Not the point of the story at all, but I’m pretty sure it would have indeed made a lot of difference in the story had the Professor warned governing bodies or the public. Clearly survival was possible, so (assuming the sun is still functional at the end) bringing various microbial, fungal, and plant species into the arks or otherwise creating refuges for them seems it would have made a lot of difference.
I think this is paralleled in the modern apathy in most peoples mind’s towards any sort of preparation and individual or communal adaptation towards threats like climate change, nuclear war, peak oil, etc, where most in the government on down to the average citizen would rather not know and are just content to throw their hands in the air and assume someone else is on it or it won’t affect them personally.
Good point. I wonder if contemporary readers also might have found that a bit galling: that this professor takes it upon himself not to share the news “for the people’s own good” of course. Certainly many nuclear planners took a similar attitude in the Cold War.
Reminds me of the character Morbius from 'Forbidden Planet' who would only parcel out such bits and pieces of the knowledge of the Krell as his enhanced mind saw fit.
I wonder if Larry Niven had come across this piece by Newcomb prior to writing his end-of-the-world short story _Inconstant Moon,_ published circa 1970.
What I find interesting about old and really old "science fiction" are the mundane things that got missed in the speculative time adjustment. This story is in the far future ... they are communicating with martians and doing astronomical observations. Okay, so far so good. They are in communication with the martians via morse code light squares .... what?? To the author, who knew about the speed of light but not about radio; postulates a speed of light communication method that is quite advanced. In other words light pixels on a display screen that is big enough that an observer on mars can discern the pixels. Morse code was a very modern way to communicate at the time the story was written. The story is very advanced in speculative time but the communication method, although fantastic, is not advanced to a reader of today.
Hmm, given that the story was published in what, 1903, and the Boer War had eneded just a few short months in the recent past, I'm sure that the author Would have been aware of the part that heliographs would have played on both sides of the conflict: so it's likely that he was looking at That particulat technology in much the same way as we look at military grade tech today and included in the story with that in mind.
Highlighting the date ... Marconi was working on radio telegraphy at this time. I wonder how long before the publish date the story was written?
I went back and reread the bit that described the communication device. I originally took this to be a large light square on a dark background (like a pixel) being observed by telescopes. However, I think you are correct. Taking the word "concentrated" in the context of a heliograph it could be a field of mirrors pointing at a sending mirror. This makes more sense as an extrapolation of an existing device.
Not the point of the story at all, but I’m pretty sure it would have indeed made a lot of difference in the story had the Professor warned governing bodies or the public. Clearly survival was possible, so (assuming the sun is still functional at the end) bringing various microbial, fungal, and plant species into the arks or otherwise creating refuges for them seems it would have made a lot of difference.
I think this is paralleled in the modern apathy in most peoples mind’s towards any sort of preparation and individual or communal adaptation towards threats like climate change, nuclear war, peak oil, etc, where most in the government on down to the average citizen would rather not know and are just content to throw their hands in the air and assume someone else is on it or it won’t affect them personally.
Good point. I wonder if contemporary readers also might have found that a bit galling: that this professor takes it upon himself not to share the news “for the people’s own good” of course. Certainly many nuclear planners took a similar attitude in the Cold War.
Reminds me of the character Morbius from 'Forbidden Planet' who would only parcel out such bits and pieces of the knowledge of the Krell as his enhanced mind saw fit.
I wonder if Larry Niven had come across this piece by Newcomb prior to writing his end-of-the-world short story _Inconstant Moon,_ published circa 1970.
What I find interesting about old and really old "science fiction" are the mundane things that got missed in the speculative time adjustment. This story is in the far future ... they are communicating with martians and doing astronomical observations. Okay, so far so good. They are in communication with the martians via morse code light squares .... what?? To the author, who knew about the speed of light but not about radio; postulates a speed of light communication method that is quite advanced. In other words light pixels on a display screen that is big enough that an observer on mars can discern the pixels. Morse code was a very modern way to communicate at the time the story was written. The story is very advanced in speculative time but the communication method, although fantastic, is not advanced to a reader of today.
Hmm, given that the story was published in what, 1903, and the Boer War had eneded just a few short months in the recent past, I'm sure that the author Would have been aware of the part that heliographs would have played on both sides of the conflict: so it's likely that he was looking at That particulat technology in much the same way as we look at military grade tech today and included in the story with that in mind.
Highlighting the date ... Marconi was working on radio telegraphy at this time. I wonder how long before the publish date the story was written?
I went back and reread the bit that described the communication device. I originally took this to be a large light square on a dark background (like a pixel) being observed by telescopes. However, I think you are correct. Taking the word "concentrated" in the context of a heliograph it could be a field of mirrors pointing at a sending mirror. This makes more sense as an extrapolation of an existing device.