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YASID: time travel for fun and non-profit

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Chris Duck

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Sep 8, 2011, 2:56:50 PM9/8/11
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Can anyone identify the name or author of this story?

Thanks!

"Reminds me of a scifi story I read years ago, perhaps in Analog, about an impoverished scientist who invented a time machine but didn't have the
enormous amounts of money needed to build a full-sized version. So he did some thinking on it, then went back to his lab where a full-sized version
was now standing. He used the machine to go back in time to the mid-1700s Bank of England and gave it the few hundred dollars (in gold) that he was
able to scrape together, with strict instructions on how the money should be invested for the next fifty years. He kept doing that every fifty years.
By World War I, his financial empire stretched around the world and by the 1960s (the time of the story) he had more than enough money to build his
machine. So he cashed out, built the machine, and left it in his lab for his earlier self to discover the next day. (Confused yet?)"

Joseph Nebus

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Sep 8, 2011, 3:32:26 PM9/8/11
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I'd be stunned if this were not Mack Reynolds's ``Compounded
Interest''. Originally published in Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1956,
but reprinted a lot.

--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lonnie Clay

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Sep 8, 2011, 3:33:44 PM9/8/11
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A well worn theme. A trivial time paradox. Intuitively obvious. Does the title or author really matter?

Along similar lines, build a machine to interface with other realities. Put a gold coin into the machine. Turn the machine on, and wait. If there is still a coin in the machine, turn the machine off and remove the coin, then turn the machine back on. If the coin disappeared, then it was collected by a higher probability version of yourself. At the central stalk of the reality tree there is a nearly solid version of yourself, constantly turning the machine on and off, collecting coins. Out in the thinnest probability zones, there are versions of yourself feeding coins to their machines.
.
.
.
.
The gold bar machine works the same, transfers 50 pounds of gold at a pop.
.
.
.
.
With the gold bar proceeds of the gold bar device, build an industrial sized time transfer device able to take five tons of pallet loaded gold ingots. Load the ingots into the device and turn the machine on, same procedure as the initial device.

Eventually you will tire of gold and move to more precious commodities, but you should have the idea from the above description. Now all that you need is the device design, and a broad perspective on self interest. Remember! The initial gold coin, bar load, and pallet load are never to be sold, keep them safe and secure...

Lonnie Courtney Clay

Bernard Peek

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Sep 8, 2011, 3:35:47 PM9/8/11
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That description is not quite right but the story is a well known one.

Compounded Interest, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Aug. 1956)


--
Bernard Peek
b...@shrdlu.com

Dorothy J Heydt

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Sep 8, 2011, 3:17:30 PM9/8/11
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In article <kt3i67pmlher899ni...@4ax.com>,
That is a classic, and that I can't remember author or title is
just the fault of my elderly memory. Several people will
immediately identify it.

"And five centuries of human history ... are you telling us that
they have no greater meaning than that?"

"Are you telling me, sir, that there have been other centuries
with more meaning?"

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the gmail edress.
Kithrup's all spammy and hotmail's been hacked.

Chris Duck

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Sep 8, 2011, 5:09:47 PM9/8/11
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Thanks!

Paul Ciszek

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Sep 8, 2011, 5:29:40 PM9/8/11
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In article <fe6f09f1-1318-4c04...@glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com>,
Lonnie Clay <rec.arts....@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>Along similar lines, build a machine to interface with other realities.
>Put a gold coin into the machine. Turn the machine on, and wait. If
>there is still a coin in the machine, turn the machine off and remove
>the coin, then turn the machine back on. If the coin disappeared, then
>it was collected by a higher probability version of yourself. At the
>central stalk of the reality tree there is a nearly solid version of
>yourself, constantly turning the machine on and off, collecting coins.
>Out in the thinnest probability zones, there are versions of yourself
>feeding coins to their machines.

How depressing--a chain letter, whereby luckier versions of yourself
prey upon less lucky versions. Whereas, with the investment method
you use insider trading (i.e., you know things that now one else does)
to enrich yourself at the expense of everyone else in history. SOme
might argue that you were actually doing something constructive by
investing in ventures that you already know are going to succeed,
but it sounds more like betting on a fixed horse race to me.

--
"Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS
crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in
TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in
bonuses, and paid no taxes? Yeah, me neither."

Howard Brazee

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Sep 8, 2011, 6:50:14 PM9/8/11
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There was a story "Compound Interest" (I'm thinking Mack Reynolds),
which didn't show his time machine. He produces the world's largest
fortune in order to get enough energy to run his time machine.

It showed how compound interest worked, but the idea that he would
sell all of his assets in order to be able to run the time machine to
get the money doesn't work. With that kind of money, he could buy
power plants, not just power. No reason to give up his wealth, but
it did allow for a great punch line.

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

Dorothy J Heydt

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Sep 8, 2011, 6:58:11 PM9/8/11
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In article <j4b58a$o4d$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
That's the one.

Robert Carnegie

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Sep 8, 2011, 7:51:54 PM9/8/11
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Howard Brazee wrote:
> On Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:56:50 -0500, Chris Duck
> <chri...@coldmail.com> wrote:
>
> >"Reminds me of a scifi story I read years ago, perhaps in Analog, about an impoverished scientist who invented a time machine but didn't have the
> >enormous amounts of money needed to build a full-sized version. So he did some thinking on it, then went back to his lab where a full-sized version
> >was now standing. He used the machine to go back in time to the mid-1700s Bank of England and gave it the few hundred dollars (in gold) that he was
> >able to scrape together, with strict instructions on how the money should be invested for the next fifty years. He kept doing that every fifty years.
> >By World War I, his financial empire stretched around the world and by the 1960s (the time of the story) he had more than enough money to build his
> >machine. So he cashed out, built the machine, and left it in his lab for his earlier self to discover the next day. (Confused yet?)"
>
> There was a story "Compound Interest" (I'm thinking Mack Reynolds),
> which didn't show his time machine. He produces the world's largest
> fortune in order to get enough energy to run his time machine.
>
> It showed how compound interest worked, but the idea that he would
> sell all of his assets in order to be able to run the time machine to
> get the money doesn't work. With that kind of money, he could buy
> power plants, not just power. No reason to give up his wealth, but
> it did allow for a great punch line.

How much were his power company stocks worth two minutes after he
switched on?

How long will the world supply of uranium last?

At the end of the story, does he still have the time machine, or...

Howard Brazee

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Sep 8, 2011, 9:03:56 PM9/8/11
to
On Thu, 8 Sep 2011 16:51:54 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

>> It showed how compound interest worked, but the idea that he would
>> sell all of his assets in order to be able to run the time machine to
>> get the money doesn't work. With that kind of money, he could buy
>> power plants, not just power. No reason to give up his wealth, but
>> it did allow for a great punch line.
>
>How much were his power company stocks worth two minutes after he
>switched on?
>
>How long will the world supply of uranium last?
>
>At the end of the story, does he still have the time machine, or...

If I remember correctly, he sold his extremely large portfolio (big
enough to be the cause for world wars), in order to buy enough energy
to run his time machine. No, it doesn't make sense. Or cents.

Quadibloc

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Sep 8, 2011, 10:23:51 PM9/8/11
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On Sep 8, 3:29 pm, nos...@nospam.com (Paul Ciszek) wrote:

> How depressing--a chain letter, whereby luckier versions of yourself
> prey upon less lucky versions.  Whereas, with the investment method
> you use insider trading (i.e., you know things that now one else does)
> to enrich yourself at the expense of everyone else in history.  SOme
> might argue that you were actually doing something constructive by
> investing in ventures that you already know are going to succeed,
> but it sounds more like betting on a fixed horse race to me.

It's true enough. But if an inventor can't produce something that can
be safely patented and mass-manufactured - and not wind up like Edwin
Armstrong, for that matter, many readers of pulp SF magazines will
tend to root for his being able to make a little money off of his
genius.

Then, after he makes enough money, he can invest it, make other
inventions and be able to control their manufacture, and eventually he
will be able to afford to put his time machine to proper use and start
the Time Patrol or whatever. (Motto: do as I say, not as I did, of
course.)

John Savard

garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk

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Sep 9, 2011, 3:54:49 AM9/9/11
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Paul Ciszek <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
>
> In article <fe6f09f1-1318-4c04...@glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com>,
> Lonnie Clay <rec.arts....@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>
>>Along similar lines, build a machine to interface with other realities.
>>Put a gold coin into the machine. Turn the machine on, and wait. If
>>there is still a coin in the machine, turn the machine off and remove
>>the coin, then turn the machine back on. If the coin disappeared, then
>>it was collected by a higher probability version of yourself. At the
>>central stalk of the reality tree there is a nearly solid version of
>>yourself, constantly turning the machine on and off, collecting coins.
>>Out in the thinnest probability zones, there are versions of yourself
>>feeding coins to their machines.
>
> How depressing--a chain letter, whereby luckier versions of yourself
> prey upon less lucky versions.

If the number of other realities is at least countably infinite (and it
most probably is uncountably infinite), then you can implement a scheme
where every version of you, for every coin lost will recover x coins,
where x is an arbitrary natural number.
This is not preying and I do not see any moral grounds not to use the
hilbertian hospitality...

--
-----------------------------------------------------------
| Radovan Garabík http://kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk/~garabik/ |
| __..--^^^--..__ garabik @ kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk |
-----------------------------------------------------------
Antivirus alert: file .signature infected by signature virus.
Hi! I'm a signature virus! Copy me into your signature file to help me spread!

Michael Stemper

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Sep 9, 2011, 9:19:32 AM9/9/11
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In article <4e691913$0$2500$db0f...@news.zen.co.uk>, Bernard Peek <b...@shrdlu.com> writes:
>On 08/09/11 19:56, Chris Duck wrote:

>> "Reminds me of a scifi story I read years ago, perhaps in Analog, about an impoverished scientist who invented a time machine but didn't have the
>> enormous amounts of money needed to build a full-sized version. So he did some thinking on it, then went back to his lab where a full-sized version
>> was now standing. He used the machine to go back in time to the mid-1700s Bank of England and gave it the few hundred dollars (in gold) that he was

>That description is not quite right but the story is a well known one.

I believe his initial foray was to the Medicis, right?

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Why doesn't anybody care about apathy?

Robert Carnegie

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Sep 9, 2011, 9:48:49 AM9/9/11
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On Sep 8, 8:33 pm, Lonnie Clay <lonniecourtneyc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, September 8, 2011 11:56:50 AM UTC-7, Chris Duck wrote:
> > Can anyone identify the name or author of this story?
>
> > Thanks!
>
> > "Reminds me of a scifi story I read years ago, perhaps in Analog, about an impoverished scientist who invented a time machine but didn't have the
> > enormous amounts of money needed to build a full-sized version. So he did some thinking on it, then went back to his lab where a full-sized version
> > was now standing. He used the machine to go back in time to the mid-1700s Bank of England and gave it the few hundred dollars (in gold) that he was
> > able to scrape together, with strict instructions on how the money should be invested for the next fifty years. He kept doing that every fifty years.
> > By World War I, his financial empire stretched around the world and by the 1960s (the time of the story) he had more than enough money to build his
> > machine. So he cashed out, built the machine, and left it in his lab for his earlier self to discover the next day. (Confused yet?)"
>
> A well worn theme. A trivial time paradox. Intuitively obvious. Does the title or author really matter?
>
> Along similar lines, build a machine to interface with other realities. Put a gold coin into the machine. Turn the machine on, and wait. If there is still a coin in the machine, turn the machine off and remove the coin, then turn the machine back on. If the coin disappeared, then it was collected by a higher probability version of yourself. At the central stalk of the reality tree there is a nearly solid version of yourself, constantly turning the machine on and off, collecting coins. Out in the thinnest probability zones, there are versions of yourself feeding coins to their machines.

I'm inclined to assume that the low-probability universe coins are
thinner, also.

I mean, your idea seems to be that I can toss a coin in the air and
have two coins come down; one heads, one tails.

That seems too easy, and if it isn't, well, a post-Hilbert economy is
going to take some getting used to.

Have you heard of something currently happening called "bitcoins"?
This seems to me to be a bad idea unfolding into full bloom of its
badness, including global computer crime gangs taking over your PC
just to set it to work "mining" for new bitcoins for them, although
I'm a teeny bit nervous about re-reading _Cryptonomicon_ in case
bitcoins were its core concept. But actually it's just occurred to me
that a major plot objective in the story is a very considerable
quantity of gold - ordinary, non-interdimensional gold; so that's
probably all right!

Franco

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Sep 9, 2011, 3:15:59 PM9/9/11
to
I recall the protagonist telling his uptime bankers something like
"Pay attention to a guy named Marco Polo when he shows up." That would
put the initial investment in the 13th century. As I recall, the
protagonist purchased several (5, 6) US gold coins from a present time
numismatic shop and took them uptime for his investment. The bankers
kept one coin, and after the American revolution wondered why the US
would mint a coin with a future date.

Butch Malahide

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Sep 9, 2011, 3:45:59 PM9/9/11
to
On Sep 9, 2:54 am, garabik-news-2005...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk
wrote:
>
> If the number of other realities is at least countably infinite (and it
> most probably is uncountably infinite), then you can implement a scheme
> where every version of you, for every coin lost will recover x coins,
> where x is an arbitrary natural number.

Wasn't something like that the premise of Damon Knight's "A for
Anything", or am I remembering it wrong? At any rate, that *was*
Knight's premise in some realities.

Butch Malahide

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Sep 9, 2011, 3:48:10 PM9/9/11
to
On Sep 9, 8:48 am, Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
>
> Have you heard of something currently happening called "bitcoins"?

Twelve and a half cent coins?

Paul Ciszek

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Sep 9, 2011, 6:26:28 PM9/9/11
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In article <bb476e05-90c2-4f48...@i2g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
I don't recall that "A for Anything" ever went into how the gizmo worked.
For that matter, could the gizmo be used to make things disappear as well
as appear? It was implied that scores of copies of that one slave were
being generated on a daily basis as needed, and daily disposed of. Did
the disposal involve a pistol to the back of the head, or what?

Howard Brazee

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Sep 9, 2011, 6:51:57 PM9/9/11
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On Fri, 9 Sep 2011 22:26:28 +0000 (UTC), nos...@nospam.com (Paul
Ciszek) wrote:

>I don't recall that "A for Anything" ever went into how the gizmo worked.
>For that matter, could the gizmo be used to make things disappear as well
>as appear? It was implied that scores of copies of that one slave were
>being generated on a daily basis as needed, and daily disposed of. Did
>the disposal involve a pistol to the back of the head, or what?

My memory says that it was a creator only. It would have been much
darker if people knew they would be killed daily. (And who wants a
slave who didn't remember what happened the day before?)

Butch Malahide

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Sep 9, 2011, 7:11:35 PM9/9/11
to
On Sep 9, 5:26 pm, nos...@nospam.com (Paul Ciszek) wrote:
> In article <bb476e05-90c2-4f48-9387-29c58822f...@i2g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
> Butch Malahide  <fred.gal...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Sep 9, 2:54 am, garabik-news-2005...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk
> >wrote:
>
> >> If the number of other realities is at least countably infinite (and it
> >> most probably is uncountably infinite), then you can implement a scheme
> >> where every version of you, for every coin lost will recover x coins,
> >> where x is an arbitrary natural number.
>
> >Wasn't something like that the premise of Damon Knight's "A for
> >Anything", or am I remembering it wrong? At any rate, that *was*
> >Knight's premise in some realities.
>
> I don't recall that "A for Anything" ever went into how the gizmo worked.

OK, I looked it up. Right at the beginning, the inventor explains that
the duplicates come from alternate worlds.

> For that matter, could the gizmo be used to make things disappear as well
> as appear?

I don't recall anything about the gismo being used as a disappearer.
Presumably, there were no modified gismoes, all the gismoes in the
world were duplicates of the ones that Ewing mailed out at the
beginning of the story. There was nothing in the instruction sheet
about disappearing things.

Howard Brazee

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Sep 9, 2011, 8:02:59 PM9/9/11
to
On Fri, 9 Sep 2011 16:11:35 -0700 (PDT), Butch Malahide
<fred....@gmail.com> wrote:

>> I don't recall that "A for Anything" ever went into how the gizmo worked.
>
>OK, I looked it up. Right at the beginning, the inventor explains that
>the duplicates come from alternate worlds.

Wow. That makes absolutely no sense within the story.

David DeLaney

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Sep 9, 2011, 8:11:32 PM9/9/11
to
Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>I'm a teeny bit nervous about re-reading _Cryptonomicon_ in case
>bitcoins were its core concept. But actually it's just occurred to me
>that a major plot objective in the story is a very considerable
>quantity of gold - ordinary, non-interdimensional gold; so that's
>probably all right!

Though part of the whole point was that the gold wasn't _ordinary_ gold, or
wasn't supposed to be... so that may sway your balance.

Dave "you get three rereadings to decide which chapter is heavier or lighter"
DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

Butch Malahide

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Sep 9, 2011, 8:36:01 PM9/9/11
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On Sep 9, 7:02 pm, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 9 Sep 2011 16:11:35 -0700 (PDT), Butch Malahide
>
> <fred.gal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I don't recall that "A for Anything" ever went into how the gizmo worked.
>
> >OK, I looked it up. Right at the beginning, the inventor explains that
> >the duplicates come from alternate worlds.
>
> Wow.    That makes absolutely no sense within the story.

[BEGIN QUOTE]
"Well, just that many cosmologists are coming around to this picture
of the universe. This"--Ewing drew a heavy line around the two
parallel marks--"would represent all that we know about reality.
Because it isn't just the two manifolds of you and Monroe that meet
here, but everything--dogs, trees, chewing gum. Stars. Movie theaters.
One of everything, out of a possible infinity. So when you ask me
where the extra ring came from, or whatever, I can say to you that
maybe we rotated it in from one of those other spacetimes. We caused
one little speck of matter to move from one line to the other. In the
old physics, that looks like a violation of the laws of conservation
of matter and energy--but in this cosmology, it isn't at all. The
books still balance, matter is still conserved: we've just moved an
item from one column to another."
[END QUOTE]

I copied that from the original magazine version. Lets see . . . yep,
it's the same in my copy of _The People Maker_. So, why doesn't the
story make sense? I'm not saying it *does* make sense--it's a long
time since I read it--and I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't--this
is SF after all--just curious about how the author messed up this time.

Paul Colquhoun

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Sep 9, 2011, 9:35:34 PM9/9/11
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On Fri, 9 Sep 2011 06:48:49 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

| Have you heard of something currently happening called "bitcoins"?
| This seems to me to be a bad idea unfolding into full bloom of its
| badness, including global computer crime gangs taking over your PC
| just to set it to work "mining" for new bitcoins for them, although
| I'm a teeny bit nervous about re-reading _Cryptonomicon_ in case
| bitcoins were its core concept. But actually it's just occurred to me
| that a major plot objective in the story is a very considerable
| quantity of gold - ordinary, non-interdimensional gold; so that's
| probably all right!


It's been a while since I read _Cryptonomicon_, but I seem to remember
that they /were/ aiming for some bitcoin-like electronic currency (*not*
user generated though) and the real gold was to back up the value of
this e-money, like the US used to do with Fort Knox.


--
Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC. http://andor.dropbear.id.au/~paulcol
Asking for technical help in newsgroups? Read this first:
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro

William December Starr

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Sep 10, 2011, 1:01:43 AM9/10/11
to
In article <slrnj6l6a...@gatekeeper.vic.com>,
d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) said:

> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm a teeny bit nervous about re-reading _Cryptonomicon_ in case
>> bitcoins were its core concept. But actually it's just occurred
>> to me that a major plot objective in the story is a very
>> considerable quantity of gold - ordinary, non-interdimensional
>> gold; so that's probably all right!
>
> Though part of the whole point was that the gold wasn't _ordinary_
> gold, or wasn't supposed to be... so that may sway your balance.
>
> Dave "you get three rereadings to decide which chapter is heavier
> or lighter" DeLaney

I understand that that -- "Solomonic gold"? -- was an element (pun
unintended) of the Baroque Cycle trilogy, which is set in the same
universe as, and well pre-dates, _Cryptonomicon_, but is there
anything in _Cryptonomicon_ itself that suggests that the large
cache of gold in question is anything other than bog-standard
Element 79?

-- wds

Paul Ciszek

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Sep 10, 2011, 10:34:53 AM9/10/11
to

In article <b7a956e1-63bf-42db...@h6g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>,

Butch Malahide <fred....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>I don't recall anything about the gismo being used as a disappearer.
>Presumably, there were no modified gismoes, all the gismoes in the
>world were duplicates of the ones that Ewing mailed out at the
>beginning of the story.

The first gizmos duplicated things only. After the story moves several
generations into the future, they have gizmos that can produce fresh food
and other perishables from an arrested prototype ("prote") and somewhere
they must have had devices for making "protes". The bosswife--the woman
who marries each generation of boss and dies young--is repeatedly re-
created from a prote. The story she tells, though, makes it sound like
she is the daughter of the family we meet at the beginning of the story,
so the ability to create protes must have been developed only a few years
after the gizmo.

Jesper Lauridsen

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Sep 11, 2011, 5:44:22 PM9/11/11
to
On 2011-09-09, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>
> My memory says that it was a creator only. It would have been much
> darker if people knew they would be killed daily. (And who wants a
> slave who didn't remember what happened the day before?)

One of many problems with the movie _Paycheck_

Butch Malahide

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Sep 11, 2011, 6:25:12 PM9/11/11
to
On Sep 10, 9:34 am, nos...@nospam.com (Paul Ciszek) wrote:
> In article <b7a956e1-63bf-42db-9ab0-65d924335...@h6g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>,
> Butch Malahide  <fred.gal...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> >I don't recall anything about the gismo being used as a disappearer.
> >Presumably, there were no modified gismoes, all the gismoes in the
> >world were duplicates of the ones that Ewing mailed out at the
> >beginning of the story.
>
> The first gizmos duplicated things only.  After the story moves several
> generations into the future, they have gizmos that can produce fresh food
> and other perishables from an arrested prototype ("prote") and somewhere
> they must have had devices for making "protes".  The bosswife--the woman
> who marries each generation of boss and dies young--is repeatedly re-
> created from a prote.  The story she tells, though, makes it sound like
> she is the daughter of the family we meet at the beginning of the story,
> so the ability to create protes must have been developed only a few years
> after the gizmo.

Was that in the original short story, or just in the novel? (I've got
copies of both of them, but I'm just interested enough to post the
question here, not enough to look it up for myself.) From my dim
recollection, the world at the end of the story was not one in which I
would have thought such advanced R&D would easily get done. Knight the
reviewer was strong on logical plots, Knight the author less so.

Joseph Nebus

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Sep 12, 2011, 3:52:42 PM9/12/11
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In <da0957c2-362f-4ccd...@a31g2000vbt.googlegroups.com> Butch Malahide <fred....@gmail.com> writes:

>On Sep 9, 7:02=A0pm, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:

>> Wow. =A0 =A0That makes absolutely no sense within the story.

>[BEGIN QUOTE]
>"Well, just that many cosmologists are coming around to this picture
>of the universe. This"--Ewing drew a heavy line around the two
>parallel marks--"would represent all that we know about reality.
>Because it isn't just the two manifolds of you and Monroe that meet
>here, but everything--dogs, trees, chewing gum. Stars. Movie theaters.
>One of everything, out of a possible infinity. So when you ask me
>where the extra ring came from, or whatever, I can say to you that
>maybe we rotated it in from one of those other spacetimes. We caused
>one little speck of matter to move from one line to the other. In the
>old physics, that looks like a violation of the laws of conservation
>of matter and energy--but in this cosmology, it isn't at all. The
>books still balance, matter is still conserved: we've just moved an
>item from one column to another."
>[END QUOTE]

>I copied that from the original magazine version. Lets see . . . yep,
>it's the same in my copy of _The People Maker_. So, why doesn't the
>story make sense? I'm not saying it *does* make sense--it's a long
>time since I read it--and I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't--this
>is SF after all--just curious about how the author messed up this time.

Well, for one, you have to explain why the people in the
timeline you're swiping the duplicated (say) shirt from aren't swiping
*your* shirt at the same time you swipe theirs. And the gadget can
pick a point among all the infinite timelines to copy the shirt as it
was at the moment of first duplication, rather than copying the
original shirt from further along its timeline?

At the risk of sounding parochial I suspect there may be better
ways to resolve a conservation-of-energy issue than throwing remote
cross-universe travel among an infinity of possible histories at the
problem.

--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paul Ciszek

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Sep 12, 2011, 4:52:23 PM9/12/11
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In article <6becfebc-759b-43ca...@y21g2000yqy.googlegroups.com>,
Never saw the short story. But there was a lull in R&D; the imposition
of feudalism interrupted an attempt at applying the gizmo to space
travel that some more intellectual folks had tried to start after the
gizmo became widespread. At the very end, the rebellion was put down
with the help of VTOL's continuously refuelled via gizmo, and the POV
character muses that no one had any reason to tinker with such things
until circumstances forced them to.

I remember thinking at the time that with the gizmo, you could go anwhere
in the solar system using a rocket driven by compressed air and water like
those red and white plastic toys that most aerospace guys had as kids.
You could replace consumables along the way, and with enough protes,
establish a self-sufficient base upon arrival.

John Fairhurst

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Sep 14, 2011, 2:36:08 PM9/14/11
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On 10 Sep 2011 01:01:43 -0400, wds...@panix.com (William December
Starr) wrote:

Mr Root showed some interest in the project iirc.

I didn't really get along with the Baroque Cyle books well enough to
see how well Stephenson mated them with _Cryptonomicon_

--
John Fairhurst
e: Jo...@johnsbooks.co.uk
w: http://www.johnsbooks.co.uk

William December Starr

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Sep 15, 2011, 1:57:01 AM9/15/11
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In article <j4lnua$i07$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
nebusj-@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) said:

> At the risk of sounding parochial I suspect there may be better
> ways to resolve a conservation-of-energy issue than throwing
> remote cross-universe travel among an infinity of possible
> histories at the problem.

I vote for ignoring it.

-- wds

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