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Lunar Defenses

          Lunar Defenses   The first words spoken by Neil Armstrong when he set foot upon the Moon were, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” He intended to say “a” man, but somehow that word got lost. He blew his line! He and others then planted American flags. But in the 48 years since, the unfiltered actinic lunar sunlight has bleached those flags pure white. So those solemn first words turned into glorious nonsense, and the flags into flags of surrender! The Moon was better defended than we realized...    
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The Helbertian Formulation of Adeledicnander

                 The Helbertian Formulation of Adeledicnander   On occasion I have used the word ‘helbertian’ in my SF stories. This is because when I subscribed to Analog, they sometimes sent me a magazine addressed to Nathaniel Helbertian. I figured that a helbertian is a wave operator in quantum mechanics.   When I subscribed to F&SF, they sometimes sent me a magazine addressed to N Helleretti. I figure that the Helleretti is a tribe of mischievous sprites. Now, just what kind of wave operator is a Helbertian? I have decided, for story purposes, that the Helbertian measures the intelligence of an elementary particle. You can also call it the energy of the particle’s mindfield. This makes the Helbertian fundamental to the theory of Electron Psychology, a.k.a. Adeledicnander, as cited in the A.E. Van Vogt story, “Far Centaurus”. The Helbertian formulation of adeledicnander echoes the Hamiltonian formulation of quan...
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How Daylight Savings Time Was Invented

How Daylight Savings Time Was Invented               You may have heard this story about how Daylight Savings Time was invented; one summer morning in Paris, Benjamin Franklin awoke to find summer sunlight streaming through the window. Shocked by this waste of sunlight, he resolved to set the clock ahead one hour in the middle of spring, and one hour back in the middle of fall. Frugal old Ben calculated that this system, which he called “Daylight Savings Time”, would save a huge amount of candle-usage in the summer evenings.           True enough, but economies there may be diseconomies elsewhere, such as in the winter evening. Daylight Savings Time is like sewing a foot of cloth to the top of your bedsheet – cut from the bottom of your bedsheet. Is Daylight Savings Time penny-wise, pound-foolish?           I would like to clarify a l...
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Heroic Eve

                 Heroic Eve             In this fairy-tale critique I propose that Eve did the right thing. I admit that I cannot prove this, but I have faith.           I refer to Eve from the Book of Genesis, as understood by popular thought in Western culture. Here I take the legend on its own terms, as befits fairy-tale critique; but I myself do not read the tale literally.           To me Genesis is a fairy tale, but I don’t mind; I’ve written fairy tales myself. A fairy tale is a lie that tells a deeper truth. This distinguishes it from propaganda, which is a lie that tells a deeper lie. So a fairy tale differs from propaganda by how the reader takes the tale.           The deeper lie in the common reading of Genesis is that Eve did somethi...
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