Mindwebs: The Sentinel
Sep. 11th, 2012 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicollThe Sentinel
This is a Clarke, one originally published in 1948; some hint of the age may be seen in the hopelessly outdated geology of the Moon. This story was the starting point for the movie and the book 2001: A Space Odyssey, although only the barest details survived the transformation.
One quibble: when the narrator frets (spoilers)
that humans will not have long to wait until the aliens turn up to see what broke their machine, I think he makes two errors:
The first is there's no evidence the aliens are in fact interested in intelligent life. That's just an idea that comes to the narrator and there is, I think, evidence he and the other astronauts are obsessed with finding intelligent life.
Secondly, these are beings who carry out plans that apparently last billions of years. What is "not long" for them may be very long for us.
This is a Clarke, one originally published in 1948; some hint of the age may be seen in the hopelessly outdated geology of the Moon. This story was the starting point for the movie and the book 2001: A Space Odyssey, although only the barest details survived the transformation.
One quibble: when the narrator frets (spoilers)
that humans will not have long to wait until the aliens turn up to see what broke their machine, I think he makes two errors:
The first is there's no evidence the aliens are in fact interested in intelligent life. That's just an idea that comes to the narrator and there is, I think, evidence he and the other astronauts are obsessed with finding intelligent life.
Secondly, these are beings who carry out plans that apparently last billions of years. What is "not long" for them may be very long for us.
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no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 03:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 03:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 04:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 05:18 am (UTC)http://id34111.securedata.net/areaology/area.html
no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 12:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 01:57 pm (UTC)I think "planetary science" is winning these days.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 03:16 pm (UTC)Many universities group this stuff under the even more vague "space science." Often the names are expressed as departments of "Earth and Space Sciences" or "Earth and Planetary Science."
no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 03:25 pm (UTC)However, "Planetary Science" as a term for this sort of study has the additional problem that it doesn't actually apply to the study of the lithology of fakey non-planets like Pluto or Ceres, nor moons like The Moon or Titan, as none of those are planets by any currently accepted scientific standard.
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Date: 2012-09-12 03:27 pm (UTC)Planetoidy science!
no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 03:33 pm (UTC)&PLanetary
&Planetoidey
&Dwarf Planetary
&Miscellaneous Satellitey
Science
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Date: 2012-09-12 06:10 pm (UTC)If this is your objection, I'll point out that "astronomy" never has been limited to the study of stars.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 05:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 03:36 pm (UTC)On the second point: over a billion years, the race in question may have gone extinct, or the loss of signal may not be noticed because its communication mode is as obsolete as smoke signals. Or it may not longer be listened to because the alien-monitoring budget was slashed in a cost-cutting reorganization back in the Cambrian period.
Bruce
no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-12 09:28 pm (UTC)Bruce
no subject
Date: 2012-09-13 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-13 04:32 am (UTC)