throopw@rtp47.UUCP (Wayne Throop) (08/18/85)
The article I am referencing has a title request, and a request for an inconsistancy resolution. I don't remember the title, but I can help with the inconsistancy. To condense the original: > This discussion reminds me of an Isaac Asimov story about two > scientists; [...] The quick one invents a device for nullifying gravity, > [...] places the device on the center of a pool table over a hole cut in > the surface. [...] the quick guy invites the slow guy to demonstrate > [the] great invention he has by shooting a pool ball [...] through the > null-gravity field [...] The slow guy thinks a bit, then makes a bank > shot so the ball is headed directly at the fast guy as it enters the > field. [...] the quick guy has a hole punched through him by the ball > [which] stayed put while the rest of the world whooshed by > > Two questions: Does anyone remember the title of this story? I beleive it had to do with the plot, and was something like "Fools rush in...", but I wouldn't bet the mortgage. > How could the slow guy predict which way the ball accelerated? He didn't have to. You've mis-remembered the reason that the ball zapped the quick guy [the experimentalist], and the reasoning that the slow guy [the theoretician] used to predict this behavior. **** SPOILER WARNING (for those who want to read it for themselves) **** The story was told from the viewpoint of a third fellow, who observed the incident and smelled a rat. The reason the pool ball took off like a bullet was that it was made *massless* by the gravity-nullifying device. Massless particles *must* travel at the speed of light, hence the ball takes off at lightspeed. Upon leaving the gravity-free zone, the transition back to massy-ness, and back to sane velocity (for massy particles) is incomplete, and the ball still has near-light speed. In the story, there is foreshadowing of this, and after the fact this effect is used to manfacture energy (by blowing small particles into the field and capturing the radiation that results yeilding heat, driving turbines, etc, etc). Now then, in the story, the slow fellow had figgured out what was going on before making his shot. He realized that a particle going into the field "ought to" leave the field along the same line, but accelerated to near-lightspeed. The third party suspected him of this, but the slow guy covered his tracks well, by promoting the theory that the exit path was random. The third party was the only one who noticed that the ball went *into* the field aimed directly at the quick fellow's heart, and he couldn't get anybody else to believe him. Sadly, it seems to me that there is a problem with Asimov's reasoning. Such a field "should" act on the elementary particles that *make up* the pool ball, not on the pool ball as a whole. Thus, since the particles that make it up are vibrating every-which-way (in thermal motion), the ball should have *exploded*, leaving a sizeable crater, rather than turning into a pool-ball-diameter beam of hard radiation. Ah well, a fairly nice short story with a twist ending, even so. > Jim Petrick (petrick@lll-crg.ARPA) -- (Note that the followup-to is changed to net.sf-lovers only.) -- Wayne Throop at Data General, RTP, NC <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!rtp47!throopw