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Scientifictionist, v. 1, issue 5, June-July 1946
Page 2
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A PRELIMINARY APPRAISAL OF H.F. HEARD's THE GREAT FOG by Donn Brazier After reading The Great Fog from Heard's collected stories, I reread and jotted down three pages of notes consisting of portals opening into interesting scientific byways. The story is a "what-if-this-should-happen-then-look-what-else-would-happen" story; given a new fungus, created by scientists looking for a new kind of quick-growing mold which would create fats, it is Heard's imagination which sees the destruction of the balance of nature and the extrapolations which follow. In the course of the story many statements are made which suggest certain lines of research; some of these statements, with and without comment, follow. "the astronomers have a thing called a thermocouple that will tell the heat of a summer day on the equator of Mars." A thermocouple in direct heat measurement (as in the cylinder of an airplane engine) is quite well known, as is the principle which causes it to function. But do astronomers have one which will read off temperatures of Mars? Does Mars have a summer day? An equator? Some of these questions might seem pretty dumb, but they occurred to me while reading; without checking references I could only state my opinion, not fact. "...I expected to get a good record of humidity around the mold itself." Mold generally grows in moist places, but does it create its own humidity around it? It seems it might, but have botanists made any studies along that line? This question is vital to the story because the tremendous humidity increase causes a great fog which blankets earth. Some extrapolations of the consequence of this fog: "The dates wouldn't stand for damp..." and "The increase in humidity would inevitably spoil their crop when the valley became one great oasis." What kind of climate do dates require? Must it be dry? "paper molded, wood rotted, iron rusted. But concrete, glass, pottery, all stone ware and ceramics remained unaffected." "...there was never a breath of wind...and fumes from any steamship would have hung around the vessel and would have suffocated the crew." "So outside the fog it was desperately cold." "The sky above the Fog was not so much the deepest of blues -- it was almost a livid black; the sun in it was an intense, harsh white and most of the big stars were visible throughout the day." The action of the mold was mighty odd, in addition to the more or less sober consequences of an increased humidity, for listen: "It was as though the old atmosphere had been milk. The mold acted as a kind of rennet, and so, instead of milk, there remained only this hard curd and the clear whey." Also, "... all of the cloud mist, and aqueous vapor in the air above the Fog was evidently drained out of it by this new dense atmosphere." "The dividing out of the air was a final precipitation, a non-reversible change-down toward the final entropy." So now we have a "thick film of precipitated air" with all of the chemistry behind such a change to check on; Heard goes swiftly forward making certain guesses as to the plight of a man living in that thin air. "...through this unscreened air -- air which was so thin that it could scarcely be breathed -- came also such intense ultraviolet radiations from the sun and outer space that a short exposure to them was fatal." "...the lesions and sores of bad X-ray burning appeared. If the nervous system did not collapse, the wretched man literally began to fall to pieces." So here we have a whole field of medical study of radiation burns and lethal effects to check on. "...living things are always the most sensitive detectors -- can always beat mechanical instruments when they want to." Is this a sound statement? What would be representative examples of this? "You know about the mitogenetic rays given out by breeding seeds. Those rays can be recorded only by yeast cells -- which multiply rapidly when exposed to the rays, thus giving an indication of their range and strength." Is this true, even admitting the existence of the rays? or are you like "...that majority of conservative botanists to whom the mitogenetic radiation was mere moonshine"? page 2
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A PRELIMINARY APPRAISAL OF H.F. HEARD's THE GREAT FOG by Donn Brazier After reading The Great Fog from Heard's collected stories, I reread and jotted down three pages of notes consisting of portals opening into interesting scientific byways. The story is a "what-if-this-should-happen-then-look-what-else-would-happen" story; given a new fungus, created by scientists looking for a new kind of quick-growing mold which would create fats, it is Heard's imagination which sees the destruction of the balance of nature and the extrapolations which follow. In the course of the story many statements are made which suggest certain lines of research; some of these statements, with and without comment, follow. "the astronomers have a thing called a thermocouple that will tell the heat of a summer day on the equator of Mars." A thermocouple in direct heat measurement (as in the cylinder of an airplane engine) is quite well known, as is the principle which causes it to function. But do astronomers have one which will read off temperatures of Mars? Does Mars have a summer day? An equator? Some of these questions might seem pretty dumb, but they occurred to me while reading; without checking references I could only state my opinion, not fact. "...I expected to get a good record of humidity around the mold itself." Mold generally grows in moist places, but does it create its own humidity around it? It seems it might, but have botanists made any studies along that line? This question is vital to the story because the tremendous humidity increase causes a great fog which blankets earth. Some extrapolations of the consequence of this fog: "The dates wouldn't stand for damp..." and "The increase in humidity would inevitably spoil their crop when the valley became one great oasis." What kind of climate do dates require? Must it be dry? "paper molded, wood rotted, iron rusted. But concrete, glass, pottery, all stone ware and ceramics remained unaffected." "...there was never a breath of wind...and fumes from any steamship would have hung around the vessel and would have suffocated the crew." "So outside the fog it was desperately cold." "The sky above the Fog was not so much the deepest of blues -- it was almost a livid black; the sun in it was an intense, harsh white and most of the big stars were visible throughout the day." The action of the mold was mighty odd, in addition to the more or less sober consequences of an increased humidity, for listen: "It was as though the old atmosphere had been milk. The mold acted as a kind of rennet, and so, instead of milk, there remained only this hard curd and the clear whey." Also, "... all of the cloud mist, and aqueous vapor in the air above the Fog was evidently drained out of it by this new dense atmosphere." "The dividing out of the air was a final precipitation, a non-reversible change-down toward the final entropy." So now we have a "thick film of precipitated air" with all of the chemistry behind such a change to check on; Heard goes swiftly forward making certain guesses as to the plight of a man living in that thin air. "...through this unscreened air -- air which was so thin that it could scarcely be breathed -- came also such intense ultraviolet radiations from the sun and outer space that a short exposure to them was fatal." "...the lesions and sores of bad X-ray burning appeared. If the nervous system did not collapse, the wretched man literally began to fall to pieces." So here we have a whole field of medical study of radiation burns and lethal effects to check on. "...living things are always the most sensitive detectors -- can always beat mechanical instruments when they want to." Is this a sound statement? What would be representative examples of this? "You know about the mitogenetic rays given out by breeding seeds. Those rays can be recorded only by yeast cells -- which multiply rapidly when exposed to the rays, thus giving an indication of their range and strength." Is this true, even admitting the existence of the rays? or are you like "...that majority of conservative botanists to whom the mitogenetic radiation was mere moonshine"? page 2
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