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Science Fiction Forward, v. 1, issue 1, September 1940

Page 6

Page 6      SCIENCE FICTION FORWARD

to Howland Island were not of the best, and in the South Pacific, that can mean anything from a zephyr to a typhoon. For another, we know that the maps of this region, both geographical and meteorological, are not precisely triumphs of mathematical exactitude. In some respects, we know more about the North Pole. Indeed, one of the reasons which the pair chose this route was to clear up some of this obscurity.
     Science found oil patches. Science found wreckage which could only have come from their plane. But still the Forteans gibber about unknown forces. Oil patches and wreckage---how mundane! Chances are they were gulped up by Quetzlcoatal! Or was It Nephchys?
     The rest of the magazine is arranged upon much the same scale as the above. We are presented with a variety of sensational clipping and asked "little men of science---what now?" Sea monsters seen by a farm-hand in Telly, Ireland: three canaries from a single egg in Hingham, Massachusetts; somebody in Olmulgee, Oklahoma saw "something" flying thru the air. All old stuff. It may be so, but it smacks somewhat of the alcoholic brand of metaphysics to us.

                       III.

     On occasion, when they tire asking what about t he ghost that Johenn Klunkerhoff saw in Silesia on September 22, 1926, the Forteans take a whack at making up their own "science". Thus, the Rev. Tiff. Thayer writes in the same issue:
     "The photographs purporting to be something called a corona are really pictures of Sol, a.minor star, with its central, direct emanations blotted out by an intervening object, Luna."
     We must stop to congratulate Mr. Thayer on his magnificent contribution to the cause of struggling humanity. After this peerless achievement Utopia can only be a matter of a few months. We are forced by a will mightier than our own to reed on into thos epoch-making document:
     "At Sol there is no such thing as light, heat, or pressure; there is only the phenomenon of ray emanation. All is quite dark---with the darkness of infinity---and at the center of Sol within a roughly spherical and expanding area of ray emanations, there is a perfect and absolute vacuum which grows in extent as Sol eats its way outward radioactively toward finite in every direction.
     "Light and heat are strictly atmospheric phenomena, 'acquired characteristics', in a sense, of the Solar rays which are of a mathematical ascertainable number of garieties. A few varieties of Solar rays have been discovered by use of the prism, and spectrum analysis should be used to check the mathematical equations, but the obvious and long-ignored simple approach to physics lies in the digits 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.
     "Not all the Solar rays reach the Earth's atmosphere, perhaps. Some may pass thru it, and thru Earth itself, and outside the other side of the atmosphere (the italics are Mr. Thayer's), and away on missions to be taken up in a later lesson."
     The reader will forgive us if we do not wait for this so-called "later lesson". We have had bunk gabled at us in the past, and will no doubt have it gabbled at us in the future, but always will we remember the bunk on display above. For bare-faced effrontery, it would be hard to find its equal. The stratosphere flights of Prof. Piccard have shown, if they have shown anything, that our notions of the sensual characters of the sun, stars, and interplanetary space are quite correct. The higher you go, the darker becomes the sky, and the brighter the sun gets. It is pretty bright as it stands, but Piccard remarks that atn40,000 feet, it becomes uncomfortable even to glance at it.

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Page 6 SCIENCE FICTION FORWARD to Howland Island were not of the best, and in the South Pacific, that can mean anything from a zephyr to a typhoon. For another, we know that the maps of this region, both geographical and meteorological, are not precisely triumphs of mathematical exactitude. In some respects, we know more about the North Pole. Indeed, one of the reasons which the pair chose this route was to clear up some of this obscurity. Science found oil patches. Science found wreckage which could only have come from their plane. But still the Forteans gibber about unknown forces. Oil patches and wreckage---how mundane! Chances are they were gulped up by Quetzlcoatal! Or was It Nephchys? The rest of the magazine is arranged upon much the same scale as the above. We are presented with a variety of sensational clipping and asked "little men of science---what now?" Sea monsters seen by a farm-hand in Telly, Ireland: three canaries from a single egg in Hingham, Massachusetts; somebody in Olmulgee, Oklahoma saw "something" flying thru the air. All old stuff. It may be so, but it smacks somewhat of the alcoholic brand of metaphysics to us. III. On occasion, when they tire asking what about t he ghost that Johenn Klunkerhoff saw in Silesia on September 22, 1926, the Forteans take a whack at making up their own "science". Thus, the Rev. Tiff. Thayer writes in the same issue: "The photographs purporting to be something called a corona are really pictures of Sol, a.minor star, with its central, direct emanations blotted out by an intervening object, Luna." We must stop to congratulate Mr. Thayer on his magnificent contribution to the cause of struggling humanity. After this peerless achievement Utopia can only be a matter of a few months. We are forced by a will mightier than our own to reed on into thos epoch-making document: "At Sol there is no such thing as light, heat, or pressure; there is only the phenomenon of ray emanation. All is quite dark---with the darkness of infinity---and at the center of Sol within a roughly spherical and expanding area of ray emanations, there is a perfect and absolute vacuum which grows in extent as Sol eats its way outward radioactively toward finite in every direction. "Light and heat are strictly atmospheric phenomena, 'acquired characteristics', in a sense, of the Solar rays which are of a mathematical ascertainable number of garieties. A few varieties of Solar rays have been discovered by use of the prism, and spectrum analysis should be used to check the mathematical equations, but the obvious and long-ignored simple approach to physics lies in the digits 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. "Not all the Solar rays reach the Earth's atmosphere, perhaps. Some may pass thru it, and thru Earth itself, and outside the other side of the atmosphere (the italics are Mr. Thayer's), and away on missions to be taken up in a later lesson." The reader will forgive us if we do not wait for this so-called "later lesson". We have had bunk gabled at us in the past, and will no doubt have it gabbled at us in the future, but always will we remember the bunk on display above. For bare-faced effrontery, it would be hard to find its equal. The stratosphere flights of Prof. Piccard have shown, if they have shown anything, that our notions of the sensual characters of the sun, stars, and interplanetary space are quite correct. The higher you go, the darker becomes the sky, and the brighter the sun gets. It is pretty bright as it stands, but Piccard remarks that atn40,000 feet, it becomes uncomfortable even to glance at it.