(urth) Ansible Interview

[David Stockhoff]

I have been browsing the Ansible interview, and I notice what seems to 
be a simple, incontrovertible error on Wolfe's part:

8. /How is Silk able to see these valleys filled with shadows [in the 
skylands at night, at the opening of chapter 4, book 1] if the Whorl is 
a cylinder with the long sun running approximately down the centre?/ -- 
This one throws me completely. Where is the difficulty, unless all the 
valleys run parallel to the Long Sun? Naturally they don't. [DRL: I see 
a Wolfean trap here. The groundlings' references to the 'shade' of night 
strongly suggest a literal revolving shade around the sun. But there are 
later indications that night involves some sort of dark stuff sent in 
pulses along the axis to mask a certain length of the Long Sun.]

Thing is, the Whorl is the interior surface of a cylinder. Therefore, 
"up" is always toward the center.

Since the LS runs along the center from end to end, you can treat the 
issue of shadows with only 2 dimensions. It won't matter whether the 
valleys run along the Sun or the other way. Only if they are tilted or 
overhanging will they cast shadows.

Anyway, as Langford notes, there is a shade of some kind always blocking 
one side of the Sun.

So we should not assume Wolfe to be perfect in his physics. ;)


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