Thursday 13 October 2016

Van Rijn POV VII

Continuing to reread "Margin of Profit" (see here), we find a passage that we have quoted and discussed previously. See here.

The second paragraph in this passage reads:

"The ship drove on as she had done for a pair of weeks, pulsing in and out of four-space at thousands of times per second..." (p. 160)

The sf device of hyperspace is often associated with the fourth dimension which would give us "four-space." However, as this passage makes clear, the version of "hyperspace" used in Poul Anderson's Technic History involves not a warp or detour through the fourth dimension but multiple instantaneous quantum jumps within three dimensional space. Thus, the phrase "four-space" seems to be a hangover from more conventional accounts? Unless the theory is that a quantum jump does take an object through the fourth dimension?

I am posting over breakfast and must shortly travel by car, not hyperspace, to a nearby town so there will be blog silence from this part of Lancaster for a while.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And we also see Persis d'Io discussing with Lord Hauksberg in ENSIGN FLANDRY her attempt at understanding how the hyperdrive works. An intriguing bit of futuristic "popular science" was quoted.

Blog silence? At least that gives me time to catch up with you! (Smiles)

Sean