O quão de perto os autores de When Worlds Collide buscaram a física dos danos catastróficos e das trajetórias do planeta?

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Depois de escrever este comentário Eu pensei no romance de 1933 Quando os mundos colidirem escrito por Philip Wylie e Edwin Balmer.

South African astronomer Sven Bronson discovers that a pair of rogue planets, Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta, will soon enter the solar system. In eight months, they will pass close enough to cause catastrophic damage to the Earth. Sixteen months later, after swinging around the Sun, Bronson Alpha will return to pulverize the Earth and leave. It is hoped that Bronson Beta will remain and assume a stable orbit.

Wikipedia descreve o dano catastrófico da primeira passagem no romance como

Tidal waves sweep inland at a height of 750 feet (230 m), volcanic eruptions and earthquakes add to the deadly toll, and the weather runs wild for more than two days. As a token of things to come, Bronson Alpha grazes and destroys the Moon.

É sabido se os autores recorreram à ciência conhecida do dia para supor como seriam os efeitos de uma aproximação planetária próxima? Eu sei que é quase 100 anos atrás, mas estou curioso para saber como eles criaram a ciência por trás dos maremotos, vulcões e terremotos. O pastoreio da Lua significa que a aproximação de pelo menos um dos planetas da Terra era de menos de 400.000 km, então se eles tivessem assumido uma massa para os planetas, eles poderiam estimar quantitativamente as forças na Terra.

O fato de Bronson Alpha e Beta se dividirem e terem órbitas diferentes e bem descritas sugere que eles certamente colocariam algum pensamento na mecânica orbital, mas eu não sei se as órbitas são realistas, nem se era a gravidade da Terra. ou a interação com a Lua que divide Alfa e Beta. Sabe-se a que nível de detalhe eles perseguiram toda a física envolvida nos danos catastróficos e nas trajetórias do planeta?

    
por uhoh 11.11.2018 / 02:44

1 resposta

Sam Moskowitz , proeminente fã dos velhos tempos e historiador da ficção científica, escreveu um ensaio sobre Philip Wylie . Intitulado "Philip Wylie: The Saccharine Cynic" , foi originalmente publicado em Fantastic Science Fiction Stories , setembro de 1960 , disponível em Internet Archive ; foi reimpresso (sem o subtítulo) em Science Fantasy , outubro de 1961 , também disponível no Arquivo da Internet .

De acordo com Moskowitz, Wylie considerou-se um defensor da precisão científica (seu colaborador Edwin Balmer nem tanto), e consultou alguns amigos não identificados no Caltech sobre a física de Quando os mundos colidem .

A bug on astronomy, Balmer had roughed out a sequence of events for a novel where two planets enter our solar system from outer space. One will strike the earth with resultant mutual destruction. The only chance man has for survival is to build space ships and transfer a few thousand men and women to the second invading world — which will take up an orbit around the sun — before it moves out of range. He presented this idea to Wylie and found a kindred spirit. Like a child with a new toy, Philip Wylie assembled his physicist friends at Cal Tech and mathematically mapped out the scientific elements by which this feat of [spacial] leap frog could be accomplished. The time lost in the advancement of atomics was unquestionably science fiction's gain.

The collaboration, written as These Shall Not Die, was retitled When Worlds Collide by Donald Kennicott and opened in the September, 1932 issue of BLUE BOOK.

[. . . .]

There seemed no question that a third book in the series, solving the riddle of the new planet's missing inhabitants was the next logical step, and indeed a plot was outlined by Balmer but vetoed by Wylie. Every word of When Worlds Collide had been written by Wylie and it had been published as written. Similarly, Wylie wrote all of the text of the sequel, but before press time Balmer made some alterations that affected scientific plausibility. Wylie, a purist at science fiction nurtured in the tradition of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and Hugo Gernsback, was disturbed by these changes. Balmer's plot outline of the third book would have been difficult to validate on the basis of known facts. Wylie contended that the success of the first two volumes was predicated, to a large extent, upon the high degree of respect shown for scientific accuracy. Therefore, though he continued to collaborate with Balmer on adventure and detective novels, he refused to give literary substance to the projected third in the When Worlds Collide series.

    
25.01.2019 / 13:11