Hyperion- time debts?

[MagDeRo]

I am presently reading Hyperion and keep thinking I was start to
understand "time debt" but so far it is not clear to me? Is a time debt
the amount of time "lost" when traveling through space? For instance, you
would be one year "behind" the present in your age where you landed?

I am really confused about this. I would appreciate an explanation in
really simple terms - I do not have a scientific background even tho I
enjoy Sci Fi. Also, the time debts or time loss involved in space travel
in fiction, is it based on "real science"?

Thanks in advance for all comments.

Maggie Della Rocca (Mag...@aol.com)

[Erich Schneider]

In _Hyperion_, time debt refers to the time it takes one, when
travelling on a starship, to travel between stars, as opposed to
travel by farcaster, which is instantaneous. Now, for various reasons,
when one travels by Hawking drive starship, one goes into suspended
animation (cryogenic freeze) during the trip, so the trip appears to
be instantaneous (one goes to sleep and bam, one is at the
destination). However, one has "lost" the time spent performing the
journey, as opposed to one's colleagues travelling via farcaster.

--
Erich Schneider er...@bush.cs.tamu.edu http://bush.cs.tamu.edu/~erich

[Michael J Gebis]

mag...@aol.com (MagDeRo) writes:

}I am presently reading Hyperion and keep thinking I was start to
}understand "time debt" but so far it is not clear to me? Is a time debt
}the amount of time "lost" when traveling through space? For instance, you
}would be one year "behind" the present in your age where you landed?

}I am really confused about this. I would appreciate an explanation in
}really simple terms - I do not have a scientific background even tho I
}enjoy Sci Fi. Also, the time debts or time loss involved in space travel
}in fiction, is it based on "real science"?

It's all Einstein's fault.

When you travel at high speeds, your "time frame" slows down. The
effect of this is that on a long trip through space, a traveler thinks
only a few weeks have passed (actually, in her time frame, only a few weeks
DID pass) but when she return to earth, she finds that many years have
passed there.

There ends the "really simple" explanation. Actually, the whole thing is
a hell of a lot more complicated than than I've let on :) Remember,
everything is "relative" so when I travel away from you at high speed,
you're also travelling away from me at high speed. There is no absolute
spacial reference frame in the universe. This apparent problem is
also resolved by the general theory of relativity.

If you're interested in a more accurate picture of what's happening,
the best source is probably Einstein himself. _Relativity : The Special
and the General Theory_ (By Al Einstein) is surprisingly readable.
As an added bonus, if you carry this book around, people will think
you're really smart.

--
Mike Gebis ge...@ecn.purdue.edu mge...@eternal.net

[Rod Pennington]

Erich Schneider wrote:
>
> In _Hyperion_, time debt refers to the time it takes one, when
> travelling on a starship, to travel between stars, as opposed to
> travel by farcaster, which is instantaneous. Now, for various reasons,
> when one travels by Hawking drive starship, one goes into suspended
> animation (cryogenic freeze) during the trip, so the trip appears to
> be instantaneous (one goes to sleep and bam, one is at the
> destination). However, one has "lost" the time spent performing the
> journey, as opposed to one's colleagues travelling via farcaster.

I posted earlier, saying that I thought that "time debt" was the difference
between elapsed time observed by a space traveler during a voyage, and time
elapsed as observed by some "stationary" or planet-bound observer. I thought
it was purely a time dilation thing. Reading your post, however, I'm not sure
I'm correct. I didn't figure farcasting or suspended animation into it.

I see it this way: Between now (3-2-1997) and 3-2-2007, I will (God
willing) experience 10 years of life. If during that period you
experience only 5 years of life, due to having spent some of that
time frame on a space ship traveling at relativistic speeds, I'd say
you had accumulated 5 years time debt. Incidently, even though I know
that there's no such thing as simultaneity (relativistically speaking),
I'm figuring we could keep a rough, common frame of time reference on
earth, in our region of the galaxy, and shipboard. "Earth standard time",
if you will. EST would, I think, be calculatable at any location, given
accurate observation and knowledge of relativistic mechanics.

Are you sure you're correct? I can't think of anything in the book (I read
it a year or so ago) to either refute or confirm your view (or mine).

Rod (just up the road from Erich in Temple, TX)

[Erich Schneider]

Well, I repeat my definition of what Simmons means by "time debt".
Yes, according to special relativity, there is no universal
"simultaneity", and FTL implies time travel. Simmons ignores this,
and has "fast" (farcaster, which is "instantaneous") and "slow"
(Hawking drive, which is FTL but slower than farcaster) FTL travel,
and "fast" (fatline) FTL communication (apart from running a fiber
optic cable through a farcaster portal, which also works). Someone
on a Web world and someone outside the Web can communicate via fatline,
which is instantaneous, but can only travel to each others' locations
via Hawking drive; however, two people on different Web worlds could
farcast to each others' locations instantly. The difference in travel
times is the "time debt". It has nothing to do with relativistic
time dilation.

[Rod Pennington]

MagDeRo wrote:
>
> I am presently reading Hyperion and keep thinking I was start to
> understand "time debt" but so far it is not clear to me? Is a time debt
> the amount of time "lost" when traveling through space? For instance, you
> would be one year "behind" the present in your age where you landed?
>
> I am really confused about this. I would appreciate an explanation in
> really simple terms - I do not have a scientific background even tho I
> enjoy Sci Fi. Also, the time debts or time loss involved in space travel
> in fiction, is it based on "real science"?

I'll jump in before the physicists do. When you board a space ship
and accelerate away from location A, turn around and accelerate back
to location A, less time will have elapsed on board your ship compared
to the amount of time elapsed at location A. This phenomenon is called
"time dilation" and is a manifestation of Einstein's theory of
relativity
which holds that mass, distance and time are observer dependent and that
no one observer's frame of reference is any more valid than another's.
The difference in elapsed times observed by the earthbound observer and
the space traveler is negligible unless the space ship achieves a speed
close to the speed of light (you may encounter the term "relativistic
speeds" in the SF novels you read). For voyages at relativistic speeds,
elapsed time on the space vessel may be just a fraction of time elapsed
for the earth bound observer. Thus, a voyager traveling to Alpha
Centauri
and back (round trip = 8.6 light years?), might be gone for 10 years
(using
a VERY fast ship), but return having aged only a couple of years (I'll
leave it to some one else to supply an actual calculation). Yet, the
traveler will percieve him/herself as never having exceeded the speed of
light. To the traveler in transit, having accelerated to 99 percent of
the
speed of light relative to earth, the distance between earth and Alpha
Centauri will appear to have "contracted" to something much less than
4.3
light years.

Summarizing, time and distance "contract" as you approach the speed of
light.
Mass increases too. This explains why the speed of light is usually
described
as unattainable. To reach the speed of light would require a force
sufficient
to accelerate an infinite mass, which is logically impossible. I would
point
out that this is all "real science" and experimentation confirms
predictions
of the theory of relativity regarding measures of time, distance, and
mass.

"Time debt", as used by Simmons in HYPERION (one of the greatest SF
novels
of the last 20 years, IMHO), is just a reference to time dilation. At
least that's how I took it. For instance, the traveler I discussed
above
who aged only 2.5 years during a voyage which took 10 years from my
point
of view accumulated a "time debt" of (10 minus 2.5) 7.5 years.

Rod Pennington Temple, TX rod...@sage.net

[Rod Pennington]

Erich Schneider wrote:
>
> Someone
> on a Web world and someone outside the Web can communicate via fatline,
> which is instantaneous, but can only travel to each others' locations
> via Hawking drive; however, two people on different Web worlds could
> farcast to each others' locations instantly. The difference in travel
> times is the "time debt". It has nothing to do with relativistic
> time dilation.

Then "time debt" is essentially just the travel time? (since the time
required to farcast from one place to another is zero)

Rod

[Erich Schneider]

Rod Pennington <rod...@sage.net> writes:
> Erich Schneider wrote:
> >
> > Someone
> > on a Web world and someone outside the Web can communicate via fatline,
> > which is instantaneous, but can only travel to each others' locations
> > via Hawking drive; however, two people on different Web worlds could
> > farcast to each others' locations instantly. The difference in travel
> > times is the "time debt". It has nothing to do with relativistic
> > time dilation.
>
> Then "time debt" is essentially just the travel time? (since the time
> required to farcast from one place to another is zero)

Yes ... it's the time one spends out of contact with the Web to get
from place to place.

[Ian Galbraith]

Erich Schneider <er...@bush.cs.tamu.edu> wrote in article
<vyd8thl...@csdl.tamu.edu>...

| Well, I repeat my definition of what Simmons means by "time debt".
| Yes, according to special relativity, there is no universal
| "simultaneity", and FTL implies time travel. Simmons ignores this,
| and has "fast" (farcaster, which is "instantaneous") and "slow"
| (Hawking drive, which is FTL but slower than farcaster) FTL travel,
| and "fast" (fatline) FTL communication (apart from running a fiber

| optic cable through a farcaster portal, which also works). Someone

| on a Web world and someone outside the Web can communicate via fatline,
| which is instantaneous, but can only travel to each others' locations
| via Hawking drive; however, two people on different Web worlds could
| farcast to each others' locations instantly. The difference in travel
| times is the "time debt". It has nothing to do with relativistic
| time dilation.

Could you cite a reference for this. It was my perception that the time
debt was related to relativistic time dilation.

--
Ian Galbraith
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
i.gal...@latrobe.edu.au

"Life has meaning only in the struggle. Triumph or defeat is
in the hands of the Gods. So let us celebrate the struggle."
- Swahili Warrior Song

[Dave Goldman]

In article <vyd8thl...@csdl.tamu.edu>, Erich Schneider
<er...@bush.cs.tamu.edu> wrote:

> Well, I repeat my definition of what Simmons means by "time debt".
> Yes, according to special relativity, there is no universal
> "simultaneity", and FTL implies time travel. Simmons ignores this,

Ah, but in Simmons' universe, fatline and farcasters _do_ seem to
demonstrate universal simultaneity. (The arguments against it in
relativity theory are based on the finite speed of light and any other
signals.)

Farcasters do, because we see people who are in the process of stepping
through a farcaster, half of their body on each side (in each world).
Presumably their various body parts are "simultaneously" present in two
physically-distant places. (Fall of Hyperion, p. 328)

Fatlines do, because we see fatline broadcasts showing the same
scenes/data as simultaneous transmissions through nearby farcasters. (Fall
of Hyperion, p. 348)

> and has "fast" (farcaster, which is "instantaneous") and "slow"
> (Hawking drive, which is FTL but slower than farcaster) FTL travel,
> and "fast" (fatline) FTL communication (apart from running a fiber
> optic cable through a farcaster portal, which also works). Someone
> on a Web world and someone outside the Web can communicate via fatline,
> which is instantaneous, but can only travel to each others' locations
> via Hawking drive; however, two people on different Web worlds could
> farcast to each others' locations instantly. The difference in travel
> times is the "time debt". It has nothing to do with relativistic
> time dilation.

In Fall of Hyperion, pp. 348-9, after someone asks the "travel time" to a
particular planet, the answer given is:

"By Hawking drive, seven months onboard," said the aide without a
pause to access, "a little over nine years time-debt."

Gladstone nodded. [This particular planet] was now nine years
distant from the nearest Web World.

Therefore, "time-debt" represents the apparent trip time to an observer
staying behind on a world. Due to time dilation, the traveler on the
Hawking drive ship will experience much less elapsed time.

-- Dave Goldman
(who has just reached p. 349 in Fall of Hyperion, if you hadn't guessed)

[rupert smith]

a long time ago in a land far far away, Rod Pennington <rod...@sage.net> wrote:

>"Time debt", as used by Simmons in HYPERION (one of the greatest SF
>novels
>of the last 20 years, IMHO), is just a reference to time dilation.

'taint so. in endymion it's said that ship had to reach .03c before
translation to hawking drive: not enough for significant time dilation.

but to answer the question, it's the difference in time experienced by a
planet bound observer (communicating by fatline for example) and that
experianced by the traveller.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
rupert smith linc...@sable.ox.ac.uk http://users.ox.ac.uk/~linc0015

"long live the new flesh!" -- videodrome

[wil...@generation.net]

In <5gco3o$8...@news.ox.ac.uk>, linc...@sable.ox.ac.uk.anti-spam (rupert smith) writes:
>'taint so. in endymion it's said that ship had to reach .03c before
>translation to hawking drive: not enough for significant time dilation.

As I asked before for C.J. Cherryh's novels and Larry Niven's, .03c relative
to what?

>
>but to answer the question, it's the difference in time experienced by a
>planet bound observer (communicating by fatline for example) and that
>experianced by the traveller.

Please explain, you say that at .03c there is not enough time dilation for
anyone to notice, so where is this time difference? I have not read the book
so please forgive my ignorance.

Kataman
Montreal, Canada

[shep pryor]

On Sunday, March 2, 1997 at 12:00:00 AM UTC-8, MagDeRo wrote:
> I am presently reading Hyperion and keep thinking I was start to
> understand "time debt" but so far it is not clear to me? Is a time debt
> the amount of time "lost" when traveling through space? For instance, you
> would be one year "behind" the present in your age where you landed?
> I am really confused about this. I would appreciate an explanation in
> really simple terms - I do not have a scientific background even tho I
> enjoy Sci Fi. Also, the time debts or time loss involved in space travel
> in fiction, is it based on "real science"?

> Thanks in advance for all comments.
> Maggie Della Rocca (Mag...@aol.com)

Easiest explanation was when Rachel was injured while investigating the time tombs.

Simmons states: The trip would take a little over ten days shiptime with a five month time debt. Those five months were agony for Sol and his wife.

So if you are simply traveling at FTL speed in a starship for a few days/weeks....the relative time to the ones on the other side waiting for you could be unknown. Months or years.

So for Sol it was a 5 month wait but to Rachel only 10 days time. The time debt is accrued by the one traveling at light speed because they will ALWAYS experience less time than the ones on the other side moving at less than light speed.

The more you travel at FTL speed the less you "age" relative to others in the universe. Your time debt is in your favor because you don't "age" as quickly....but you also have a "debt" so to speak because events have rapidly changed by years and years prior to your arrival. Sometimes, events have changed so drastically that upon your arrival your debt coming due could be disastrous. Loved ones die and are gone, events have changed, perhaps political strife has even generated an end to the purpose of your travel in the first place.

[Wolffan]

On 28 Sep 2022, shep pryor wrote
(in article<6f7eae02-a56e-4014...@googlegroups.com>):

Sigh. And Yet Another Google-Grouper zombifing yet another necrothread.
Twenty Five Years Dead. The damn thing was 25 years dead, and an idiot
Google-Grouper zombifies it. I must resist the urge to get hold of a few
cruise missiles and put them through the front door at 1600 Amphitheatre
Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, difficult though it is.

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Also, yes, time dilation (the effect that causes the "time debt") is a
real thing; it's a result of special relativity. It's most pronounced
near the speed of light, but happens with any velocity at all. A tiny
bit of time dilation has been measured experimentally.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/einsteins-time-dilation-prediction-verified/

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <1b4jwrd...@pfeifferfamily.net>,

(Hal Heydt)
It's one of the corrections that is applied to GPS signals. The
other main one is to correct for the satellites being higher up
in the Earth's gravitational well. IIRC, the two corrections
partially offset each other.

[Robert Carnegie]

But surely the post is precisely a propos the topic,
of time debt.

[Wolffan]

On 28 Sep 2022, Robert Carnegie wrote
(in article<59b92e63-373e-491c...@googlegroups.com>):

The major time debt is the waste of time thanks to idiot Google-Groupers
zombifing multi-decade old necrothreads.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <0001HW.28E727BD00...@news.supernews.com>,

Right, because there is too much on-topic content here to get through it all.

I've never read _Hyperion_ so this was somewhat interesting to me.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On 30 Sep 2022 at 14:36:14 BST, "Ted Nolan <tednolan>" <Ted Nolan

<tednolan>> wrote:
>
> Right, because there is too much on-topic content here to get through it all.
>
> I've never read _Hyperion_ so this was somewhat interesting to me.

_Hyperion_ and its sequal _Fall Of Hyperion_ (really the two halves of
one book) are great fun. Interesting worldbuilding, absorbing tales,
some awesome setpieces, looming sense of Bigger Backstory.

The followup two _Endymion_ books, not so much. Disappears off into the
weeds, don't entertain, concentrate on unpleasant things and unpleasant
people, and managed to retroactively make the _H_ books worse.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
Politicians are not born, they are excreted
- Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106-43 BC

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <jpoluq...@mid.individual.net>,

Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@usually.sessile.org> wrote:
>On 30 Sep 2022 at 14:36:14 BST, "Ted Nolan <tednolan>" <Ted Nolan
><tednolan>> wrote:
>>
>> Right, because there is too much on-topic content here to get through it all.
>>
>> I've never read _Hyperion_ so this was somewhat interesting to me.
>
>_Hyperion_ and its sequal _Fall Of Hyperion_ (really the two halves of
>one book) are great fun. Interesting worldbuilding, absorbing tales,
>some awesome setpieces, looming sense of Bigger Backstory.
>
>The followup two _Endymion_ books, not so much. Disappears off into the
>weeds, don't entertain, concentrate on unpleasant things and unpleasant
>people, and managed to retroactively make the _H_ books worse.
>

I hate it when that happens, and it's happened more than a few times in SF.
Riverworld comes to mind, as will several others once I hit "send".

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@usually.sessile.org> writes:

> On 30 Sep 2022 at 14:36:14 BST, "Ted Nolan <tednolan>" <Ted Nolan
> <tednolan>> wrote:
>>
>> Right, because there is too much on-topic content here to get through it all.
>>
>> I've never read _Hyperion_ so this was somewhat interesting to me.
>
> _Hyperion_ and its sequal _Fall Of Hyperion_ (really the two halves of
> one book) are great fun. Interesting worldbuilding, absorbing tales,
> some awesome setpieces, looming sense of Bigger Backstory.
>
> The followup two _Endymion_ books, not so much. Disappears off into the
> weeds, don't entertain, concentrate on unpleasant things and unpleasant
> people, and managed to retroactively make the _H_ books worse.

I didn't find Endymion to be as good as Hyperion, but I also didn't find
them to be as bad as you're saying.

[Titus G]

I was warned of the Endymion books before I read Hyperion so stopped
after Fall of Hyperion. I agree with Jamie's summary and also enjoyed
the Canterbury Tales structure. A brilliant read and recommended though
possibly more evil than your normal fare.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On 1 Oct 2022 at 03:36:14 BST, "Joe Pfeiffer" <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu>
wrote:

> Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@usually.sessile.org> writes:
>
>> On 30 Sep 2022 at 14:36:14 BST, "Ted Nolan <tednolan>" <Ted Nolan<tednolan>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Right, because there is too much on-topic content here to get through it all.
>>>
>>> I've never read _Hyperion_ so this was somewhat interesting to me.
>>

>> _Hyperion_ and its sequel _Fall Of Hyperion_ (really the two halves of

>> one book) are great fun. Interesting worldbuilding, absorbing tales,
>> some awesome setpieces, looming sense of Bigger Backstory.
>>
>> The followup two _Endymion_ books, not so much. Disappears off into the
>> weeds, don't entertain, concentrate on unpleasant things and unpleasant
>> people, and managed to retroactively make the _H_ books worse.
>
> I didn't find Endymion to be as good as Hyperion, but I also didn't find
> them to be as bad as you're saying.

I read all four in a row, which may have overemphasised the changes in
tone (and I'd argue also in quality).

Cheers - Jaimie
--
Reality is what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it
-- Philip K Dick

[Default User]

Wolffan wrote:

>Sigh. And Yet Another Google-Grouper zombifing yet another
>necrothread. Twenty Five Years Dead. The damn thing was 25 years
>dead, and an idiot Google-Grouper zombifies it. I must resist the
>urge to get hold of a few cruise missiles and put them through the
>front door at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043,
>difficult though it is.

He'll be back in 2047 to respond.


Brian

[The Horny Goat]

On Wed, 28 Sep 2022 16:28:07 -0400, Wolffan <akwo...@zoho.com>
wrote:

>On 28 Sep 2022, shep pryor wrote
>(in article<6f7eae02-a56e-4014...@googlegroups.com>):
>

>> So for Sol it was a 5 month wait but to Rachel only 10 days time. The time
>> debt is accrued by the one traveling at light speed because they will ALWAYS
>> experience less time than the ones on the other side moving at less than
>> light speed.
>>
>> The more you travel at FTL speed the less you "age" relative to others in the
>> universe. Your time debt is in your favor because you don't "age" as
>> quickly....but you also have a "debt" so to speak because events have rapidly
>> changed by years and years prior to your arrival. Sometimes, events have
>> changed so drastically that upon your arrival your debt coming due could be
>> disastrous. Loved ones die and are gone, events have changed, perhaps
>> political strife has even generated an end to the purpose of your travel in
>> the first place.
>
>Sigh. And Yet Another Google-Grouper zombifing yet another necrothread.
>Twenty Five Years Dead. The damn thing was 25 years dead, and an idiot
>Google-Grouper zombifies it. I must resist the urge to get hold of a few
>cruise missiles and put them through the front door at 1600 Amphitheatre
>Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, difficult though it is.

Last time I looked at that stuff it was to settle a bet on when my
first Usenet posting was. At that time the oldest I could verify
through Google (which from the content I'm pretty sure was NOT my
first post) was April 94 which was when my youngest (who now has a
daughter about the same age as he was then) was in diapers.