Warped/Looped Spacetime stories?
David Silberstein
In article <admnie$2h3$1...@panix3.panix.com>,
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
[LAND OF THE LOST, classic version]
>
>Small, too. I'm *still* giggling over the scene where somebody stands
>on a mountaintop and looks into the furthest distance with his
>powerful binoculars and sees... the back of somebody standing on a
>mountaintop, apparently holding something up to his eyes.
>
Is "And He Built a Crooked House" the earliest use of this particular
looped spacetime set piece? The isfdb says that story was published
in 1941, which might mean that it is the seed of that particular meme.
As a classic of science fiction, it is almost certainly what spread
the idea. Unless there's something I'm unaware of?
What are the other stories (or other media, for that matter - it
did occur in some of the comic books I read, although I don't
remember which ones) that used it?
I know of "A Subway Named Mobius" (although that should be spelled
either "Moebius" or "Möbius"), and I think I've heard of something
by Chris Priest. Anything else?
Dorothy J Heydt
David Silberstein <dav...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>[Detaching from original thread to ask a new question]
>
>In article <admnie$2h3$1...@panix3.panix.com>,
>William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> [LAND OF THE LOST, classic version]
>
>>Small, too. I'm *still* giggling over the scene where somebody stands
>>on a mountaintop and looks into the furthest distance with his
>>powerful binoculars and sees... the back of somebody standing on a
>>mountaintop, apparently holding something up to his eyes.
>>
>
>Is "And He Built a Crooked House" the earliest use of this particular
>looped spacetime set piece?
Are you sure you don't mean "By His Bootstraps"? It's been a
million years since I read "Crooked House" and I remember almost
nothing about it, but I didn't think there was any time-looping
in it.
The isfdb says that story was published
>in 1941, which might mean that it is the seed of that particular meme.
>As a classic of science fiction, it is almost certainly what spread
>the idea. Unless there's something I'm unaware of?
>
>What are the other stories (or other media, for that matter - it
>did occur in some of the comic books I read, although I don't
>remember which ones) that used it?
>
>I know of "A Subway Named Mobius" (although that should be spelled
>either "Moebius" or "Möbius"), and I think I've heard of something
>by Chris Priest. Anything else?
Hm. Delany, _Empire Star_. The last scene of _2001_. ;)
And there's another story, which was in _Galaxy_ in the 1950s or
early 1960s, about an art historian who comes back in time to
research a famous 20thC artist about whom he has already written
one book. Catastrophes cause the historian to be stranded in the
past and the artist to be killed with most of his work undone,
and the historian in desperation takes up painting to make a
living. He proceeds to paint all the paintings the dead artist
would otherwise have painted, from his memory of the book.
The narrator patiently sympathizes with how he feels Just Awful
about plagiarizing the other artist's work, all from his memories
of the book. "I asked him about the book last weekend, and he
can't remember more than a word out of it. Of course he can't.
He's the real {name of artist} and there is no paradox. But if I
told him that it would undermine what little self-confidence he's
got. So I just keep telling him 'Forget it. A buck's a buck.'"
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
David Silberstein
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>In article <GxCz0...@kithrup.com>,
>David Silberstein <dav...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>>[Detaching from original thread to ask a new question]
>>
>>In article <admnie$2h3$1...@panix3.panix.com>,
>>William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>> [LAND OF THE LOST, classic version]
>>
>>>Small, too. I'm *still* giggling over the scene where somebody stands
>>>on a mountaintop and looks into the furthest distance with his
>>>powerful binoculars and sees... the back of somebody standing on a
>>>mountaintop, apparently holding something up to his eyes.
>>>
>>
>>Is "And He Built a Crooked House" the earliest use of this particular
>>looped spacetime set piece?
>
>Are you sure you don't mean "By His Bootstraps"? It's been a
>million years since I read "Crooked House" and I remember almost
>nothing about it, but I didn't think there was any time-looping
>in it.
No, I meant "Crooked House". That's the hypercube house that folds
through the 4th dimension during an earthquake. The architect and
potential buyers are inside at the time. They spot some "strangers"
a few rooms away and chase after them, but the "strangers" flee at
exactly the same speed. Finally they stop and realize that the backs
of those "strangers" look awfully familiar...
I should probably have written "Looped Space". I wrote "spacetime"
simply because space and time are inextricably linked. I'm not
thinking of time travel /per se/ at this point in time.
machf
Hmmm... I've read both of those, there's a third story that comes to my mind,
about people living in a world that was kind of a Moebius strip or Klein
bottle, and a warrior/adventurer decides to travel along the corridor that
extends outwards of their valley/city/whatever and ends up returning to the
same point. Can't remember the title, or where I read it.
--
__________ ____---____ Marco Antonio Checa Funcke
\_________D /-/---_----' Santiago de Surco, Lima, Peru
_H__/_/ http://machf.tripod.com
'-_____|(
remove the "no_me_j." and "sons.of." parts before replying
machf
>And there's another story, which was in _Galaxy_ in the 1950s or
>early 1960s, about an art historian who comes back in time to
>research a famous 20thC artist about whom he has already written
>one book. Catastrophes cause the historian to be stranded in the
>past and the artist to be killed with most of his work undone,
>and the historian in desperation takes up painting to make a
>living. He proceeds to paint all the paintings the dead artist
>would otherwise have painted, from his memory of the book.
>
>The narrator patiently sympathizes with how he feels Just Awful
>about plagiarizing the other artist's work, all from his memories
>of the book. "I asked him about the book last weekend, and he
>can't remember more than a word out of it. Of course he can't.
>He's the real {name of artist} and there is no paradox. But if I
>told him that it would undermine what little self-confidence he's
>got. So I just keep telling him 'Forget it. A buck's a buck.'"
>
Let's not forget Asimov's _The End of Eternity_ ...
Nancy Lebovitz
>David Silberstein <dav...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>>[Detaching from original thread to ask a new question]
>>
>>In article <admnie$2h3$1...@panix3.panix.com>,
>>William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>> [LAND OF THE LOST, classic version]
>>
>>>Small, too. I'm *still* giggling over the scene where somebody stands
>>>on a mountaintop and looks into the furthest distance with his
>>>powerful binoculars and sees... the back of somebody standing on a
>>>mountaintop, apparently holding something up to his eyes.
>>>
>>
>>Is "And He Built a Crooked House" the earliest use of this particular
>>looped spacetime set piece?
There's a story published with Seuss's "Yertle the Turtle"--in the
one I'm thinking of, too animals are arguing about which of them
can see farther. Finally, a worm claims that he can see all the
way around the planet, and what he sees is two fools arguing.
IIRC, the illustrations leave the possibility that the worm really
does see that far.
Here's an early sf example: "As Never Was" by P. Schuyler Miller, 1944.
IIRC, it's about a knife which appears to loop in time and never
has an origin in this universe.
>
>Are you sure you don't mean "By His Bootstraps"? It's been a
>million years since I read "Crooked House" and I remember almost
>nothing about it, but I didn't think there was any time-looping
>in it.
>
>The isfdb says that story was published
>>in 1941, which might mean that it is the seed of that particular meme.
>>As a classic of science fiction, it is almost certainly what spread
>>the idea. Unless there's something I'm unaware of?
>>
>>What are the other stories (or other media, for that matter - it
>>did occur in some of the comic books I read, although I don't
>>remember which ones) that used it?
>>
>>I know of "A Subway Named Mobius" (although that should be spelled
>>either "Moebius" or "Möbius"), and I think I've heard of something
>>by Chris Priest. Anything else?
>
>Hm. Delany, _Empire Star_. The last scene of _2001_. ;)
>
>And there's another story, which was in _Galaxy_ in the 1950s or
>early 1960s, about an art historian who comes back in time to
>research a famous 20thC artist about whom he has already written
>one book. Catastrophes cause the historian to be stranded in the
>past and the artist to be killed with most of his work undone,
>and the historian in desperation takes up painting to make a
>living. He proceeds to paint all the paintings the dead artist
>would otherwise have painted, from his memory of the book.
>
>He's the real {name of artist} and there is no paradox. But if I
>told him that it would undermine what little self-confidence he's
>got. So I just keep telling him 'Forget it. A buck's a buck.'"
>The narrator patiently sympathizes with how he feels Just Awful
>about plagiarizing the other artist's work, all from his memories
>of the book. "I asked him about the book last weekend, and he
>can't remember more than a word out of it. Of course he can't.
That sounds a great deal like William Tenn's "The Discovery of
Morniel Mathaway", except that the artist knows he's a fraud,
steals the book of his paintings, and takes the time machine into
the future, stranding the the art historian in the past to produce
"his" paintings.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com 100 new slogans
I want to move to theory. Everything works in theory.
Cosmin Corbea
news:GxCz0...@kithrup.com...
> [Detaching from original thread to ask a new question]
>
> In article <admnie$2h3$1...@panix3.panix.com>,
> William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> [LAND OF THE LOST, classic version]
>
> >
> >Small, too. I'm *still* giggling over the scene where somebody stands
> >on a mountaintop and looks into the furthest distance with his
> >powerful binoculars and sees... the back of somebody standing on a
> >mountaintop, apparently holding something up to his eyes.
> >
>
> Is "And He Built a Crooked House" the earliest use of this particular
> looped spacetime set piece?
If I remember correctly there was an earlier story, written by Kurt Lasswitz
in 1895: "Wie der Teufel den Professor holte" (a google search finds it was
translated as "When the Devil Took the Professor" in Magazine of Fantasy and
Science Fiction, January 1953).
I read this more than twenty years ago, so I may be mistaken, but the story
I remember uses a similar gimmick: the devil takes the professor for an
extended ride through the Universe, but sets by mistake the length of the
trip to the circumference of the (closed) Universe, and is very surprised to
find himself back in the Solar system.
> What are the other stories (or other media, for that matter - it
> did occur in some of the comic books I read, although I don't
> remember which ones) that used it?
A beautiful example of space looping is Ted Chiang's "Tower of Babylon".
A number of nicely handled temporal loops in "The Anubis Gates" (by Tim
Powers, as if I have to mention it).
Regards,
Cosmin Corbea
Dorothy J Heydt
Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix1.netaxs.com> wrote:
>In article <GxD0p...@kithrup.com>,
>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>>And there's another story, which was in _Galaxy_ in the 1950s or
>>early 1960s, about an art historian who comes back in time to
>>research a famous 20thC artist about whom he has already written
>>one book. Catastrophes cause the historian to be stranded in the
>>past and the artist to be killed with most of his work undone,
>>and the historian in desperation takes up painting to make a
>>living. He proceeds to paint all the paintings the dead artist
>>would otherwise have painted, from his memory of the book.
>>
>>The narrator patiently sympathizes with how he feels Just Awful
>>about plagiarizing the other artist's work, all from his memories
>>of the book. "I asked him about the book last weekend, and he
>>can't remember more than a word out of it. Of course he can't.
>>He's the real {name of artist} and there is no paradox. But if I
>>told him that it would undermine what little self-confidence he's
>>got. So I just keep telling him 'Forget it. A buck's a buck.'"
>
>That sounds a great deal like William Tenn's "The Discovery of
>Morniel Mathaway", except that the artist knows he's a fraud,
>steals the book of his paintings, and takes the time machine into
>the future, stranding the the art historian in the past to produce
>"his" paintings.
Hm, the name sounds familiar, so I think you are right. It's
been ever so long since I read it.
John F. Eldredge
Hash: SHA1
I (vaguely) remember a short story, called something like "The Island
of Doctor Doctor", in which an island was in use as a mental
hospital. Each inmate was confined to a wedge-shaped section of the
island. If you tried to walk through the border into the next wedge,
you would find yourself emerging from the opposite border of your own
wedge (i.e., if you entered the left border, you would emerge from
the right border). At one point the protagonist stands near the
point of the wedge, and sees a person standing right ahead of him.
He places his hand on the person's shoulder, and feels a hand placed
on his own shoulder (his own hand, in other words).
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--
John F. Eldredge -- new address jo...@jfeldredge.com
eldr...@earthlink.net, eldr...@poboxes.com still work
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power;
not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace."
Woodrow Wilson
Mike Schilling
news:GxD0p...@kithrup.com...
>
> And there's another story, which was in _Galaxy_ in the 1950s or
> early 1960s, about an art historian who comes back in time to
> research a famous 20thC artist about whom he has already written
> one book. Catastrophes cause the historian to be stranded in the
> past and the artist to be killed with most of his work undone,
> and the historian in desperation takes up painting to make a
> living. He proceeds to paint all the paintings the dead artist
> would otherwise have painted, from his memory of the book.
Sounds like Anthony Boucher's _Transfer Point_, except that's about an SF
writer.
Ric Locke
[snip]
>
> I should probably have written "Looped Space". I wrote "spacetime"
> simply because space and time are inextricably linked. I'm not
> thinking of time travel /per se/ at this point in time.
So _All You Zombies_ doesn't qualify.
Tightest time loop I can recall.
Regards,
Ric
Nancy Lebovitz
The NESFA edition reprints all of Tenn's fiction--with new afterwords
added. This might be an excuse for rereading.
Christopher Tumber
>And there's another story, which was in _Galaxy_ in the 1950s or
>early 1960s, about an art historian who comes back in time to
>research a famous 20thC artist about whom he has already written
>one book. Catastrophes cause the historian to be stranded in the
>past and the artist to be killed with most of his work undone,
>and the historian in desperation takes up painting to make a
>living. He proceeds to paint all the paintings the dead artist
>would otherwise have painted, from his memory of the book.
"The Discovery Of Morneal Mathaway", also produced as an episode of
X-1 (The great SF radio drama from the 50's...)
Chris...
Steve Taylor
> The NESFA edition reprints all of Tenn's fiction--with new afterwords
> added. This might be an excuse for rereading.
Has the second volume come out yet? I've just bought the first volume
and have been enjoying it hugely - though I thought the Connie Willis
forward was rather lacklustre.
> Nancy Lebovitz
Steve
Nancy Lebovitz
Steve Taylor <sm...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>
>> The NESFA edition reprints all of Tenn's fiction--with new afterwords
>> added. This might be an excuse for rereading.
>
>Has the second volume come out yet? I've just bought the first volume
Yes.
>and have been enjoying it hugely - though I thought the Connie Willis
>forward was rather lacklustre.
Dwight Thieme
: I (vaguely) remember a short story, called something like "The Island
: of Doctor Doctor", in which an island was in use as a mental
: hospital. Each inmate was confined to a wedge-shaped section of the
: island. If you tried to walk through the border into the next wedge,
: you would find yourself emerging from the opposite border of your own
: wedge (i.e., if you entered the left border, you would emerge from
: the right border). At one point the protagonist stands near the
: point of the wedge, and sees a person standing right ahead of him.
: He places his hand on the person's shoulder, and feels a hand placed
: on his own shoulder (his own hand, in other words).
Rudy Rucker did something like this in "Master of Time & Space"
when the narrator asks his friend to put him into an 'infinite
regression'. His friend obliges by putting him into a -double-
infinite regression while making a remark about how anal such
a request is. Spot on.
Richard Harter
Silberstein) wrote:
>[Detaching from original thread to ask a new question]
>
>In article <admnie$2h3$1...@panix3.panix.com>,
>William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> [LAND OF THE LOST, classic version]
>
>>
>>Small, too. I'm *still* giggling over the scene where somebody stands
>>on a mountaintop and looks into the furthest distance with his
>>powerful binoculars and sees... the back of somebody standing on a
>>mountaintop, apparently holding something up to his eyes.
Dunsany has a story like that. The protagonists see gods atop a
mountain in the distance. They travel to the mountain top. From the
mountain top they see in the distance a still greater mountain with
still still greater gods. They travel on to the second mountain.
After several iterations they arrive at their original starting place.
The cycle trope, either in space or in time, is ancient and
widespread.
>>
>
>Is "And He Built a Crooked House" the earliest use of this particular
>looped spacetime set piece? The isfdb says that story was published
>in 1941, which might mean that it is the seed of that particular meme.
>As a classic of science fiction, it is almost certainly what spread
>the idea. Unless there's something I'm unaware of?
>
>What are the other stories (or other media, for that matter - it
>did occur in some of the comic books I read, although I don't
>remember which ones) that used it?
>
>I know of "A Subway Named Mobius" (although that should be spelled
>either "Moebius" or "Möbius"), and I think I've heard of something
>by Chris Priest. Anything else?
Arthur C. Clarke has a short story (the title may be "The Wall") in
which the protagonist lives on a world which has a great wall
straddling the world. He manages to climb over it and discovers that
the wall was built to conceal the fact that the surface of the world
was a moebius strip.
>
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net,
http://home.tiac.net/~cri, http://www.varinoma.com
As I was saying to my knee the other day,
What's a joint like you doing in a nice guy like me?
Fred Galvin
> Arthur C. Clarke has a short story (the title may be "The Wall") in
> which the protagonist lives on a world which has a great wall
> straddling the world. He manages to climb over it and discovers that
> the wall was built to conceal the fact that the surface of the world
> was a moebius strip.
"The Wall of Darkness"
David Silberstein
>of Doctor Doctor", in which an island was in use as a mental
>hospital. Each inmate was confined to a wedge-shaped section of the
>island. If you tried to walk through the border into the next wedge,
>you would find yourself emerging from the opposite border of your own
>wedge (i.e., if you entered the left border, you would emerge from
>the right border). At one point the protagonist stands near the
>point of the wedge, and sees a person standing right ahead of him.
>He places his hand on the person's shoulder, and feels a hand placed
>on his own shoulder (his own hand, in other words).
>
"The Death of Doctor Island", by Gene Wolfe. Collected in
"The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories"
I'd forgotten that part. I just reread it now. What I remembered
was the ending, which is pretty sick.
It was actually three inmates all in one wedge. The other wedges,
and the reason for setting them up at all, is never satisfactorily
explained.
machf
>
>Arthur C. Clarke has a short story (the title may be "The Wall") in
>which the protagonist lives on a world which has a great wall
>straddling the world. He manages to climb over it and discovers that
>the wall was built to conceal the fact that the surface of the world
>was a moebius strip.
>
*That* was the one whose title I couldn't remember...
David Silberstein
Ric Locke <warl...@mesh.net> wrote:
>dav...@kithrup.com (David Silberstein) wrote in message
>news:<GxD4I...@kithrup.com>...
>[snip]
>>
>> I should probably have written "Looped Space". I wrote "spacetime"
>> simply because space and time are inextricably linked. I'm not
>> thinking of time travel /per se/ at this point in time.
>
>So _All You Zombies_ doesn't qualify.
Not for here. All I meant was "space so tightly looped one can see
the back of one's head". The inverse is also interesting, such as
Niven and Pournelle's "Inferno", where the wall of Hell can't be
reached no matter how much you walk.
Think of M. C. Escher's stuff.
David Silberstein
>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>>In article <GxCz0...@kithrup.com>,
>>David Silberstein <dav...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>>>[Detaching from original thread to ask a new question]
>>>
>>>In article <admnie$2h3$1...@panix3.panix.com>,
>>>William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> [LAND OF THE LOST, classic version]
>>>
>>>>Small, too. I'm *still* giggling over the scene where somebody stands
>>>>on a mountaintop and looks into the furthest distance with his
>>>>powerful binoculars and sees... the back of somebody standing on a
>>>>mountaintop, apparently holding something up to his eyes.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Is "And He Built a Crooked House" the earliest use of this particular
>>>looped spacetime set piece?
>
>There's a story published with Seuss's "Yertle the Turtle"--in the
>one I'm thinking of, too animals are arguing about which of them
>can see farther. Finally, a worm claims that he can see all the
>way around the planet, and what he sees is two fools arguing.
>IIRC, the illustrations leave the possibility that the worm really
>does see that far.
>
Hmm. Amazon says "Yertle the Turtle" was published in 1988, which
cannot possibly be right.
A more correct-looking bibliography says 1958, but one is doubtful
nevertheless Seuss was influenced by Heinlein. OTOH, why not?
John M. Gamble
machf <no_me_...@terra.com.pe> wrote:
>
>Hmmm... I've read both of those, there's a third story that comes to my mind,
>about people living in a world that was kind of a Moebius strip or Klein
>bottle, and a warrior/adventurer decides to travel along the corridor that
>extends outwards of their valley/city/whatever and ends up returning to the
>same point. Can't remember the title, or where I read it.
>
Arthur C. Clarke's "The Wall of Darkness"?
-john
February 28 1997: Last day libraries could order catalogue cards
from the Library of Congress.
Mike Schilling
There's a sequel to _Flatland_ called _Sphereland_ in which IIRC the hexagon
(A. Square's grandson) sees all the way around his universe.
Richard Horton
Silberstein) wrote:
>In article <qJeM8.254$kW1.1...@newshog.newsread.com>,
>Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix1.netaxs.com> wrote:
>>There's a story published with Seuss's "Yertle the Turtle"--in the
>>one I'm thinking of, too animals are arguing about which of them
>>can see farther. Finally, a worm claims that he can see all the
>>way around the planet, and what he sees is two fools arguing.
>>IIRC, the illustrations leave the possibility that the worm really
>>does see that far.
>>
>
This is "The Big Brag", the third story in _Yertle the Turtle and
Other Stories_.
>Hmm. Amazon says "Yertle the Turtle" was published in 1988, which
>cannot possibly be right.
>
>A more correct-looking bibliography says 1958, but one is doubtful
>nevertheless Seuss was influenced by Heinlein. OTOH, why not?
My edition of _Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories_ says "Copyright
1950, 1951 by McCall Corporation. Copyright 1958 by Theodore Geisel".
From this I infer that one or more of the stories were published in
some form (perhaps in the magazine McCalls?) in 1950 and 1951, and
that the book, collecting the three stories "Yertle the Turtle",
"Gertrude McFuzz", and "The Big Brag", was published in 1958.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.tangentonline.com)
fruk...@aol.com
>
> >And there's another story, which was in _Galaxy_ in the 1950s or
> >early 1960s, about an art historian who comes back in time to
> >research a famous 20thC artist about whom he has already written
> >one book. Catastrophes cause the historian to be stranded in the
> >past and the artist to be killed with most of his work undone,
> >and the historian in desperation takes up painting to make a
> >living. He proceeds to paint all the paintings the dead artist
> >would otherwise have painted, from his memory of the book.
The story is William Tenn's "The Discovery of Morniel Mathaway,"
published originally in Galaxy, 1955, and now available in the NESFA
collection <I> Here Comes Civilization. <I> There's no catastrophe,
however, except for the historian: The artist (who isn't killed)steals
the historian's time machine and goes off to the future that much
admires him, leaving the stranded historian to take his place.
The concept is used again by Michael Moorcock, in <Ecce Homo,> where a
historian finds that he has to fill in for Jesus.
machf
>In article <rrs2gughj6m32rthe...@4ax.com>,
>machf <no_me_...@terra.com.pe> wrote:
>>
>>Hmmm... I've read both of those, there's a third story that comes to my mind,
>>about people living in a world that was kind of a Moebius strip or Klein
>>bottle, and a warrior/adventurer decides to travel along the corridor that
>>extends outwards of their valley/city/whatever and ends up returning to the
>>same point. Can't remember the title, or where I read it.
>>
>
>Arthur C. Clarke's "The Wall of Darkness"?
>
Yes, that was it. It must have been in a Clarke anthology I read back then
at the school library...
Mark Reichert
> So _All You Zombies_ doesn't qualify.
>
> Tightest time loop I can recall.
Would a six million year time loop qualify as the most loose? Then
again, the requirements for getting the loop to work were just as
stringent as any of the shorter ones of which I've read.
Robert Carnegie
> "David Silberstein" <dav...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
> news:GxCz0...@kithrup.com...
> > [Detaching from original thread to ask a new question]
> >
> > In article <admnie$2h3$1...@panix3.panix.com>,
> > William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
> >
> > [LAND OF THE LOST, classic version]
> >
> > >
> > >Small, too. I'm *still* giggling over the scene where somebody stands
> > >on a mountaintop and looks into the furthest distance with his
> > >powerful binoculars and sees... the back of somebody standing on a
> > >mountaintop, apparently holding something up to his eyes.
> > >
> >
> > Is "And He Built a Crooked House" the earliest use of this particular
> > looped spacetime set piece?
>
> If I remember correctly there was an earlier story, written by Kurt Lasswitz
> in 1895: "Wie der Teufel den Professor holte" (a google search finds it was
> translated as "When the Devil Took the Professor" in Magazine of Fantasy and
> Science Fiction, January 1953).
>
> I read this more than twenty years ago, so I may be mistaken, but the story
> I remember uses a similar gimmick: the devil takes the professor for an
> extended ride through the Universe, but sets by mistake the length of the
> trip to the circumference of the (closed) Universe, and is very surprised to
> find himself back in the Solar system.
Interesting that the Universe is closed in 1895, if that date is
definite and (if applicable) if the translation is accurate;
http://www.astr.ua.edu/keel/galaxies/history.html
bears out my impression that that's not only before Einstein
but before it was decided that some fuzzy things in the sky
are actually other galaxies. Indeed, I'm surprised that the
latter seems to fall well _after_ Einstein's early, stunning
work.
I suppose that the Devil might reasonably claim to know more about
how the world is made (having been there to see it happen?) than
contemporary science in 1895. And it's after the Michelson-Morley
experiment(s) (http://www.drphysics.com/syllabus/M_M/M_M.html ,
1881, 1887), so it can be said to have been known then that there
was _something_ wrong with cosmology. Non-Euclidean geometry
had been imagined long before, four smart guys named at
http://www.cut-the-knot.com/triangle/pythpar/Drama.shtml
were all dead by then, but that site in particular can scarcely
even hint at an idea that the real world might have non-Euclidean
geometry (except in the trivial sense of using paths on the
near-spherical surface of the Earth instead of straight lines).
But then Lewis Carroll's friend Alice had some odd experiences,
including running at top speed and making no headway whatever -
this experience with the Red Queen in _Through the Looking-Glass_
(1872) is borrowed to name a theory in evolution. Dreams don't
count, though!
Fun and games with space, time, God, and the Devil and his minions
are also due to Larry Niven and Isaac Asimov. The one where the
fellow travels back in time and gets away, is that Asimov?
Robert Carnegie
Is this the one where you need a galaxy-sized cylindrical black hole?
There was the _Star Trek The Next Generation_ episode where they dug
up Data the android's own head in an archaeological dig, which he
intepreted as an intimation of mortality - wrongly, as it turned out,
but one might guess that it could have been a consideration in the
actor's contract negotiation ;-)
It wasn't that old, though; just a few centuries. Now, if the
eccentric scientist turns up fossilised with the dinosaurs, _that's_
a big time loop - although even then by cosmological standards -
There's also the scientific experiments which _cause_ the extinction
of the dinosaurs _or_ the beginning of life on Earth _or_ the Big Bang.
See _Doctor Who_ passim ;-) (The Big Bang, twice!) And also elsewhere.
There's a space-loop scene or two in the Monochrome Dimension in
Roger Zelazny's second Amber series, and I think mirages, at least,
where you see _yourself_, somewhere I think in W. E. Johns'
"Biggles in space" series (Biggles isn't in it, but another
R.A.F. veteran is [Biggles is R.F.C. _and_ R.A.F.]). Just
peculiar atmospheric conditions, I think; mirages, as I say.
There's a comicbook series, _Midnight Nation_ written by J. Michael
Straczynski, where this guy has his soul stolen and is cast into
the invisible dimension so that no one can see him, and he has to
walk from Los Angeles to New York to get it back within the time limit,
with this chick who's his guardian angel or something. On the way
he meets himself coming back from the future:
"So tell me, did I get my soul back?"
"Nope."
He goes on anyway. Don't ask me if it's worth the journey, there's
one more out of twelve issues still to come, but it was kind of
interesting along the way, at least.
Cartoons using the metaphor include one (written, maybe filmed)
about Iznogoud the evil Vizier who always wants to depose the
apparently stupid Caliph he theoretically serves, where the
regular cast of Iznogoud's stories are enchanted into
(anachonism unremarked) a seaside holiday postcard, which has
such properties. Iznogoud, who didn't want to be trapped in
there _with_ the Caliph, tries to dig his way out, on the beach,
and finds not sand, but paper; then he falls through the hole -
and out of the sky. (I think; it's been a while.)
In film cartoons I think the equivalent is stepping or tunnelling
out of one snapshot frame in the film and into the next.
Nancy Lebovitz
Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>Mark_R...@hotmail.com (Mark Reichert) wrote in message news:<99e65015.0206...@posting.google.com>...
>> warl...@mesh.net (Ric Locke) wrote in message news:<3a736bea.02060...@posting.google.com>...
>> > So _All You Zombies_ doesn't qualify.
>> >
>> > Tightest time loop I can recall.
>>
>> Would a six million year time loop qualify as the most loose? Then
>> again, the requirements for getting the loop to work were just as
>> stringent as any of the shorter ones of which I've read.
>
>Is this the one where you need a galaxy-sized cylindrical black hole?
>
a man finds himself on a time pendulum which is swinging wider and
wider. He realizes that he'll eventually swing back so far that
his temporal energy (?) will overcome the insulation of his
spacesuit (?), and that he will cause, if not witness, the
beginning of the universe. There's no explanation of where
all that energy is coming from, but that doesn't matter if the
idea has enough scope, right?
Fred Galvin
>
> "Cosmin Corbea" <cosminc@no_spam_pls.canada.com.invalid> wrote in
> message news:<bNeM8.4227$a11....@nwrddc01.gnilink.net>...
> > Kurt Lasswitz in 1895: "Wie der Teufel den Professor holte" (a
> > google search finds it was translated as "When the Devil Took the
> > Professor" in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January
> > 1953).
> > I read this more than twenty years ago, so I may be mistaken, but
> > the story I remember uses a similar gimmick: the devil takes the
> > professor for an extended ride through the Universe, but sets by
> > mistake the length of the trip to the circumference of the
> > (closed) Universe, and is very surprised to find himself back in
> > the Solar system.
>
> Interesting that the Universe is closed in 1895, if that date is
> definite and (if applicable) if the translation is accurate;
Probably accurate; the translator was Willy Ley.
> http://www.astr.ua.edu/keel/galaxies/history.html
> bears out my impression that that's not only before Einstein
So what? Einstein didn't invent the idea of curved space. Quoting from
Matts Roos, _Introduction to Cosmology_, Wiley, 1994, p. 3:
. . . Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866) pointed out that the world
could be _finite_, yet _unbounded_ provided the geometry of
the space had a positive curvature, however small. On the basis
of Riemann's geometry Albert Einstein (1879-1955) subsequently
established the connection between the geometry of space and
the distribution of matter.
Speculations about curved space were very popular in the 19th century.
Of course it was not *known* then (as it is not known today) whether
space was finite or infinite.
> but before it was decided that some fuzzy things in the sky
> are actually other galaxies. Indeed, I'm surprised that the
> latter seems to fall well _after_ Einstein's early, stunning
> work.
>
> I suppose that the Devil might reasonably claim to know more about
> how the world is made (having been there to see it happen?) than
> contemporary science in 1895.
Not in the story. After circumnavigating the cosmos in the devil's
much-faster-than-light spaceship, the Professor has to explain to the
puzzled devil:
You simply made a mistake in assuming that space is infinite.
Our mathematicians have known for a long time that an infinity
of types of space is possible. They just could not prove which
of the possible types applied to our own space. But now we have
traveled 10^17 kilometers in a straight line and we are back
about where we started.
Lasswitz also wrote "The Universal Library"; Willy Ley's translation
of that is in Clifton Fadiman's anthology _Fanstasia Mathematica_.
Mark Reichert
> > Would a six million year time loop qualify as the most loose? Then
> > again, the requirements for getting the loop to work were just as
> > stringent as any of the shorter ones of which I've read.
>
> Is this the one where you need a galaxy-sized cylindrical black hole?
Nah, it's Julian May's Saga of the Pliocene Exiles. If I say anything
more it will be too much.
Cosmin Corbea
news:f3f18bc0.02061...@posting.google.com...
> "Cosmin Corbea" <cosminc@no_spam_pls.canada.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:<bNeM8.4227$a11....@nwrddc01.gnilink.net>...
> >
> > in 1895: "Wie der Teufel den Professor holte" (a google search finds it
was
> > translated as "When the Devil Took the Professor" in Magazine of Fantasy
and
> > Science Fiction, January 1953).
> >
> > I read this more than twenty years ago, so I may be mistaken, but the
story
> > I remember uses a similar gimmick: the devil takes the professor for an
> > extended ride through the Universe, but sets by mistake the length of
the
> > trip to the circumference of the (closed) Universe, and is very
surprised to
> > find himself back in the Solar system.
>
> Interesting that the Universe is closed in 1895, if that date is
> definite and (if applicable) if the translation is accurate;
> http://www.astr.ua.edu/keel/galaxies/history.html
> bears out my impression that that's not only before Einstein
> but before it was decided that some fuzzy things in the sky
> are actually other galaxies. Indeed, I'm surprised that the
> latter seems to fall well _after_ Einstein's early, stunning
> work.
And Lasswitz includes some playful riffs on the speed of light too; the
professsor looks at the Earth (using a diabolic telescope) and sees himself
the previous week. Felt pretty advanced to me, at least based on my
preconceptions about 19th century science. But then, Wells wrote "The
TimeMachine" in the same period.
> I suppose that the Devil might reasonably claim to know more about
> how the world is made (having been there to see it happen?) than
> contemporary science in 1895.
Actually, in the story, the Devil believed he lived in an Euclidian
universe. The professor has to explain the latest cosmological theories to
the bewildered fiend and earns his freedom in the process.
Regards,
Cosmin Corbea
Mike Schilling
"Mark Reichert" <Mark_R...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:99e65015.0206...@posting.google.com...
That would be Pliocene Exile/ Galactic Milieu?
Robert Carnegie
Really? Then I've learned something. I knew that alternate
geometries were worked on as mathematical ideas, but I had
always thought that Einstein's suggestion that the real world
is non-Euclidean came as an unexpected thunderbolt from the blue.
That's the way they usually tell it; I suppose it makes a better
story that way.
There have been some very odd ideas about the shape of the world
and of the cosmos - allegedly, surprisingly recently; for instance,
that the surface of the Earth is the _inside_ of a sphere.
But one wouldn't call that a _popular_ idea.
> > I suppose that the Devil might reasonably claim to know more about
> > how the world is made (having been there to see it happen?) than
> > contemporary science in 1895.
>
> Not in the story. After circumnavigating the cosmos in the devil's
> much-faster-than-light spaceship, the Professor has to explain to the
> puzzled devil:
>
> You simply made a mistake in assuming that space is infinite.
> Our mathematicians have known for a long time that an infinity
> of types of space is possible. They just could not prove which
> of the possible types applied to our own space. But now we have
> traveled 10^17 kilometers in a straight line and we are back
> about where we started.
Whoa, points scored for writing "10^17" in dialogue. ;-)
I think that's 10,570 light-years?? Size of Galaxy (which
was then the known Universe) is now reckoned...100,000
light years, according to "Ask A High Energy Astronomer"
at http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/001205a.html
(although it really belongs at http://www.theonion.com/ ;-)
But I may be wrong twice...
> Lasswitz also wrote "The Universal Library"; Willy Ley's translation
> of that is in Clifton Fadiman's anthology _Fanstasia Mathematica_.
Is this the one with all the books? _All_ the books, an infinite
library containing (at least) one copy of each possible text of any
length. Or something. Also foreseen by Lewis Carroll again.
Incidentally, I have before me Terry Pratchett's
_The Dark Side of the Sun_, partly re-read for the first time
in a long while, in which the protagonist somehow (I forget)
loses a spaceship called /One Jump Ahead/ and so chooses to
procure another, which he wants to call /A Jump So Far Ahead
That If Einstein Had Been Right It Would End Right Behind You/,
although it isn't actually that good. The book is interesting,
though. The space-going human and alien society seems to have
modelled a lot of its culture (holidays, etc) on the Discworld,
plus bits from (rewritten) _The Carpet People_ - although of
course Pratchett wrote _Carpet People_ and _Dark Side_ /first/.
Tom Scudder
> On Fri, 7 Jun 2002 23:09:57 GMT, dav...@kithrup.com (David
> Silberstein) wrote:
>
> >[Detaching from original thread to ask a new question]
> >
> >In article <admnie$2h3$1...@panix3.panix.com>,
> >William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
> >
> > [LAND OF THE LOST, classic version]
> >
> >>
> >>Small, too. I'm *still* giggling over the scene where somebody stands
> >>on a mountaintop and looks into the furthest distance with his
> >>powerful binoculars and sees... the back of somebody standing on a
> >>mountaintop, apparently holding something up to his eyes.
>
> Dunsany has a story like that. The protagonists see gods atop a
> mountain in the distance. They travel to the mountain top. From the
> mountain top they see in the distance a still greater mountain with
> still still greater gods. They travel on to the second mountain.
> After several iterations they arrive at their original starting place.
There's the story William Hastings sells to Analog in THE DIGGING
LEVIATHAN (by James Blaylock), which features a fat man, a rocket
ship, a big space loop, and a profound misunderstanding of relativity.
I'd be shocked if Blaylock hasn't played with space-loops anywhere
else. (I can't quite remember if LAND OF DREAMS qualifies.)
Fred Galvin
> Fred Galvin <gal...@math.ukans.edu> wrote in message
> news:<Pine.LNX.4.21.02061...@titania.math.ukans.edu>...
> > Speculations about curved space were very popular in the 19th century.
> > Of course it was not *known* then (as it is not known today) whether
> > space was finite or infinite.
>
> Really? Then I've learned something. I knew that alternate
> geometries were worked on as mathematical ideas, but I had
> always thought that Einstein's suggestion that the real world
> is non-Euclidean came as an unexpected thunderbolt from the blue.
Oh, well, maybe I was wrong. I'm looking at a popular astronomy book
from the 1880s, and it contradicts what I said: "We know that space
must be infinite. If the region amid which stars and nebulae are
scattered in inconceivable profusion be limited, if beyond lies on all
sides a vast void, or if, instead, there be material bounds inclosing
the universe of worlds on every hand, yet where are the limits of void
or bound? Infinity of space, occupied or unoccupied, there must
undoubtedly be." I suspect the author was behind the times, but what
do I know?
> > Lasswitz also wrote "The Universal Library"; Willy Ley's translation
> > of that is in Clifton Fadiman's anthology _Fanstasia Mathematica_.
>
> Is this the one with all the books? _All_ the books, an infinite
> library containing (at least) one copy of each possible text of any
> length. Or something. Also foreseen by Lewis Carroll again.
The story is not fantastic; it tells of two guys *talking* about a
Universal Library. (Borges' "The Library of Babel" is a more fantastic
story on this theme.) Lasswitz's Universal Library is stupendously big
but finite, as it contains all possible texts of a fixed size: "I
should think that one can exhaust a theme pretty well with five
hundred book pages. Let's say that there are forty lines per page and
fifty characters per line. . .".
Matt McIrvin
rja.ca...@excite.com (Robert Carnegie) wrote:
> Really? Then I've learned something. I knew that alternate
> geometries were worked on as mathematical ideas, but I had
> always thought that Einstein's suggestion that the real world
> is non-Euclidean came as an unexpected thunderbolt from the blue.
> That's the way they usually tell it; I suppose it makes a better
> story that way.
Clifford had ideas that were in some ways even closer to being the
right ones than Riemann's. But the crucial thing that was missing from
all these attempts was the idea that it was not just space that was a
curved manifold, but space-time. That, in turn, was only a natural
thing for Einstein to think of after the convergence of concepts
associated with *special* relativity around 1905, and maybe even the
particular emphasis that Minkowski gave it.
The idea that space might really be non-Euclidean goes back to the
first attempts at non-Euclidean geometry. There is a legend that Gauss
tried to measure the curvature of space by finding the angles of a huge
triangle with surveying instruments, but it seems not to be true.
> > Lasswitz also wrote "The Universal Library"; Willy Ley's translation
> > of that is in Clifton Fadiman's anthology _Fanstasia Mathematica_.
>
> Is this the one with all the books? _All_ the books, an infinite
> library containing (at least) one copy of each possible text of any
> length. Or something. Also foreseen by Lewis Carroll again.
And either reworked or recapitulated by Borges, whose "The Library of
Babel" is probably the most famous version today.
--
Matt McIrvin http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/
Dwight Thieme
: warl...@mesh.net (Ric Locke) wrote in message news:<3a736bea.02060...@posting.google.com>...
:> So _All You Zombies_ doesn't qualify.
:>
:> Tightest time loop I can recall.
Baxter had something in 'Vaccuem Diagrams' with a time loop
hours - a man (boy) born complete who recapitulates in less
than a day. 'The Hole in the Zero', by, damn, I'm blanking
has a constantly tightening loop that goes from seven years
to zero.
Dwight Thieme
: "Cosmin Corbea" <cosminc@no_spam_pls.canada.com.invalid> wrote in message news:<bNeM8.4227$a11....@nwrddc01.gnilink.net>...
--
David Allsopp
edu>, Fred Galvin <gal...@math.ukans.edu> writes
>On 11 Jun 2002, Robert Carnegie wrote:
>
>> Fred Galvin <gal...@math.ukans.edu> wrote in message
>> news:<Pine.LNX.4.21.02061...@titania.math.ukans.edu>...
>> > of that is in Clifton Fadiman's anthology _Fanstasia Mathematica_.
>>
>> Is this the one with all the books? _All_ the books, an infinite
>> library containing (at least) one copy of each possible text of any
>> length. Or something. Also foreseen by Lewis Carroll again.
>
>The story is not fantastic; it tells of two guys *talking* about a
>Universal Library. (Borges' "The Library of Babel" is a more fantastic
>story on this theme.) Lasswitz's Universal Library is stupendously big
>but finite, as it contains all possible texts of a fixed size: "I
>should think that one can exhaust a theme pretty well with five
>hundred book pages. Let's say that there are forty lines per page and
>fifty characters per line. . .".
Um, I'm up far too early, and not thinking clearly, but is there a
contradiction here? I mean, "all 500-page books" clearly includes all
duologies in 500-page volumes, and all trilogies ditto, and so on. This
also includes shorter works with individual volumes padded out with
lines and lines of "x"s. This appears to mean "all possible books", but
the set of all combinations of (500 page) x (40 line) x (50 character)
ASCII symbols is certainly finite.
I wish I could get back to sleep. It's too *early* to be thinking about
countable infinities. I mean, I've got small children, I *should* be
able to sleep...
--
David Allsopp Houston, this is Tranquillity Base.
Remove SPAM to email me The Eagle has landed.
Fred Galvin
> In article <Pine.LNX.4.21.020611...@titania.math.ukans.
> edu>, Fred Galvin <gal...@math.ukans.edu> writes
> >
> >Lasswitz's Universal Library is stupendously big
> >but finite, as it contains all possible texts of a fixed size: "I
> >should think that one can exhaust a theme pretty well with five
> >hundred book pages. Let's say that there are forty lines per page and
> >fifty characters per line. . .".
>
> Um, I'm up far too early, and not thinking clearly, but is there a
> contradiction here? I mean, "all 500-page books" clearly includes all
> duologies in 500-page volumes, and all trilogies ditto, and so on.
Sure. But the Library has only one copy of each 500-page book; if you
need a multivolume work, the individual volumes will (probably) be
scattered, and you will need to put them together yourself.
> This also includes shorter works with individual volumes padded
> out with lines and lines of "x"s. This appears to mean "all
> possible books", but the set of all combinations of (500 page) x
> (40 line) x (50 character) ASCII symbols is certainly finite.
Sure. The story was written before ASCII was invented -- probably --
I'm too lazy to look up the respective dates. if I remember right, the
characters don't decide on a specific alphabet, but they figure that
100 characters should be enough.
A Universal Library could be built. Not Lasswitz's UL of 500-page
books, of course. However, if you allow multivolume works, then you
can save a lot of space by using smaller volumes. Say, one-page books,
with one character to a page.
Robert Carnegie
I've just remembered another kind-of case; in Peter F. Hamilton's
_A Quantum Murder_, the psi powers of precognition - seeing the
future - and also seeing the _past_ are both explained (but
questioned, and maybe the questioning is borne out in another
sequel which I haven't seen) as working through naturally occuring
closed timelike curves, time loops - at sub-atomic scale in space
and similarly small scale in time. Nevertheless, a suitably
equipped mind can extract information through, obviously,
a /long/ series of CTCs leading into the near past or future.
The respects in which this idea is nevertheless wholly absurd
need not be enumerated ;-)
Paul Andinach
> Fun and games with space, time, God, and the Devil and his
> minions are also due to Larry Niven and Isaac Asimov. The one
> where the fellow travels back in time and gets away, is that
> Asimov?
Yes. I can't remember the title, though.
Paul
--
The Pink Pedanther