(urth) Wall of Nessus

[brunians at brunians.org]

This is like pretend for you people?

I don't understand this phenomenon.

.


> On 6/16/2010 6:24 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
>> On 6/16/2010 12:47 AM, Ryan Dunn wrote:
>>> And here's the quote, which was referenced earlier...
>>>
>>> "...just as that smallest and uppermost sail was an entire continent
>>> of silver, compared to which the mighty Wall of Nessus, a few leagues
>>> in height and a few thousand long, might have been the tumbledown
>>> fence of a sheepfold..." (Urth of the New Sun, Chap. XIV "The End of
>>> the Universe")
>>
>> And yet, Severian was able to cross this continent within a shift worth
>> of air, as I said to IIRC Roy the last time this came around. There's
>> just no consistent detail on the size of the Wall.
>
>
> I recall that the green Lune is said to be 50,000 leagues away, which we
> have generally taken to mean 150,000 miles and indicate that it has
> moved closer somehow. Maybe instead, the units conversion error is in
> the past of urth, in all or in part, so that learned people of
> Severian's time are parroting an error made popular by some respected
> historian and "G.W." is caught up in it as well.
>
> This could mean that the Wall's dimensions are overestimated by a factor
> of 5:3, which is still pretty big, or it could mean that a measurement
> that G.W. has chosen to translate as "league" has different meanings or
> different idioms for measurements in space than for measurements on the
> ground, or for vertical height vs length.
>
> (It also occurs to me that if the moon's orbit hasn't changed, it's
> gravity and natural lack of atmosphere probably haven't either. In fact,
> the low gravity and lack of weather make it an ideal candidate for being
> largely domed over, similar to the Botanical Gardens.)
>
> --
> Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
> IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
> < http://ieeetamut.org >
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