From: "James Wynn" 
Subject: RE: (urth) Marc's smoking gun?
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 10:26:13 -0600

Hey Don,
With the recent discussion on a Vironese name for Zx, it occurs to me that a
good one for you might be Lycaon from the African hunting "dog." If you've
read the Soldier books then you know it's a very Lupine word. Anyway...

"Dog"gett demands an answer:
As I argued to Crush (and Blattid agreed)  since Silk was outside of
time during his enlightenment he saw everything as it happened/happens -
past present and future.  So if he perceived time as stopped on the Whorl,
it was stopped.  And don't argue that Wolfe was careless in this.  He knows
full well what being outside of time means.  If time didn't stop, the proper
way to show Silk's enlightenment would have been for him to see his own
prone body on the ball court as everyone huddled around him wondering what
was going on.  Silk's enlightenment and the stoppage of all action on the
ball court are completely separate events.  So again I ask, why did time
stop on the Whorl?

Crush reiterates:
I said this before but I don't think I was clear enough. All time is
stopped. Even "now." All time is moving. Even "now." It is all **relative**
to your point of view. To a photon moving at the speed of light, Time hasn't
stopped. It's non-existent. A photon from an extremely distant galaxy
arrives at my desk here at precisely the instant it left its source but from
my point of view it may have taken millions of years to arrive.

To say that Silk sees Time stopped due to his enlightened position OUTSIDE
Time presupposes a relative perspective from WITHIN Time. This is why I said
that Silk seeing Time stopped on the Whorl tells us **nothing** about the
light-speed of the Whorl in any way. From his point of view he might have
seen Time stopped or he might have seen moving at a million years per
second, or backwards, or all at once (which seems to be how he saw it).

Wolfe **might** have used the Time stop as an **analogy** for the Whorl
reaching of light speed but he **would not** being doing so based on
technically accurate Einsteinian principles. So I would want evidence in
text or a requirement in theme to even consider it.

Technically, traveling **at** light speed is an impossible paradox although
some theorists have claimed FTL speed is not. The only way for your theory
to carry is if they travel **at** light speed. Not possible and Wolfe surely
knows it.

Anyway, reaching light-speed does not mean they exceeded light speed. I
would think the Blushas theory would stand or fall regardless of whether
your theory is accurate anyway.




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