Arthur C. Clarke's "The Wall of Darkness" - what's the point?
OhioGuy
~960 page volume collecting his shorter stories from the 1940's on.
I've just finished "The Wall of Darkness", from 1949. It deals with
a universe with a single sun and planet - no stars in the night sky like
we have. The world supposedly always stayed light, with only a slight
change with the sun dipping toward the horizon a bit in winter.
Their world evidently had an inhospitably hot north, a temperate
middle, and an extremely cold south. The south is barren, except for an
insurmountable wall that stretches across the world at a point so far
south that people can barely reach it during the summer, when things
warm up.
There is a rumor that seeing what is on the other side of the wall
will make a man go mad. But a curious, wealthy guy decides he just has
to do it anyway. In a massive project that takes more than 7 years, he
has a series of platforms built, and he walks up on the wall.
Then he walks away from the sun, which is dimming behind him as he
walks, and in front of him another sun appears and grows bright. As he
approaches the edge of the wall, he sees his friend (who he left behind)
peering up at him.
Then they blow up the platforms, so that no one else can ever try to
breach the wall again, saying it was necessary. He imagines in his mind
another him blowing up the platform on the other side, but says of
course that is impossible, since he is the only man in the world who
knows for sure that the WALL ONLY HAS ONE SIDE.
Then he and an old man go over the idea that their world is like a
piece of paper. You can cut off a ~1" piece from a side, and roll it
into a tube, with distinct inner and outer surfaces. However, if you
roll one end 180 degrees, you'll end up with a twisted tube where the
same surface is both on the outside and the inside.
I am not sure what the point of the story was. I feel like I've
missed something, or else the story was trying to seem more impressive
than it actually was. I feel like I do when I'm looking at a comic
strip in the newspaper and can't figure out what is supposed to be funny
about it.
Anyone care to enlighten me? What was the point of this story?
Erik Max Francis
> I am not sure what the point of the story was. I feel like I've
> missed something, or else the story was trying to seem more impressive
> than it actually was. I feel like I do when I'm looking at a comic
> strip in the newspaper and can't figure out what is supposed to be funny
> about it.
>
> Anyone care to enlighten me? What was the point of this story?
I haven't read the story, but from your description it sounds like it
was just illustrating what it might be like to live on a Moebius strip.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
To attempt to defend everything is to defend nothing.
-- Frederick the Great
Arthur T.
OhioGuy <no...@none.net> wrote:
<snip description of story>
> I am not sure what the point of the story was. I feel like I've
>missed something, or else the story was trying to seem more impressive
>than it actually was. I feel like I do when I'm looking at a comic
>strip in the newspaper and can't figure out what is supposed to be funny
>about it.
For comics you don't understand, see the FAQ at
<http://www.comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress>
> Anyone care to enlighten me? What was the point of this story?
These are my opinions. I last read the story about a year ago.
I believe the implication is that the wall was built over the
klein bottle twist in their world. Without the wall, that twist
would be visible. That explains why seeing it, without the wall,
might drive people mad.
To a great extent, it's a mood piece; the journey is more
important than the destination. As it implies in the beginning,
it's just a story about a very odd out-of-the-way place in the
universe. To paraphrase: "There are 8 quintillion stories in the
naked universe. This is one of them."
--
Arthur T. - ar23hur "at" intergate "dot" com
Looking for a z/OS (IBM mainframe) systems programmer position
Mike Williams
> I am not sure what the point of the story was. I feel like I've
>missed something, or else the story was trying to seem more impressive
>than it actually was. I feel like I do when I'm looking at a comic
>strip in the newspaper and can't figure out what is supposed to be
>funny about it.
It's an awful long time since I read that story. I don't think you've
missed anything major.
Back in those days there was some speculation that our universe might be
a larger equivalent of that, folding back on itself at extreme
distances. Apart from that idea, the story just stands as it is.
--
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure
OhioGuy
>klein bottle twist in their world. Without the wall, that twist
>would be visible. That explains why seeing it, without the wall,
>might drive people mad.
Ok, that might explain it then. I was trying to figure out where on
the strip that great wall would have been.
shredof...@gmail.com
Damien Valentine
Robert Clark
> I just got done reading this story and was a bit perplexed at the end too. I think, as a user posted above me, that this is more of a mood piece focusing on the philosophy of our existence and our search into "the great unknown." I took it as more Shervane representing our general quest for knowledge. His teacher stating that what is seen on the otherside will drive one mad refers moreso to the frustration that ensues when the answers we find are more confusing, unexplainable, and sometimes less climactic than the questions and ideas we initially set out for and hoped to find. By traveling to the other side of the Wall of Darkness, Shervane hoped to be awakened and enlightened beyond his human ignorance. Through his quest, he was seeking order, meaning, and patterns in our, essentially, existential chaos. As he finds out, like most humans do, there are no patterns we can see with our narrowminded thinking and no clear cut answers as to why we are here, and what happens when we cease to exist. Essentially,it is a journey we will all take alone throughout our lives as Shervane did in the story.
Thanks for bringing this thread up again which I hadn't seen when it
first appeared. I didn't know Clarke had written such a story with
such a highly abstract mathematical topic at its focus. As the others
mentioned, I think Clarke just wanted to write a story based on the
topological concept of a "one-sided" surface.
Bob Clark
Nige Danton
> Thanks for bringing this thread up again which I hadn't seen when it
> first appeared. I didn't know Clarke had written such a story with
> such a highly abstract mathematical topic at its focus. As the others
> mentioned, I think Clarke just wanted to write a story based on the
> topological concept of a "one-sided" surface.
overlooked this one. I've just read it - a most interesting storyline.
Thanks to the OP for mentioning it.
--
Nige Danton - Replace the obvious with g.m.a.i.l
1treePetrifiedForestLane
Bill Taylor
wrote:
> what is the difference between a M-strip and a K-bottle?
- b
Robert Clark
wrote:
Klein bottle.
"In mathematics, the Klein bottle (pron.: /ˈklaɪn/) is an example of a
non-orientable surface; informally, it is a surface (a two-dimensional
manifold) in which notions of left and right cannot be consistently
defined. Other related non-orientable objects include the Möbius strip
and the real projective plane. Whereas a Möbius strip is a surface
with boundary, a Klein bottle has no boundary (for comparison, a
sphere is an orientable surface with no boundary)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_bottle
See also:
Möbius strip.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6bius_strip
Another distinction is that the Möbius strip can be fully realized
in 3-dimensional space while the Klein bottle can not. The image
usually shown for the Klein bottle is just the projection of it into 3-
dimensional space.
It's like how the common picture of the tesseract is just the
projection of this 4-dimensional cube into 3-dimensional space:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract
Bob Clark
garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk
> Klein bottle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_bottle
"""
It may have been originally named the Kleinsche Fläche ("Klein
surface") and that this was incorrectly interpreted as Kleinsche
Flasche ("Klein bottle")
"""
Or how not having a univesal character set causes confusion...
--
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1treePetrifiedForestLane
but they are really the same thing, if the ideal of "compactness"
is modified. that is, there is a standard way
to parameterize the Mstrip, which arbitrarily limits it
to being a strip, half a unit wide on both sides of the generating
circle.
if it is an infinite surface, it has an irreducible self-intersection,
same as the Kbottle, although this is usually handwaved-away
with some stuff about "4dness."
anyway, you can "do" an Matrip with an old bike tube,
in more than one way. or, maybe it's the Kbottle manifestation.
patmp...@gmail.com
roho...@gmail.com
A book similar to this, if anyone is interested is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_World
this novel is kind of like this story, but more detailed and with better payoff...
zvil...@griddynamics.com
> Their world evidently had an inhospitably hot north, a temperate
> middle, and an extremely cold south. The south is barren, except for an
> insurmountable wall that stretches across the world at a point so far
> south that people can barely reach it during the summer, when things
> warm up.
> piece of paper. You can cut off a ~1" piece from a side, and roll it
> into a tube, with distinct inner and outer surfaces. However, if you
> roll one end 180 degrees, you'll end up with a twisted tube where the
> same surface is both on the outside and the inside.
If it really is twisted - then there's no way that they share the same North & South; meaning N & S should be twisted as well and "walking along the North" you end up getting to the South & back. AND also it should be at least dual sided, because you'd get to the "other side" after a twist...
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
news:4f0fcdad-2aa5-4068...@googlegroups.com:
(What's described is a Möbius strip. Good will show you pictures.
In 1949, it was, I expect, less well known.
--
Terry Austin
Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB
"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek
Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.
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