Rescue of extraordinary Beowulf Schiffer

Traditionally start from afar.



An intelligent (or, in my case, simply corrosive and harmful) person is hard to read fiction. Writers often make funny mistakes that, although they do not spoil the impression of their works, can be the subject of a lively discussion. For example:



The height of the robot Max was one meter to twenty centimeters, and the members of the expedition gradually came to believe that he was a kind, intelligent metal man, an iron gnome, something like a miniature Tin Woodman from the “Wizard of the Emerald City”.

(c) Robert Sheckley. Man according to plato

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Ah, Sheckley, your story is wonderful, but the height of the Tinman is already one meter twenty centimeters. Your Max and Tin Woodman are about equal sprout. Let us recall the story: The woodcutter was once the most ordinary man of the people of Munchkins. And Munchkins, God forgive me, were just a little taller than the cat below Ally. (The old man, whom Ellie called high, was ALL ONE a whole finger taller than Ellie!) But back to the Woodcutter. When he decided to marry, the aunt of his darling, wanting to upset their wedding, turned to the evil sorceress Gingham. The ax bewitched by it chopped off the Woodcutter, first one leg, then the other, then the hands, and then the head. However, according to the laws of the fairy tale, the Woodman did not die - his friend, the blacksmith, repeatedly replaced his lost body parts with iron ones. Whether it is necessary to say that such a replacement method does not make it possible to increase the size of the Woodsman - if the blacksmith would have made one leg longer, then the Woodsman would not be able to walk. So the growth of the Woodman - is equal to the growth of the mate. About the same height as Ellie. That is a meter, a meter twenty. The first illustrators of the book still remembered this, and contemporary artists set off for all their ills.



Or, take the story of another cult (in certain, narrow circles) author:



Wind. It arises due to the most powerful forces of the universe. Inside the star, with unthinkable gravity that cannot be presented to man, thermonuclear fusion occurs.

(c) Konstantin Vasenin.



Well, hello, please. The standard model of the Sun assumes that the Sun consists of 3 zones - and thermonuclear fusion occurs only in a tiny, inner zone located in the center of the sun. (Sunlight then drags to the surface through the static zone for many, many years, but not the essence.) So what is the gravity of the synthesis zone? Tatars-pam, pam-NO. In the center of the sun is weightlessness. Along the edges of the zone of synthesis - gravity reaches the earth. (Maybe higher, but not fundamentally) Here's your grandmother and all unthinkable gravity.



And now we will consider a mistake not so harmless for the plot. In Robert Uralovich Ibatullin's novel The Rose and the Worm, there is an interesting physical bloop that completely negates the intrigue. I will quote a few sentences from the book - this is the very beginning of the novel, so if this is a spoiler, it is not terrible. But you decide.





Did you notice? In order for the described events to occur in reality, the cosmos in the novel must differ significantly from our cosmos. Our stars are not nailed to the firmament by nails and change their position relative to each other. So the laser, which accelerates the fleet of aliens, is aimed not at the solar system, but at the point where the solar system will be in many years. And not visible from Earth. All intrigue down the drain.



So, do not read anything at all? Thank God, there is a way out. Much better than me was formulated by Ethan. (Yes, yes, the same Ethan, whose articles we love to read on Hiktimes)



Maybe I don’t watch movies like most scientists do. I don’t look for flaws or plot holes, I don’t say: “this is impossible!”. I try to reconcile what is happening with the possibilities offered by the laws of physics.



(c) Ethan Siegel.



Let's try to go it by.



Consider the story "Neutron Star" by Larry Niven. The story earned the "Hugo" award in the nomination "Best Short Story" in 1967, and it is quite tiny - so it is better to take a break and read it in its entirety. If, besides aspirations, you have not read it before.



Well, and to those who have already read, I will remind the plot: The hero of the story, the brilliant pilot Beowulf Schiffer is hired to sort out the tragic accident - the death of a married couple of pilots. (Hereinafter quotes on the translation of Alexander Vladimirovich Maltsev (Trend)).



Two people, whose names were Peter Laskin and Sonya Laskin, expressed a desire to use the ship. They intended to go a mile from the surface of a neutron star, along a hyperbolic trajectory. After that, they no longer get in touch. When their drifting ship was found, the following picture was inside:



In the control compartment there were two reloading couches. Both were torn off the legs and flew to the nose, crumpled like cigarette paper. They destroyed the control panel. The backs of the ruined couches were spattered with something brown, like rust. The specks of the same color were visible everywhere: on the walls, on the windows, on the observation screens. It was as if something strongly, with gigantic power, struck the armchairs; for example, a dozen paint-filled balloons.



“It's blood,” I said.

- Right. Circulating fluid of the human body.



The puppeteer was heading for the bow of the ship, but something made me turn to the legs-struts for a more detailed inspection. They were bent. Through the curved transparent panels of the case, some unknown force squeezed the metal with such wild power that it flowed like warm wax, and from the struts - inside as well.



Obviously, during their flight some kind of incomprehensible force penetrated the hull and did it with spacers for landing. The same power, we believe, and killed the pilots.



Here you need to tell a little about the spacecraft of this universe. Laskin's ship was built using the hull from the company of aliens - General Products. This building is much superior in technology earthly developments. So much so that scientists do not understand how this is possible to create. The fact is that:



Nothing can crawl through the hull of General Products. No type of electromagnetic radiation, except visible light. No kind of matter, from the tiniest subatomic particle to the fastest meteorite. This is a statement of the company's advertising brochures, and guarantees were the cornerstone of its existence. I never doubted that these statements were true, and I had never heard that the General Products Corps was damaged by weapons or anything else.



As you understand, the fact of the death of the pilots, more precisely, the fact that something was able to sneak through the hull, can greatly undermine the credibility of General Products. And they hire our hero, so that he figured out the incident. I repeated the flight of the Laskins, but survived. And Beofulf accepts the challenge.



The “sky diver” jumped out of hyperspace exactly one million miles from a neutron star. It took me a minute to orient by the stars - and another one in order to discover the distortion that Sonya Laskina had noted shortly before her death. The star was on the left - somewhere a sector the size of the moon, visible from Earth. I turned the ship so that its nose was directed exactly in that direction.



The neutron star lay right along the course, although I could not see it - and, strictly speaking, I did not even see it. Her width was only eleven miles, and she was very cold. A billion years have passed since BVS-1 burned with a thermonuclear flame. At least millions of years have passed since the catastrophic two weeks when she was an X-ray star and she was burning with a heat of five billion degrees Kelvin. And now she showed herself only a huge mass.



The ship itself began to turn around. Acceleration, which gave it a thermonuclear engine, had an effect. My faithful metal guard, without any help on my part, would lead me into a hyperbolic orbit, which would pass only one mile from the surface of the star. Twenty-four o'clock fall, twenty-four o'clock climb ... and during that time something will try to kill me. Just as the Laskin killed.



You, clever men, I suppose you have long understood that they are waiting for him and laughing merrily at the pilot's klutz. But you laugh well, sitting at home, in your hole, and if you get into such a mess, maybe you wouldn’t have done that. Anyway, during the flight, the pilot notices unexplainable for him, but quite predictable events.



The Heavenly Diver returned to the vertical position - its axis again passed through a neutron star. But he had just been sideways! It seemed to me that I fixed the vessel in a horizontal position. Slow turn again - I used a gyroscope. Again the ship barely shifted, until it passed half the amplitude. Then, it seemed, he automatically returned to the vertical. It was as if the Diver preferred to look directly at a neutron star.



I didn't like it. I tried to repeat the maneuver, and again the “Diver” resisted. But this time I felt something else. Something was trying to drag me.



I unfastened the safety net - and fell headfirst into the nose of the ship. Acceleration was weak, about one tenth g. It seemed to be more like sinking in honey than falling. I climbed back into the chair, fastened the net. In this position, on the weight, face down, turned on the voice recorder. He described what happened with such meticulous details that my hypothetical listeners would have no choice but to doubt my hypothetical sanity.



Something was dragging me, but not the ship.



No, nonsense, can not be! What could reach me through the body of General Products? Quite the contrary, something pushed the ship, knocking him off course. If the situation worsens, I could use the engine to compensate for external influences. In the meantime, the ship was blown away from the BVS-1, to which I was not in the least upset. But if I am wrong, and if the ship does not drift away from the star, the jet engine will bring down the Heavenly Diver in eleven miles of neutronium.



By the way, why is the engine still not working? If the ship deflects off course, the autopilot must recover it. Accelerometer is fine. He was fine when I inspected the ship through the access tube.



Could something push the ship and the accelerometer, but not me? The question came down to the same impossible version: something that could penetrate the General Products case.



"To hell with the theory!" - I said to myself. I was going to get out of there. In the voice recorder I said:

- Acceleration increased to a dangerous level. I will try to change the trajectory.

Of course, when I deploy the ship and start the engine, an artificial acceleration will be added to the X-force. It will be hard, but I will try to endure it for a while. If I go a mile from BVS-1, I’m waiting for the same end as Sonya Laskin.



She must have been face down in the net, like me. She lay in wait, there was no engine. And the pressure was growing, and the net crashed into her flesh, until the net itself broke and dropped Sonya into the nose of the ship. There she lay, crushed and crumpled, until the mysterious force broke the chairs themselves, and threw them on the poor man.



I took up the gyros.



Gyroscopes did not obey. I made two more attempts. Each time the ship turned about fifty degrees and did not intend to turn further, while the howl of the gyros became stronger and stronger. When I let go of the gyros, the ship immediately turned around and made several swings. The nose of the ship was sent down to a neutron star, and the Diver clearly decided to follow this direction.



Fall another half hour, and X-force already exceeds one g. My insides were fighting in agony. Eyes bulging, almost ready to fall. I probably shouldn't have gotten a cigarette, but it's too late to think about that. A pack of "Fortunados" fell out of my pocket when I fell into the bow of the ship. There she lay, four feet from the tips of her fingers. Proof that X-force, besides me, acts on other objects. Awesome



I could no longer tolerate this torture. Than screaming to fall on a neutron star, I have to use the engine. And I launched it. Raised traction until he was in zero gravity or so. The blood that rushed to the extremities returned where it was. The accelerometer showed one whole and two tenths of g, and I cursed the deceitful device.



A soft pack dangled in the bow of the ship, and it occurred to me that a small push would return it to its owner. I tried to do it. The pack slowly flew in my direction, I reached for it - but it, as if endowed with reason, sped up and avoided capture. I almost caught it near my ear, but it moved faster and faster. The pack flew with crazy speed, considering that I was practically in zero gravity. Still picking up speed, she slipped through the door to the rest room and disappeared from sight, hiding in the access tube. After a few seconds, I heard a loud crash from falling. But this is impossible! Blood was already rushing to her face under the influence of a mysterious force. I pulled out the lighter, stretched out my arm at full length and let go of the weightless object. Lighter gently flew to the bow of the ship. But a pack of "Fortunados" hit the stern with such force as if it had been thrown from a skyscraper.



I still pushed traction. The fumbling sound of thermonuclear fusion reminded me that if I tried to continue in the same vein, I would be able to expose the General Products case to such a tough test that no one else had yet: smear it into a neutron star at half light speed .



With one whole and four tenths of g, as the false accelerometer claimed, the lighter became weightless and swam in my direction. I let her go on. She definitely fell when she reached the doorway. I turned off the engine. Inertia violently threw me forward, but I continued to watch. The lighter slowed down and seemed to be wondering whether to fly into the access tube or not. Still decided to fly. I pricked my ears, trying to catch the sound of a fall, and jumped in my chair: the whole ship shuddered like a gong from a powerful blow.



Then, finally, Beowulf finally realized what force was trying to tear the ship apart. This is the tide. The accelerometer was located in the center of gravity of the vessel. Otherwise, the mass of the ship would knock the arrow of the device. The puppeteers fought to the death over the accuracy of up to ten significant figures. The pilot was in the control room, several meters from the center of the ship. And, accordingly, was exposed to tidal forces. Here is how Beowulf explained this to his employer:



“Do you know what happens when the moon gets too close to the planet?”

- It falls apart.

- Why?

- I do not know.

- Because of the tide.

- What is the tide?

“Aha!” I said to myself. - I'll tell you now. The satellite of the Earth has a diameter of almost two thousand miles and does not rotate relative to the planet. Imagine two stones on the moon, one at the point closest to the Earth and the other at the furthest point from the planet.

- Well?

- It is clear that if you remove the moon, both stones will begin to diverge. They are in different orbits, so to speak, in two circular orbits, one nearly two thousand miles farther from Earth than the other. But still, these stones are forced to move with the same orbital speed.

- The far stone moves faster.

- Right. That is, there is a force that is trying to tear the moon apart. Gravity prevents it from falling apart. If you bring the moon close enough to the planet, those two stones will simply begin to diverge.

- Clear. That is, this "tide" was trying to break the ship apart. In the life support compartment, he was strong enough to rip the reloading chairs from the racks.

- And kill a man. Submit this picture. The ship's prow was only seven miles from the center of the BVS-1. The stern of the ship is three hundred feet further. If they are allowed to scatter, they will disperse in completely different orbits. When I was close to the star, my head and legs tried to do the same.



The pilot escaped by reprogramming the autopilot, moved to the center of the ship, while the zone of weightlessness moved around the ship. In the center of the ship, the impact of tidal forces is minimal, and Beowulf was hanging there, uncoiling in a pipe, while a starship flew through a dangerous area.



Is it possible in reality? At first glance, no. That is, the tidal forces really deployed the ship. And the ship can really accelerate to half the speed of light, moving along a hyperbola near a neutron star. (The diameter of a star from the story gives an escape speed of 182 thousand km). At the same time, which is funny, when the ship accelerates to such an enormous speed, weightlessness will reign in the center of the ship.



It is a pity that the pilot can not be exactly in the center. Well, not the point, I'm sorry. Even if it lies flat on the center. As calculations show, when the pilot is in the center of the ship, the pilot's navel separates from the ridge with an acceleration of 9 million. (I did not count - I have paws). So how do we save extraordinary Beowulf Schiffer from macaronization? (Transformations into macaroni - extrusions under the influence of a large difference in gravity between the legs and the head).



At first I thought that the pilot was saved by an increase in the periastron of the orbit (This is like perigee, only in relation to the star). If you have not noticed, in the story, the Beowulf ship first went along hyperbola 1, then, as a result of course correction, switched to hyperbola 2, which has a periastron higher. Why? Because he "gave gazku" towards the star.



Yes? But how will the increase in speed, when the vector is directed towards the star, raise the periastron? The laws of cosmic mechanics are not intuitive - in order to raise the periastron, you need not to slow down in orbit, but to accelerate. How did the ship accelerate if its nose was aimed at a star? When moving along a hyperbola (along a steep hyperbole) around such a tiny object as a neutron star, the path in orbit and the direction to the star almost coincide. While you are far from the star, naturally.



But alas. Despite the fact that Beofulf undoubtedly managed to raise the periastron, this tiny change of the orbit does not save our hero. The draft developed by his ship (30) is a cat's tear, as compared with the required for raising the orbit to a safe level of power.



So, is everything gone? Of course no! What do we know about the star from the story? "Given: a burnt-out white dwarf with a mass of more than 1.44 times the mass of the Sun." But let me! White dwarfs - evolved stars with a mass not exceeding the Chandrasekhar limit. The star that was a white dwarf - WILL NOT become a neutron star itself. (It will become a black dwarf but now this term is unpopular).



Accordingly, if a star is a white dwarf, that with its mass is the most likely outcome, Bowulf’s flight becomes possible. Because with the increase in the diameter of the star tidal forces decrease.



- BUT ALLOW! “The perturbed attentive reader will say,“ The story is called the Neutron Star, not the White Dwarf, and the whole story Beowulf tells us about the diameter of a star of 11 miles. ”



- It's elementary. Beowulf was wrong. He, forgive, did not measure a star with a yardstick. The story says: about the tiny hiding star, nothing is known for sure except the mass. So the diameter of the star - and this is directly stated in the story - is an estimate.



- BUT FORGIVE! How did the pilot then pick up speed to fly around a star, since this star is not a neutron one? The concentration of the mass of the dwarf is not enough to disperse the ship so!



- Very simple. Pinocchio gave three apples. He ate two. How many apples does Pinocchio have? Do you think one thing? Nothing like this. No one knows how many Pinocchio already had apples before. Moral - always reset the variables! We do not know how fast the ship left the subspace at the beginning of the story. So in essence, Beowulf just flew past the star along a hyperbola.



- And his speed at the same time was equal to half the speed of light at least on one part of the trajectory?



“But I just thought about that until you distracted me with your questions,” I said indignantly. - Enough. I wash hands! Every article should have some kind of mystery. It will be in this mystery - whether I managed to save the pilot, or all the efforts were lost to the tuna. I look forward to hearing from you, dear readers.



Shl.P.S. I'm not very smart. It is what it is. Therefore, all the errors in the article, which in it, of course, are, please take as an invitation to discuss them in the comments. (No, I did not add them there on purpose, to revive the discussion - usually this is not required if you understand what I mean).