets certified she figures she'll be set.
So of course the novel opens with her failing her certification
exam because she was wearing a faulty suit that she bought second
hand. Jazz had spent most of her savings on that suit, and now she
was out of money, out of a suit (at least temporarily), and not an
EVA master.
So it was back to smuggling on the side. While she tries to stay
out of trouble, she does have some enemies in position of
authority, but some friends as well. And she's typically been able
to rely on her regular customers for steady smuggling work. So, on
a regular visit to one of those customers to drop off a shipment,
she catches wind of a big deal about to go down. She is invited to
participate in the scam for which she will be paid a handsome sum
of cash. The only problem is that her part in the scheme is a very
dangerous criminal act. If she pulls it off, she's rich. If she
fails, she will either be deported back to Earth, or she just might
die.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, yes, that was a rhetorical question, because everything goes
wrong; it wouldn't be much of a story if everything went according
to plan. In the process of recovering from the failure of her part
in the scheme, she learns way too much about what is going on in
the highest reaches of the Artemis government--and that the true
reach of the situation is all the way back on Earth. So she has a
choice--get deported back to Earth, or come up with an even more
crazy scheme to make things right and save Artemis from criminals
back on Earth.
THE MARTIAN, both the book and the movie, took everyone by
surprise. It was a terrific tale of survival using wits and
science, of people all over Earth--and, as it turns out, in space--
working together to save one lone man who is stranded on Mars. It
was fun, exciting, even educational--and everyone loved it.
ARTEMIS is not THE MARTIAN, and I expect many people to be
disappointed by it.
To be fair, ARTEMIS is a fun, light, summer read (never mind that
it's going to be released in November of 2017; it's really a light
summer read). It's entertaining, engaging, and fast-paced. It's a
caper tale set on the moon, and it does need the moon to succeed.
And it does succeed, after a fashion. In one sense, it's much like
THE MARTIAN in that there are lives in danger and that science is
used to save them. Just as in THE MARTIAN, Weir gives us the
science lectures we need to get through the story without drowning
us in details. All that is well and good, but I'd like to see Weir
branch out from that kind of storytelling and into something
different, something meatier. The book's idea of a massive
conspiracy led by a shady organization on Earth is surely different
from the story we get in THE MARTIAN, but it's the type of story
we've seen before. It's time to see something different.
I believe that the problem with any book that Andy Weir would have
written after THE MARTIAN would have suffered from comparisons with
that book. It's inevitable. In my mind, ARTEMIS is not a bad
book, but it does suffer from coming right after the success that
was THE MARTIAN. Don't get me wrong here; I want to emphasize that
I enjoyed reading ARTEMIS and am glad that I did read it. But now
that we've gotten through the first two books of Weir's career,
it's time to see what he can really come up with. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
While Shelby Foote's CIVIL WAR is generally considered a remarkable
accomplishment, there seems to be a consensus that it is slanted
toward the South. Well, PARTNERS IN COMMAND by Joseph T. Glatthaar
(ISBN 978-0-02-911817-4) might be a good analysis of the
personalities of the various military leaders of the Civil War, but
it also seems to show a remarkable bias towards the South in very
odd ways.
For example, Glatthaar writes, "Although leaders on both sides
possessed immense resources to accomplish their pronounced goals of
secession or reunion and the end of slavery, ..." (page 3) Note
that he attributes to the South only the goal of secession, with no
mention of the fact that almost every declaration of secession
specifically listed the continuation of slavery as one of the major
reasons for secession.
Later, he said, "Some nine million people resided in the over
700,000 square miles that comprised the Confederate States of
America. Most of the 5.5 million whites supported the defense of
the homeland, although their 3.5 million slaves committed
themselves halfheartedly at best, and indeed many opposed
secessionist success." (page 3) Well, duh! The problem is this is
not the sort of book where one writes sentences intended
ironically. (And this is not even addressing the mis-use of the
word "comprise".)
And again: "Fortunately, a host of Regular Army and Navy officers
resigned their commissions to join hands with their Southern
brethren, ..." (4) This may be just bad phrasing, but it would be
more even-handed to say "fortunately for the South."
Even some factual statements seem questionable. Glatthaar states,
"Most Confederates were a propertied class. They had seceded over
the right to own, remove, and utilize property, specifically
slaves, as they saw fit..." (page 226) If by "propertied" he means
holding at least one slave, then he is wrong, because the 1860
census shows about a third of Southern households holding slaves--
not a majority. (And note that here Glatthaar acknowledges that
the South seceded over slavery.)
And you know how some people can completely ruin a punch line but
not telling the lead-up with the right words? Not only does
Glatthaar do this, but I am pretty sure he gets the people involved
wrong. As I have always heard the story, after Gettysburg George
Meade told Lincoln, "I have driven the rebels from our soil," and
Lincoln responded, "When will my generals learn that it is all our
soil." Glatthaar says that "McClellan proclaimed he had driven the
invaders from the North," triggering Lincoln to say, "The whole
country is our soil." (page 86)
(I have also seen Meade's statement as that the army had driven
"from our soil every vestige of the presence of the invader." This
might indicate some vagueness, but the exchange is always described
as with Meade rather than McClellan.)
The book has to rely on the underlying psychologies of the
principals, because the basic outline of the book can be simply
summed up: Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson got along, Abraham
Lincoln and George McClellan didn't, so things went well for the
South. But Lincoln fired McClellan in November 1862 and Jackson
died in May 1863. Then Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman
(and Lincoln) got along, while Jefferson Davis and Joseph
E. Johnston did not, so the tide turned in favor of the North.
[-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
There's one way to find out if a man is honest--ask him.
If he says, 'Yes,' you know he is a crook.
--Groucho Marx