Singularity

[amethyst73]

The book I finished today: Singularity, by William Sleator.

If you discovered an event horizon in your playhouse, would you:
  (a) Run like crazy
  (b) Die of extreme gravitation long before you even knew what was going on
  ( c) Have an adventure centered around the time dilation effect that would "obviously" arise from the proximity of the event horizon due to relativistic effects

In our universe, you don't really have a choice: it's (b) if you come anywhere near a black hole's event horizon.  Sleator, in a mangling of science so bad it isn't even funny, instead declares that time is experienced roughly one-sixtieth as fast inside the playhouse (in the event horizon) as outside it.  Furthermore, there's a sharp and absolute border between the timestreams inside the playhouse and outside it, defined by the doorway.  Add the idea that what's inside the playhouse is really the other end of a black hole in some other universe and that Things can come through from that other universe, and you've got a recipe for a teen sci-fi adventure.  Not necessarily a good one, mind you.

If you manage to ignore the dreadful explanations of what's going on and why, Sleator's true focus comes through.  His stars are a pair of identical twins, Barry and Harry.  Barry, the elder twin, is an outgoing adventurous fellow who wants to mess around with the event horizon and not tell any adults about it.  In contrast, Harry, the narrator, generally thinks before he acts and believes that someone responsible should know about the singularity, especially once Things start coming through from .. wherever.  The first half of the book establishes Barry's disdain for his twin and Harry's wish to gain Barry's respect.  The second half shows how their perspectives of each other change with time - literally.  That development and changing of perspective is the meat of the book, and Sleator does a fine job with it.  It's just a pity that he had to sacrifice the laws of physics so brutally to do so.

Comments

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Sleator isn't so much about the science, is he? Have you read other books of his? Interstellar Pig is possibly the best one, but I haven't reread it, and I don't know if the suck fairies have been at it.

[amethyst73.livejournal.com]

It's true that he's not usually so much about the science. From what I remember about Interstellar Pig, the why and wherefore for Things Happening worked out to =magic (though it's been >20 yrs since I read it). House of Stairs, which was always my favorite of his, doesn't even have much hard science in it; it's all psychology-based.

[haamel.livejournal.com]

One of the interesting things projected to happen near the event horizon of a black hole is that light actually travels in perfectly circular paths. That would be fun to play with if one could do it safely, which is totally not feasible given our current science...

[amethyst73.livejournal.com]

Oh, that would be pretty cool!

So I take it that the old saw that "nothing escapes black holes... not even light!" isn't strictly true?

[haamel.livejournal.com]

The Clintonian answer is that it depends on your definition of "escape". If we imagine an asteroid heading in the general direction of the Earth, we expect the Earth's gravity to curve its path. If thepath is too close to the Earth, given the relative speed, the asteroid will be caugt in a decaying orbit and will eventually crash. Too far and the asteroidwill continue on its new course. There is a locus of perfect speeds/distances where the asteroid would assume a totally stable orbit (assuming no external perturbations). Same with the light around the black hole: it is not *doomed* but neither is it free so long as nothing upsets the equilibrium. A better question is whether black hole evaporation via Hawking Radiation et. al. should be considered escape.