Dr. Hiram Pertwee Archives - Galactic Journey

by David Levinson

The passing of a great

As I sat down to write this article, I heard the news of the death of Lise Meitner. If that name isn’t familiar to you, it should be. Einstein once called her “the German Marie Curie,” which might be understating things. She is arguably the most important woman physicist of the 20th century and possibly one of the most important theoretical physicists, period.

Born in Vienna in 1878, she became only the second woman to earn a doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna in 1905. She later moved to Germany and worked at the University of Berlin. There, she and Otto Hahn discovered the most stable isotope of the element protactinium, which she dubbed protoactinium before dropping the second “o.” In 1939, she and Hahn, along with Otto Robert Frisch and Fritz Strassmann, discovered and explained nuclear fission. There are also at least two nuclear phenomena which bear her name.

Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner circa 1912.

Meitner was able to escape Nazi Germany in 1938 with the help of Niels Bohr. She settled in Sweden, where she spent the rest of her professional life. Her role in the discovery of nuclear fission garnered her a lot of celebrity after the end of the War; she was even interviewed by Eleanor Roosevelt on her radio show. She was a popular speaker and instructor and traveled extensively to the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany.

She received numerous accolades throughout her career, and the institute that oversees Germany’s first research nuclear reactor bears her and Hahn’s names. But the Nobel eluded her. Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1944 for the discovery of nuclear fission (ignoring not only Meitner, but also Frisch and Strassmann). The Nobel committee plays things pretty close to the vest, but word is that Lise Meitner was nominated many times in the fields of physicist and chemistry. In 1966, President Johnson honored her with the Enrico Fermi Award.

After retiring in 1960, she moved to the United Kingdom to be closer to family and continued giving lectures. She was in poor health in recent years, unable to attend the Fermi Award ceremony. She died in her sleep at the age of 89.

Lise Meitner in 1963.

Stereotypes

As Lise Meitner’s life shows, women play an active and important role in science, and ought to do so in science fiction as well. Unfortunately, there seem to be fewer women writing SF than there were a decade ago, and there don’t seem to be all that many as key characters in stories either. Two of the stories in this month’s IF don’t have any, two offer mothers, two more femmes fatale, and as far as the first story goes, the less said the better.

A previously unknown piece by the late Hannes Bok, probably the last new Bok cover ever.

Continue reading [November 2, 1968] Role Models (December 1968 IF) →

by Gideon Marcus

I see you!

We have now entered a phase of the Space Race where there's enough stuff in orbit that other stuff in orbit can take pictures of it. Not just deliberate rendeszvous' like dual missions of Gemini 6 and 7, but snapshots of opportunity, like Gemini 11's photo of the Soviet Proton 3.

Last week, NASA released perhaps the most extraordinary example of this nature: the first snapshot of a spacecraft sent to the Moon…by a spacecraft sent to the Moon! Lunar Orbiter 3, launched early last month, has been busily mapping our celestial neighbor, searching for the choicest landing spots for Apollo (whose first manned mission, I've just learned, has been delayed until next year due to the Apollo 1 fire.) In the course of its surveying, Lunar Orbiter 3 caught a glimpse of Surveyor 1, the first American soft-lander. It all makes the Moon feel that much closer.

While the newspaper brings us tales of science fiction-made-fact, the stf mags continue to provide the visions of science-to-be. The latest edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction offers several visions of the future: some poetic, some bleak, and some not really worth reading. Good thing I'm here to tell you which is which, huh?

A pail of tomorrows

by Gray Morrow

Dawn, by Roger Zelazny

Lord Siddhartha, the Buddha, arrives as the capital for a bit of revelry. There, he is greeted with honors, for he is a prince of this land, redolent with the smells of spice, the bustle of medieval commerce, the prayers of the devoted. At first glance, Dawn seems as if it will be a pure fantasy in a richly drawn world. But there are signs that underneath the veneer of ancient India lies a strictly scientific core.

Indeed, we learn quite soon that Siddhartha is actually Sam, one of the original colonists on this world, a planet whose technology has been deliberately restrained by the cabal of the Firsts and their lackeys, the Masters. Their firm grip lies in their stranglehold on immortality, facilitated by their ability to transmigrate souls from body to body at will.

Sam wants to bring progress to the world. Can he and his band of rebels undo the work of centuries?

Zelazny's latest novella is reportedly the first part of a longer work, to be titled "Lord of Light". If it is as expertly rendered as this fine start, then it'll be a good read, indeed!

Four stars.

The Two Lives of Ben Coulter, by Larry Eisenberg

"The greatest disappointment of Ben Coulter's life was his inability to play the violin well."

So begins the tale of a fellow who turned instead to engineering for the purpose, failing to find it there until he co-developed a technique for the remote control of a living being. Perhaps, at last, he could program mastery into himself.

Most science fiction authors take inspiration from the science news of the day. Some, like Doc Smith, are actually scientists. Larry Eisenberg is perhaps unique in the SF community for extrapolating a scientifiction application of his own invention, the remote controlled pacemaker.

His story, if not quite as personally affecting as his crowning scientific achievement, is a pleasant little piece, nonetheless.

Three stars.

Cloud Seeding, by Theodore L. Thomas

In this fictionless vignette, Thomas suggests combining cloud seeding with chemical distribution. After all, if you're putting stuff in the sky to make rain, why not use fertilizer or poison of what have you.

Thomas forgets that the seeds for the raindrops are necessarily uselessly tiny. I almost feel as though these little exercises are not to present interesting ideas, but are puzzles for the reader: spot the fallacy and win a hundred dollars!

Two stars.

by Gahan Wilson

Problems of Creativeness, by Thomas M. Disch

The 21st Century is an overcrowded, socialist paradise. Everyone is on the childless dole, unless they can prove themselves exceptional, finish college, or join the guerrila forces. Birdie Ludd, the least exceptional of young men, doesn't want to do any of these things. But for the love of Milly, pretty enough almost to be a movie star, he was willing to endure almost anything.

Less a story and more a slice-of-life from the perspective of an indolent youth, Problems relies mostly on a vivid stream-of-consciousness style and copious use of the first profanity I've read within F&SF's pages.

Three stars, I guess.

The Sword of Pell the Idiot, by Julian F. Grow

Farquhar Orpington-Pell, late a subaltern in Her Majesty's Own Midlothian Dragoons, falls in with a Western doctor on the late 19th Century range. Their crooked path takes them to a subterranean complex inhabited by aliens. Things Happen. Supposed-to-be-funny-but-just-tedious things, capped off by the rather insulting punchline that the transpirings inspired a much better, well known set of books.

Feh. One star.

"Virtue. 'Tis A Fugue!", by Patrick Meadows

An advanced world refuses the entreaties of humanity to join a terran federation. Professor Thomas Gunn, a musicologist, provides the key to reaching the hearts of the aliens. Their language is the culmination of tonality, you see, each sentence its own song. Our hyper-efficient, sound-codified speak was too declassé to appeal.

It's all a lot of "mun, mun" to me, and in any event, the revelation came out of nowhere. Indeed, Gunn's story and that of the contact team are completely unrelated until he suddenly appears on the planet in the story's last scenes.

Two stars.

A Matter of Scale, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor goes way out with his latest article. You know those "the sun is a beachball, and the planets are various small fruit several hundred feet away" models you read in all the science books for kids? He's decided to go one better, substituting atomic analogs so the distances can be more relatable.

I'm sure it was a fun exercise for him.

Three stars.

Randy's Syndrome, by Brian W. Aldiss

Lastly, another tale of the next, shoulder-to-shoulder, anti-utopian 21st Century. The foetuses of the world go on strike, refusing to be born into such an awful place. But is it really a mass strike of the unborn, happy in their womb world of racial memory and distorted, second-hand sensory inputs? Or is it some kind of planetary neurosis of the mothers?

Whatever it is, it's not science fiction, more a modern myth. Some might find it clever.

Two stars.

Under the Moon

After such a bright beginning, the April 1967 F&SF stumbles to a finish. I recognize that science fiction is cautionary as well as aspirational, but I feel one needs to say more than "this future we're heading toward is gonna stink..and by the way, the future is now."

The Zelazny is worth your time, however.

And, hey, at least the newspaper brings us pretty pictures!