From: Michael Straight <straight@email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Nessus when?
Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 08:22:06 

On Wed, 31 Jan 2001, Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:

> Rostrum wrote:
> >I think I've made it through all the archives now, having at last finished
> >IGJ (and recovered from my amazement at how good it is), and I can't
> >believe no one has mentioned this solution of how Horn, 300-some-years
> >travel from the Urth of Typhon's time could return and find himself in the
> >much-later time of Severian.
> >
> >Time dialation.   The trip took 300-some years in the Whorl's reference
> >frame and thousands of years from Urth's reference frame.
> 
> Well, well, mister slow poke!  Better read RTTW asap.
> 
> I thought we hammered out/nailed down the time dilation angle in "Welcome
> Wombat" message of 7 Sep 97.

Yeah, I should have credited you.  I was replying to all the more recent
posts wondering if Horn was travelling forward/back in time as well as
through space (of course a lot of physicists would say instantaneous
travel like that ends up being a form of time-travel anyway...).

And back then it was just speculation, I didn't see anyone discussing the
fact that IGJ not only confirms the time-dialation, but pretty much
quantifies it.  We get the subjective travel time of the Whorl in
years; if you're right about the number of years between Tyhpon and
Severian, we should be able to compute the Whorl's speed.

-Rostrum


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