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Missle Gap

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Michael Stemper

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Aug 2, 2010, 8:35:43 AM8/2/10
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I picked up _Wireless_ recently, and read "Missle Gap" yesterday. As
always, Charlie is entertaining. I loved the little in-jokes, such as
putting the phrase "billions and billions" into Carl Sagan's mouth.

As I was reading it, I kept wondering whether "Gregor Samsa" was the
character's real name, or a cover name. A few hours after I finished,
I finally got it.

I liked the parallel between the field team's treatment of a mock
termite mound and the concluding paragraphs.

Is this the first story set on an Alderson disk?

Would the disk's gravitational field really really be flat?

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Twenty-four hours in a day; twenty-four beers in a case. Coincidence?

Mike Ash

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Aug 2, 2010, 10:47:36 AM8/2/10
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In article <i36e2v$u50$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
mste...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper) wrote:

> I picked up _Wireless_ recently, and read "Missle Gap" yesterday. As
> always, Charlie is entertaining. I loved the little in-jokes, such as
> putting the phrase "billions and billions" into Carl Sagan's mouth.
>
> As I was reading it, I kept wondering whether "Gregor Samsa" was the
> character's real name, or a cover name. A few hours after I finished,
> I finally got it.
>
> I liked the parallel between the field team's treatment of a mock
> termite mound and the concluding paragraphs.
>
> Is this the first story set on an Alderson disk?
>
> Would the disk's gravitational field really really be flat?

The question of the gravitational field was discussed in
rec.arts.sf.science a while ago. Here's a page with details:

http://www.tp4.rub.de/~jk/science/gravity/chapt_alderson.html

It seems that you can have it be *mostly* flat with the right trickery
(rotating the disk, perhaps varying its density). Making the surface
conform to the real field may be doable, and might provide an experience
that's close enough to flat.

The threads can be found here:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.science/browse_frm/thread/69ba
798bf1229f81/e61697d72e1acef1?lnk=gst&q=alderson+disk#e61697d72e1acef1

And here:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.science/browse_frm/thread/fc2b
60b925ef6533/63831a2fecd3f6b3?lnk=gst&q=alderson+disk#63831a2fecd3f6b3

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon

Jaimie Vandenbergh

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Aug 2, 2010, 1:24:29 PM8/2/10
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On Mon, 2 Aug 2010 12:35:43 +0000 (UTC), mste...@walkabout.empros.com
(Michael Stemper) wrote:

>I picked up _Wireless_ recently, and read "Missle Gap" yesterday. As
>always, Charlie is entertaining. I loved the little in-jokes, such as
>putting the phrase "billions and billions" into Carl Sagan's mouth.
>
>As I was reading it, I kept wondering whether "Gregor Samsa" was the
>character's real name, or a cover name. A few hours after I finished,
>I finally got it.

Gah. I got the name first mention, but didn't get the connotation when
I got to the reveal.

>I liked the parallel between the field team's treatment of a mock
>termite mound and the concluding paragraphs.
>
>Is this the first story set on an Alderson disk?

Wikipedia says Niven wrote some stories set on one for Malibu Comic's
Ultraverse, but I've never seen or heard of those.

>Would the disk's gravitational field really really be flat?

Yup, except near the outer edge. Gauss' law for gravity pans out that
way - a big enough disk counts as an infinite plane over most of the
surface and generates a gravity field perpendicular to the disk. The
dropoff in strength is ... interesting. For a real infinite plane,
dropoff is zero.

see (PDF warning) http://www.pgccphy.net/1030/gravity.pdf or
non-pdf'ed at http://sn.im/103yt8

Cheers - Jaimie
--
"If this crazy idealistic 'dont-eat-people' idea of yours was to catch
on, I just don't know where we would all be. Fortunately, I suppose it
catching on isn't really very likely -- why, you might just as well go
around saying 'Don't fight people'..." -- Flanders & Swann

Butch Malahide

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Aug 2, 2010, 5:23:32 PM8/2/10
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On Aug 2, 7:35 am, mstem...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper)
wrote:

> I picked up _Wireless_ recently, and read "Missle Gap" yesterday.

I can't find a story by that title in the ISFDB.

Michael Stemper

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Aug 2, 2010, 5:37:47 PM8/2/10
to
In article <e5dd8163-33be-444f...@j8g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>, Butch Malahide <fred....@gmail.com> writes:

>On Aug 2, 7:35=A0am, mstem...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper) wrote:
>> I picked up _Wireless_ recently, and read "Missle Gap" yesterday.
>
>I can't find a story by that title in the ISFDB.

Lucky you. I can't even find the ISFDB today, due to a DNS error.

Anyhoo, _Wireless_ is a collection of short fiction by Charlie Stross,
and "Missle Gap" is the lead story. It was written for a Dozois
anthology about the year 1,000,000. It's not that short, checking in
at (IIRC) about sixty pages.

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>

Life's too important to take seriously.

Paul Arthur

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Aug 2, 2010, 5:41:32 PM8/2/10
to
On 2010-08-02, Michael Stemper <mste...@walkabout.empros.com> wrote:
> In article <e5dd8163-33be-444f...@j8g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>, Butch Malahide <fred....@gmail.com> writes:
>>On Aug 2, 7:35=A0am, mstem...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper) wrote:
>>> I picked up _Wireless_ recently, and read "Missle Gap" yesterday.
>>
>>I can't find a story by that title in the ISFDB.
>
> Lucky you. I can't even find the ISFDB today, due to a DNS error.
>
> Anyhoo, _Wireless_ is a collection of short fiction by Charlie Stross,
> and "Missle Gap" is the lead story.

No, it's not.

James Nicoll

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Aug 2, 2010, 5:53:41 PM8/2/10
to
In article <i37dra$k8r$2...@news.eternal-september.org>,

Michael Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>In article
><e5dd8163-33be-444f...@j8g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
>Butch Malahide <fred....@gmail.com> writes:
>>On Aug 2, 7:35=A0am, mstem...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper) wrote:
>>> I picked up _Wireless_ recently, and read "Missle Gap" yesterday.
>>
>>I can't find a story by that title in the ISFDB.
>
>Lucky you. I can't even find the ISFDB today, due to a DNS error.
>
>Anyhoo, _Wireless_ is a collection of short fiction by Charlie Stross,
>and "Missle Gap" is the lead story. It was written for a Dozois

Are you quite certain there is only one "i" in the first word of that
story's title? When I search in isfdb for "missle gap" I get

A search for missle gap found 0 matches


but when I search for "missile gap" I get

A search for missile gap found 1 matches

Title Type Variant Year Authors
Missile Gap SHORTFICTION 2005 Charles Stross


--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)

Andrew Plotkin

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Aug 2, 2010, 5:54:40 PM8/2/10
to

Can't help with ISFDB, but correcting for obvious spelling error:

<http://subterraneanpress.com/index.php/magazine/spring2007/fiction-missile-gap-by-charles-stross/>

--Z

--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*

Dan Goodman

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Aug 2, 2010, 6:07:14 PM8/2/10
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Butch Malahide wrote:

> On Aug 2, 7:35 am, mstem...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper)
> wrote:

> > I picked up Wireless recently, and read "Missle Gap" yesterday.


>
> I can't find a story by that title in the ISFDB.

Try "Missile Gap"

--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
Journal dsgood.dreamwidth.org (livejournal.com, insanejournal.com)

Mike Ash

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Aug 2, 2010, 11:51:06 PM8/2/10
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In article <j9vd56hhvcvpuo16n...@4ax.com>,
Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:

> >Would the disk's gravitational field really really be flat?
>
> Yup, except near the outer edge. Gauss' law for gravity pans out that
> way - a big enough disk counts as an infinite plane over most of the
> surface and generates a gravity field perpendicular to the disk. The
> dropoff in strength is ... interesting. For a real infinite plane,
> dropoff is zero.
>
> see (PDF warning) http://www.pgccphy.net/1030/gravity.pdf or
> non-pdf'ed at http://sn.im/103yt8

Except not really. As I linked in another post:

http://www.tp4.rub.de/~jk/science/gravity/chapt_alderson.html

The problem lies with the assumption that a finite disk is effectively
an infinite plane when you're close to it. It doesn't really work that
way. When you're closer to one edge than the other, that other edge's
extra gravitational pull is significant even if you're hundreds of
millions of km away from it. It may not pull you noticeably sideways as
you're standing there, but it'll cause trouble with your oceans and
atmosphere.

Michael Stemper

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Aug 3, 2010, 8:17:35 AM8/3/10
to

I get it! It's a spelling flame!

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>

Always use apostrophe's and "quotation marks" properly.

William December Starr

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Aug 12, 2010, 7:02:22 PM8/12/10
to
In article <i36e2v$u50$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
mste...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper) said:

> I picked up _Wireless_ recently, and read "Missle Gap"
> yesterday. As always, Charlie is entertaining. I loved the little
> in-jokes, such as putting the phrase "billions and billions" into
> Carl Sagan's mouth.

You are the anti-me. Someone here (I think) described such antics
by Stross as "mugging for the camera" and I agree. It's spinach,
and I don't like it.

-- wds

Cryptoengineer

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Aug 13, 2010, 9:07:28 AM8/13/10
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wds...@panix.com (William December Starr) wrote in news:i41uhu$p24$1
@panix3.panix.com:

Fight idiom decay!
Its:

"I say its spinach, and I say the hell with it."

http://www.postbourgie.com/2008/10/24/i-say-its-spinach-and-i-say-the-
hell-with-it/

pt

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