Thoughts On: Ringworld

The general story of Ringworld is one of exploration and discovery. A group of explorers venture out of known space to visit a vast artificial megastructure in space made by an advanced civilization. They crash land on the structure - the Ringworld - and seek out civilization as a means to get them off it and back to their own civilization. The Ringworld is a location that seems ripe for discovery - the foundation material is super strong and blocks 40% of neutrinos, for civilization itself to exist on it cheap transmutation must be available - the ability to generate one type of element from another - and yet these questions are never really explored. Aside from the Ringworld, the science fictional world itself is rife with things for the reader to discover - stepping discs, slide walks, booster spice, aliens called Puppeteers, aliens called Kzin, hyperdrive travel, the hull material of a General Products ship, Slaver stasis fields - the list goes on. Yet as with the Ringworld none of these exist for the sake of discovery or exploration, rather they serve simply for the sake of variety or to advance the plot. Ringworld is far from hard science fiction, and even frames itself as a fantasy at one point in a sort of knowing gesture.

Issues with Ringworld

Having recently completed re-reading Larry Niven's Ringworld I felt compelled to list a number of issues I found with the text. They follow:

In chapter 2 "And his motley crew", the sentence "In a gravitational pull of 9.98 meters/second his stance was unconsciously natural." Firstly, the "pull" exerted by gravity is an acceleration, not a velocity, so the units should be those of acceleration (or force if we wish to include Louis' mass), so it should read "meters/second-squared." Second, the value 9.98 is perplexing. On the surface of the earth, standard gravity results in an acceleration of 9.81 meters/second-squared, not 9.98, so either Earth's gravity has inexplicably increased from our time to the time that Ringworld occurs, or the gravitational pull at which Louis' stance is natural is not that of Earth's gravity, but rather slightly higher, why though remains a mystery....

Thoughts On: Time Reborn

In Time Reborn, Lee Smolin lays out his case for a conception of the universe that is time-bound, where time is not an emergent property of the universe but is instead more fundamental and therefore drives the growth of the universe.

Smolin spends most of the book using simple-to-understand language and clear examples that are easy for the layperson to follow. The pace here can be at times too slow, and the repetition a little grating. Near the end of the book he introduces the reader to some more challenging concepts such as quantum graphity, which by comparison seem to be dealt with far too briefly for the reader to fully understand. On reflection this material is adequately paced, but by the time it is reached the reader has been lulled into a slower pace and so must ratchet up his attention accordingly. The material would be better served by having the pace build more gradually rather than the somewhat abrupt transition from a metaphorical walk to a jog.

The Antiquated Future of Rama

Arthur C. Clarke's 1973 novel Rendezvous with Rama is considered a key example of hard science fiction. However, as a realistic vision of the future, it is notably lacking. Set in the year 2130, read forty years after its publication, its future feels archaic. Clarke's future is one dominated by white Anglo-Saxon men, neo-Judeo-Christian undertones, and an uncanny sense that the future resembles the past more than the present.

Game Pitch: Bewerewolf

You are the werewolf. You make trouble. Unseen, unknown, undetected - until it's too late.

In the city the skies grow black with the fumes from the iron furnaces, while the machinery of man scrubs away the last remnants of the wild. Man has grown overconfident, arrogant in his prowess, sloppy in his execution. Now the time is opportune, the nights grow longer, the winter approaches, what man has built, you can destroy. But time moves swiftly, and even now it may already be too late.

Thoughts On: The Avengers

In the closing moments of The Avengers, Samuel L. Jackson, clothed in eye patch and black trench coat as the ridiculously named Nick Fury, stands in front of a panel of video screens with imposing faceless hand-wringing decision makers. One of them asks, "Was that the point of all this? A statement?", Fury corrects him, "A promise."

The council's question echoes the thoughts of the audience, who having endured the visual effects equivalent of blunt force trauma, is left wondering what the takeaway from this film is. The response "A promise" feels hollow, hackneyed even. Within the framework of the plot it implies that whenever the world is in peril, The Avengers will be there, to the audience it is a pact that sequels will follow, but the purpose of this film, or of its inevitable sequel is left unclear. Perhaps the question should have never been asked, because all I can think of as the appropriate response is, "We like money."

Game Pitch: The Proper Care of Humans

You play as a robot who manages a small ranch in a quiet frontier setting while taking care of the human(s) who live on it. The ranch must be made completely self-sufficient, including raising the animals used to feed the humans, who are both helpless and whiny without your constant attention. In the morning you may have to procure eggs from the hens, use them to create chocolate chip cookies, and milk from cows and use it to make whip cream, to serve a humans' desire for cookies in cream for breakfast. This must be done before daylight when the human wakes. Then you must set the table, wake the human, pull out his seat, arrange his meal, await his opinion.