peter@baylor.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (07/26/85)
Procyon's Promise, by Michael McCollum. Del Rey 1985.
Ugh. Not only does he have such obvious boners as antimatter black holes
and alien species that act totally irrationally for no apparent reason,
but he hasn't ever heard of copying a file, secure networks, or propogation
delay. A good read if you can forget everything that's happened since
1920... too much suspension of disbelief needed for me, I'm afraid. I
don't remember the prequel (Life Probe) being so shoddy, but that could
just be a selective memory.
--
Peter da Silva (the mad Australian)
UUCP: ...!shell!neuro1!{hyd-ptd,baylor,datafac}!peter
MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison) (07/31/85)
In article <320@baylor.UUCP> peter@baylor.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: >Procyon's Promise, by Michael McCollum. Del Rey 1985. > >Ugh. Not only does he have such obvious boners as antimatter black holes > ... > Peter da Silva (the mad Australian) > UUCP: ...!shell!neuro1!{hyd-ptd,baylor,datafac}!peter > MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076 Very obvious boner. Stephen Hawking made the same "boner". A black hole can be "made" of just about any type of matter, antimatter included. Hutch
ethan@utastro.UUCP (Ethan Vishniac) (08/01/85)
> In article <320@baylor.UUCP> peter@baylor.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: > >Procyon's Promise, by Michael McCollum. Del Rey 1985. > > > >Ugh. Not only does he have such obvious boners as antimatter black holes > > ... > > Very obvious boner. Stephen Hawking made the same "boner". A black hole > can be "made" of just about any type of matter, antimatter included. > > Hutch Indeed. Only there is *no* difference between an antimatter black hole and one made of matter. Hence the "boner". -- "Don't argue with a fool. Ethan Vishniac Borrow his money." {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan Department of Astronomy University of Texas
wales@ucla-cs.UUCP (08/01/85)
I just read Michael McCollum's new book, PROCYON'S PROMISE. This is a sequel to his novel LIFE PROBE. Short review: A good book. Believable characters. Very believable depictions of spaceship life and FTL technology. Mostly good writing. McCollum does have somewhat of a tendency to skim over events here and there which he doesn't deem critical to his plot line -- and when this occurs, he gets a bit boring -- but such "history book" sections are, happily, relatively short and relatively few. So read PROCYON'S PROMISE. (But read LIFE PROBE first.) A more detailed description will require some "giveaway" of the plot of LIFE PROBE. If you haven't yet read LIFE PROBE, you may wish to skip the rest of this message so as not to spoil your enjoyment of that book. OK. If you've reached this point, I will assume that you've either already read LIFE PROBE, or else that you're one of those people who skips to the end of a book to see whether or not "the butler did it". At the end of LIFE PROBE, Earth is launching a "generation ship" to Procyon -- the apparent seat of a civilization with faster-than-light travel. Under the guidance of SURROGATE (the surviving remnant of a Maker life probe which visited Earth), the human crew -- and their descendants -- hope to make contact with the civilization on Procyon, learn the secret of FTL travel, and then locate the Maker's home planet in order to fulfill the Probe's original mission. (The probe, as you will remember, was severely damaged in a terrorist attack by a minority faction on Earth -- and the surviving portion of the probe, while retaining vast amounts of Maker knowledge, did not know where the Makers were. Indeed, SURROGATE was dissuaded from destroying itself completely in a fit of despair only when its human associates promised to help it find its home civilization again.) PROCYON'S PROMISE takes place about 300 years after the original colo- nists left for Procyon. The colonists' descendants were expected to return to Earth after about slightly over a century with the secret of FTL travel -- but they never did. Earth, in the meantime, has benefited greatly from the vast store of Maker knowledge and sentient-computer technology -- and has all but forgotten about the Procyon expedition. Well, as it turns out, the colonists didn't find anyone in the Procyon system after all -- but they did find remnants of an abandoned starship base, along with enough artifacts and information to construct an FTL ship. They have absolutely no idea how it works -- but it does work. And they're coming back to their ancestral home to enlist Earth's aid in mounting a mission to locate the Makers and keep "The Promise". The only problem is, not only could Earth's leadership really care less about The Promise by now, but quite a few people in high places see the Procyon colonists as an unwitting threat to the safety of the human race -- and plot to stop them from carrying on their quest, lest the secret of FTL travel accidentally fall into the hands of some hostile race. Now that your appetite has been whetted, go out and read the book. Oh -- let me add that the ending of PROCYON'S PROMISE leaves things wide open for yet another sequel. -- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 213-825-5683 3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024 // USA ARPA: wales@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA -or- wales@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU UUCP: ...!(ihnp4,ucbvax)!ucla-cs!wales
levy@ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy) (08/02/85)
hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison) <1491@shark.UUCP>: > >>Procyon's Promise, by Michael McCollum. Del Rey 1985. >> >>Ugh. Not only does he have such obvious boners as antimatter black holes >> ... >> Peter da Silva (the mad Australian) >> UUCP: ...!shell!neuro1!{hyd-ptd,baylor,datafac}!peter >> MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076 > >Very obvious boner. Stephen Hawking made the same "boner". A black hole >can be "made" of just about any type of matter, antimatter included. > >Hutch I wonder... If a black hole were made out of antimatter, would it be possible to annihilate it by throwing enough ordinary matter into it? And vice versa? Actually I guess that wouldn't do much good, since the resultant energy would still be trapped within the black hole. Comments, net.physics? -- ------------------------------- Disclaimer: The views contained herein are | dan levy | yvel nad | my own and are not at all those of my em- | an engihacker @ | ployer, my pets, my plants, my boss, or the | at&t computer systems division | s.a. of any computer upon which I may hack. | skokie, illinois | | "go for it" | Path: ..!ihnp4!ttrdc!levy -------------------------------- or: ..!ihnp4!iheds!ttbcad!levy
draughn@iitcs.UUCP (Mark Draughn) (08/06/85)
As I understand it, black holes can be made of matter or anti-matter,
or whatever, but it doesn't matter. From outside of the black hole
all we can detect is its mass, its charge, and its spin. We can't tell
whether the stuff inside originally went in as matter, antimatter,
energy, or whatever. Antimatter black holes might exist, but we couldn't
know if they were.
Mark T. Draughnpeter@baylor.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (08/12/85)
> I just read Michael McCollum's new book, PROCYON'S PROMISE. This is a > sequel to his novel LIFE PROBE. > > Short review: A good book. Believable characters. Very believable > depictions of spaceship life and FTL technology. Mostly good writing. 2 big gripes: I-masses & antimatter in general, and the totally illogical behaviour of the Builders. There ain't no such thing as an antimatter black hole! A black hole has mass, charge, and spin. Any of which can be changed by feeding it the right matter. -- Peter da Silva (the mad Australian) UUCP: ...!shell!neuro1!{hyd-ptd,baylor,datafac}!peter MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076
alan@drivax.UUCP (Alan Fargusson) (08/14/85)
> As I understand it, black holes can be made of matter or anti-matter, > or whatever, but it doesn't matter. From outside of the black hole > all we can detect is its mass, its charge, and its spin. We can't tell > whether the stuff inside originally went in as matter, antimatter, > energy, or whatever. Antimatter black holes might exist, but we couldn't > know if they were. > Mark T. Draughn I have always been a little confused about matter/anti-matter stuff. Does anti-matter have negative mass? If it does then wouldn't a black hole made of anti-matter have negative mass? I'm a programmer jim, not a physicist. :-) -- Alan Fargusson. { ihnp4, amdahl, mot }!drivax!alan
gjerawlins@watdaisy.UUCP (Gregory J.E. Rawlins) (08/18/85)
In article <205@drivax.UUCP> alan@drivax.UUCP (Alan Fargusson) writes: > >I have always been a little confused about matter/anti-matter stuff. Does >anti-matter have negative mass? If it does then wouldn't a black hole made >of anti-matter have negative mass? > >I'm a programmer jim, not a physicist. :-) >-- > >Alan Fargusson. > >{ ihnp4, amdahl, mot }!drivax!alan No, anti-matter is just "matter" made up of anti-particles. Anti-particles are particles with the same mass as their (more normal) counterparts but with opposite charge or magnetic moment. The only reason a distinction is made is because "particles" are much more prevalent than "anti-particles". For example, the anti-particle of the electron is the positron (a particle with the same mass as an electron but with positive charge) a particle which caused much consternation when first discovered; as it turns out all "particles" have corresponding "anti-particles", the reason why they weren't discovered earlier is that in our neck of the woods particles are the rule and whenever an anti-particle is created it immediately combines with its corresponding particle and vanishes in a puff of energy. Particles with negative mass (whatever that means) are as of now pure speculation. Hope this helps. ("Jim, I'm a programmer not an encyclopaedia!") (-: greg :-) -- Gregory J.E. Rawlins, Department of Computer Science, U. Waterloo gjerawlins%watdaisy@waterloo.csnet gjerawlins%watdaisy%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa {allegra|clyde|linus|utzoo|inhp4|decvax}!watmath!watdaisy!gjerawlins