Expanded Universe Part 44

One pound of antimatter at any speed or none would raise as much h.e.l.l as 28,000 tons of matter striking at 50 miles/second.

Today no one knows how to ama.s.s even a gram of antimatter or how to handle and control it either for power or for weaponry. Experts a.s.sert that all three are impossible.

However...

Two relevant examples of "expert" predictions: Robert A. Millikan, n.o.bel laureate in physics and distinguished second to none by a half-century of re search into charges and properties of atomic particles, in quantum mechanics, and in several other areas, predicted that all the power that could ever be extracted from atoms would no more than blow the whistle on a peanut vendor's cart. (In fairness I must add that most of his colleagues agreed-and the same is true of the next example.) Forest Ray Moulton, for many years top astronomer of the University of Chicago and foremost authority in ballistics, stated in print (1935) that there was "not the slightest possibility of such a journey"

as the one the whole world watched 34 years later: Apollo 11 to the moon.

In 1938, when there was not a pinch of pure uranium-235 anywhere on Earth and no technology to ama.s.s or control it, Lise Meitner devised mathematics that pointed straight to atom bombs. Less than seven years after she did this, the first one blazed "like a thousand suns."

No possible way to ama.s.s antimatter?

Or ever to handle it?

Being smugly certain of that (but mistaken) could mean to you . . . and me and everyone The END

AFTERWORD.

I am precluded from revising this article because Encyclopaedia Britannica owns the copyright; I wrote it under contract. But in truth it needs no revision but can use some late news flashes.

1) Jonathan V. Post reports (OMNI, May '79) that scientists in Geneva have announced containment of a beam of antiprotons in a circular storage ring for 85 hours. Further deponent sayeth not as today (Nov. '79) I have not yet traced down details. The total ma.s.s could not have been large (Geneva is still on the map) as the storage method used is not suited to large ma.s.ses-or, as in this case, a ma.s.sive sum total of very small ma.s.ses.

But I am astonished at any containment even though with dead seriousness I predicted it in the section just above. I did not expect it in the near future but now I learn it happened at least 10 months ago, only 4 years after I wrote the above article.

Too frighteningly soon! A very small (anti) ma.s.s to be sure-but when Dr. Lise Meitner wrote the equations that implicitly predicted the A-bomb, there was not enough purified U-235 anywhere to cause a gnat's eye to water.

How soon will we face a LARGE ma.s.s-say about an ounce-planted in Manhattan by someone who doesn't like us very well? If he releases the magnetic container by an alarm-clock timer or nine other simple make-it-inyour-own-kitchen devices, he can be in Singapore when it goes off Or in Trenton if he enjoys watching his own little practical jokes-he won't worry about witnesses; they will be dead.

Too big? Too c.u.mbersome? Too expensive? I don't know-and neither does anyone else today. I am not proposing sneaking a CERN particle accelerator past Hoboken customs. . . but note that the first reacting atomic pile (University of Chicago) was ma.s.sive-but it was not flown to Hiros.h.i.+ma. The bomb that did go was called "Fat Boy" for good reason. Now we can fire them from 8-inch guns. As for the "suitcase" bomb-change that to a large briefcase; all the other essentials can be bought off the shelf for cash in any medium-large city, no questions asked as they are commonplace items.

Antimatter, containment and all, might turn out to be even smaller, lighter, simpler.

2) That variable constant: Dr. Van Flandern is still plugging away at Dr. Dirac's 1937 prediction about the "Constant" of Gravitation. The latest figures I have seen show (by his measurements) that the "Constant" is decreasing by 3.6 1.8 parts in 1011 years, a figure surprisingly close to Dirac's 1937 prediction (5.6) in view of the extreme difficulty of making the measurements and of excluding extraneous variables. But all this is based on a universe 18-20 billion years old since the "big bang"- an a.s.sumption on current best data but still an a.s.sumption. If the universe is actually materially older than that (there are reasons to think so, and all the revisions since Abbe LemaItre first formulated the theory have all been upward, never downward), then Dirac's prediction may turn out to be right on the nose of observed data to their limit of accuracy.

The data above are from an article by Dr. Herbert Friedman of Naval Research Laboratory. Our Baker Street Irregulars have just established a pipeline to Dr.

Van Flandern; if major new data become available before this book is closed for press, I will add a line to this.

3) In Where To see prediction number fourteen, page 341: At the Naval Academy I slept my way through the course in physics; nothing had changed since I had covered the same ground in high school. "Little did I dream" that a young man at Cambridge, less than five years older than I, was at that very moment turning the world upside down. This quiet, polite, soft-spoken gentleman was going to turn out to be the enfant terrible of physics. This has been the stormiest century in natural philosophy of all history and the storms are not over. We would not today have over 200 "elementary" particles (an open scandal) if Paul Dirac had not simplified the relation of spin and magnetism in an electron into one equation over fifty years ago, then shown that the equation implied antimatter.

Many thousands of man-hours, many millions of dollars have been spent since then exploring the byways opened up by this one equation. And the end is not yet. The four forces (strong, weak, gravitic, electromagnetic) are still to be combined into one system. Einstein died with the work unfinished, Hawking (although young) is tragically ill, Dirac himself has reached the age when he really should not climb stepladders (as I know too well; I'm not that much younger).

E = me2 everybody knows; it's short and simple. But the Dirac equation, at least as important, is known only to professionals-not surprising; it's hairy and uses symbols a lavutan never sees.

I include it here just for record; I won't try to explain ii. For explanations, gel a late text on quantum inechanic~ and be prepared to learn some not-easy mathematics. Lotsa luck!

f ff~~ + h~2 + ~J~2 + ~2] dxdydz = 1

LATE BULLETIN:.

Newton's "Constant" of Gravitation is a decreasing variable.

Just as I was about to dispatch this book MS to New York, through the good offices of Dr. Yoji Kondo (astrophysicist NASA G.o.ddard) I received from Dr. Thomas C. Van Flandern a preprint of his latest results. They tend to confirm Dr. Dirac's 1937 prediction even more closely AND ARE RACKED UP BY TWO OTHER APPR ) ~( Ill ~ nil II~m ~ln~ (y/Ol l'U~ lOll (i~ 0 1(0/able d (('H S H ig oil/i tniie.

I hare just telephoned Dm-. Van Fianclern. Wit/i caution propel- to a scientist he does not say that he has "proved" Dr. Dirac 's prediction ... but that data to date~s upport it; no data that he knows of contradict it-and addS that sonic ot his colleagues disagree with him.

I don't have to be cautious; this man has established the fact beyond any reasonable doubt.

Twenty-odd years of endless Lunar data, done by atomic (cesium) clock, electrically-automatically timed occultations of stars, backed by both triangulation and radar ranging, counterchecked by similar work done on the inner planets by other astronomers at other observatories- Certainly he could be wrong. . .

and I could be elected President!

T. C. Van Flandern turns out to be the sort of Renaissance Man Dirac is, but a generation younger (38 years). B.S. mathematics, Xavier, Cincinnati; Ph.D. astronomy, Yale-he has three other disciplines: biochemistry, nutrition, psychiatry. (When does he sleep?) Reread that list of sciences affected (p. 486), then batten down the hatches! Dirac has done it again, and the World will never be the same.

LARGER THAN LIFE.

A Memoir in Tribute to Dr. Edward E. Smith

August 1940-aback road near Jackson, Michigan- a 1939 Chevrolet sedan: "Doc" Smith is at the wheel; I am in the righthand seat and trying hard to appear cool, calm, fearless-a credit to the Patrol. Doc has the accelerator floorboarded . . . but has his head tilted over at ninety degrees so that he can rest his skull against the frame of the open left window-in order to listen by bone conduction for body squeaks.

Were you to attempt this position yourself-car parked and brakes set, by all means; I am not suggesting that you drive-you would find that your view of the road ahead is between negligible and zero.

I must note that Doc was not wearing his Lens.

This leaves (by Occam's Razor) his sense of perception, his almost superhuman reflexes, and his ability to integrate instantly all available data and act therefrom decisively and correctly.

Sounds a lot like the Gray Lensman, does it not?

It should, as no one more nearly resembled (in character and in ability-not necessarily in appearance) the Gray Lensman than did the good gray doctor who created him.

Doc could do almost anything and do it quickly and well. In this case he was selecting and road-testing for me a secondhand car. After rejecting numberless other cars, he approved this one; I bought it. Note the date: August 1940. We entered World War Two the following year and quit making automobiles. I drove that car for twelve years. When I finally did replace it, the mechanic who took care of it asked to be permitted to buy it rather than have it be turned in on a trade. . . because, after more than thirteen years and hundreds of thousands of miles, it was still a good car. Doc Smith had not missed anything.

Its name? Skylark Five, of course.

So far as I know, Doc Smith could not play a dulcimer (but it would not surprise me to learn that he had been expert at it). Here are some of the skills I know he possessed: Chemist & chemical engineer-and anyone who thinks these two professions are one and the same is neither a chemist nor an engineer. (My wife is a chemist and is also an aeronautical engineer-but she is not a chemical engineer. All clear? No? See me after cla.s.s.) Metallurgist-an arcane art at the Trojan Point of Black Magic and science.

Photographer-all metallurgists are expert photographers; the converse is not necessarily true.

Lumberjack Cereal chemist Cook Explosives chemist-research, test, & development -product control Blacksmith Machinist (tool & diemaker grade) Carpenter Hardrock miner-see chapter 14 of FIRST LENSMAN, t.i.tled "Mining and Disaster." That chapter was written by a man who had been there. And it is a refutation of the silly notion that science fiction does not require knowledge of science. Did I hear someone say that there is no science in that chapter? Just a trick vocabulary-trade argot-plus description of some commonplace mechanical work- So? The science (several sciences!) lies just below the surface of the paper.. . and permeates every word. In some fields I could be fooled, but not in this one. I've been in mining, off and on, for more than forty years.

Or see s.p.a.cEHOUNDS OF IPC, chapters 3 & 4, pp. 40-80. . . and especially p.52 of the Fantasy Press hardcover edition. Page 52 is almost purely autobiographical in that it tells why the male lead, "Steve" Stevens, knows how to fabricate from the wreckage at hand everything necessary to rescue Nadia and himself. I once discussed with Doc these two chapters, in detail; he convinced me that his hero character could do these things by convincing me that he, Edward E. Smith, could do all of them. . .

and, being myself an experienced mechanical engineer, it was not possible for him to give me a "snow job." (I think he lacked the circuitry to give a "snow job" in any case; incorruptible honesty was Dr.

Smith's prime attribute-with courage to match it.) What else could he do? He could call square dances. Surely, almost anyone can square-dance . . .

but to become a caller takes longer and is much more difficult. When and how he found time for this I do not know- but, since he did everything about three times as fast as ordinary people, there is probably no mystery.

Both Doc and his beautiful Jeannie were endlessly hospitable. I stayed with them once when they had nine houseguests. They seemed to enjoy it.

But, above all, Doc Smith was the perfect, gallant knight, sans peur et sans reproche.

And all of the above are reflected in his stories.

It is customary today among self-styled "literary critics" to sneer at Doc's s.p.a.ce epics-plot, characterization, dialog, motivations, values, moral att.i.tudes, etc. "Hopelessly old-fas.h.i.+oned" is one of the milder disparagements.

As Al Smith used to say: "Let's take a look at the record."

Edward Elmer Smith was born in 1890, some forty years before the American language started to fall to pieces-long, long before the idiot notion of "restricted vocabulary" infected our schools, a half century before our language was corrupted by the fallacy that popular usage defines grammatical correctness.

In consequence Dr. Smith made full use of his huge vocabulary, preferring always the exact word over a more common but inexact word. He did not hesitate to use complex sentences. His syntactical constructions show that he understood and used with precision the conditional and the subjunctive modes as well as the indicative. He did not split infinitives. The difference between "like" and "as" was not a mystery to him. He limited barbarisms to quoted dialog used in characterization.

("Oh, but that dialog!") In each story Doc's male lead character is a very intelligent, highly educated, cheerful, emotional, enthusiastic, and genuinely modest man who talks exactly like Doc Smith who was a very intelligent, highly educated, cheerful, emotional, enthusiastic, and genuinely modest man.

In casual conversation Doc used a number of cliches . . . and his male lead characters used the same or similar ones. This is a literary fault? I think not. In casual speech most people tend to repeat each his own idiosyncratic pattern of cliches. Doc's repertory of cliches was quite colorful, especially so when compared with patterns heard today that draw heavily on "The Seven Words That Must Never Be Used in Television." A 7-word vocabulary offers little variety.

("But those embarra.s.sing love scenes!") E. E. Smith's adolescence was during the Mauve Decade; we may a.s.sume tentatively that his att.i.tudes toward women were formed mainly in those years. In 1914, a few weeks before the war in Europe started, he met his Jeannie-and I can testify of my own knowledge that, 47 years later (i.e., the last time I saw him before his death) he was still dazzled by the wonderful fact that this glorious creature had consented to spend her life with him.

Do you remember the cultural att.i.tudes toward romantic love during the years before the European War? Too early for you? Never mind, you'll find them throughout Doc Smith's novels. Now we come to the important question. The Lensman novels are laid in the far future. Can you think of any reason why the att.i.tudes between s.e.xes today (ca. 1979) are more likely to prevail in the far future than are att.i.tudes prevailing before 1914?

(I stipulate that there are many other possible patterns. But we are now comparing just these two.) I suggest that the current pattern is contrasurvival, is necessarily most temporary, and is merely one symptom of the kaleidoscopic and possibly catastrophic rapid change our culture is pa.s.sing through (or dying from?).

Contrariwise, the pre-1914 values, whatever faults they may have, are firmly anch.o.r.ed in the concept that a male's first duty is to protect women and children. Pro survival!

"Ah, but those hackneyed plots!" Yes, indeed!-and for excellent reason: The ideas, the cosmic concepts, the complex and sweeping plots, all were brand new when Doc invented them. But in the past half century dozens of other writers have taken his plots, his concepts, and rung the changes on them.

The ink was barely dry on SKYLARK OF s.p.a.cE when the imitators started in. They have never stopped-pygmies, standing on the shoulders of a giant.

But all the complaints about "Skylark" Smith's alleged literary faults are as nothing to the (usually unvoiced) major grievance: Doc Smith did not go along with any of the hogwash that pa.s.ses for a system of social values today.

He believed in Good and Evil. He had no truck with the moral relativism of the neo- (c.o.c.ktail-party) Freudians.

He refused to concede that "mediocre" is better than "superior."

He had no patience with self-pity.

He did not think that men and women are equal- he would as lief have equated oranges with apples.

His stories a.s.sumed that men and women are different, with different functions, different responsibilities, different duties. Not equal but complementary. Neither complete without the other.

Worse yet, in his greatest and longest story, the 6volume Lensman novel, he a.s.sumes that all humans are unequal (and, by implication, that the cult of the common man is pernicious nonsense), and bases his grand epic on the idea that a planned genetic breeding program thousands of years long can (and must) produce a new race superior to h. sapiens . . . supermen who will become the guardians of civilization.

The Lensman novel was left unfinished; there was to have been at least a seventh volume. As always, Doc had worked it out in great detail but never (so far as I know) wrote it down. . . because it was unpublishable-then. But he told me the ending, orally and in private.

I shan't repeat it; it is not my story. Possibly somewhere there is a ma.n.u.script-I hope so! All I will say is that the ending develops by inescapable logic from clues in CHILDREN OF THE LENS.

So work it out for yourself. The original Gray Lensman left us quite suddenly-urgent business a long way off, no time to spare to tell us more stories.

SPINOFF.

On 2 July 1979 I received a letter calling me to testify July 19th before a joint session of the House Select Committee on Aging (Honorable Claude Pepper, M.C., Chairman) and the House Committee on Science and Technology (Honorable Don Fuqua, M.C., Chairman)- subject: Applications of s.p.a.ce Technology for the Elderly and the Handicapped.

I stared at that letter with all the enthusiasm of a bridegroom handed a summons for jury duty. s.p.a.ce technology? Yeah, sure, I was gung-ho for s.p.a.ce technology, s.p.a.ce travel, s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps, s.p.a.ce exploration, s.p.a.ce colonies-anything about s.p.a.ce, always have been.

But "applications of s.p.a.ce technology for the elderly and the handicapped"? Why not bee culture? Or Estonian folk dancing? Or the three-toed salamander? Tantric Yoga?

I faced up to the problem the way any married man does: "Honey? How do I get out of this?"

"Come clean," she advised me. "Tell them bluntly that you know nothing about the subject. Shall I write a letter for you to sign?"

"It's not that simple."

"Certainly it is. We don't want to go to Was.h.i.+ngton. In July? Let's not be silly."

"You don't have to go."