The "Dirac Sea" (http:// it.wikipedia.org / wiki / Mare_di_Dirac ) is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating developments of theoretical physics of the twentieth century - and it is not the "Neutrino Majorana" ( http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki / Fermione_di_Majorana ) Italian physicist who postulated in his theory to refute the English. The argument is in fact very tasty, and it is not surprising that lends itself well to a sci-fi reworking. Moreover, travel time are also one of the most fascinating themes of narrative fiction. If anything, be surprised that it has been used less than would be expected. Perhaps because it is not easy to master the theory and then use it with ease, and the risk of making the pure sci- bubble becomes excessive.
Geoffrey A. Landis has impeccable credentials for insight into the theory while avoiding the danger of the flowering of such mediocre crap science fiction. E ' a physical professional: working at NASA, where he worked, among other things, planetary exploration (he collaborated on the design of the Pathfinder for the Exploration of the Martian surface), as well as the development of solar cells and photovoltaic systems. It is also appreciated poet. Both his scientific background as the poetic attitude spill clearly in his works of fiction, combining a clear and precise theoretical care to all human and psychological detail.
production about Landis is not overflowing, but even thinner: about seventy stories today. To which adding a single novel.
Ripples in the Dirac Sea was released in 1988 on the pages of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and the following year he received a deserved Nebula Award for best short story . The story is simple but intense. A great scientific achievement opens the door to a human drama and personal, and triggers for the reader a series of reflections on the value we attach to our time, life and death. What to say so, I realize, it seems to threaten the tedium inhuman player who has the guts to read such a tirade submerged in retorica. E invece no. La scrittura di Landis è tanto leggera quanto capace di arrivare al cuore delle cose con facilità e coinvolgendolo, il lettore. Non c’è nulla che venga spiegato o imposto dall’autore, che si limita a evocare con pochi tratti le figure dei due personaggi che riempiono le pagine del racconto per fissarsi nella nostra memoria. L’uno con i suoi sogni dolorosamente infranti, e poi ricomposti nella consapevolezza dell’illusorietà della trama stessa del tempo e dell’esistenza; l’altro che nell’abbandono al ritmo naturale della vita pare giungere a decostruire il senso stesso del tempo, pura coincidenza dell’esistere. L’uno, scienziato fino all’ultimo, viene da dire; the other instinctive poet.
become friends, each other, over and over again ...
One is the young anonymous scientist who experiments with the machine built to exploit " Ripples in the Dirac Sea "and time travel - absolute cliché, and appeal for the writer not insured difettino courage and talent. Travel to the features of the theory is only possible in the past. The experiment is a success, but when the young man is about to present the results a convention will remain involved in an accident trapped in his hotel room in the middle of a fire, is sentenced to death. And sentenced to escape back in time go on forever without being able to do anything to save himself, because there are paradoxes in cronoviaggio dirac: whatever is done in the past is not possible to change this from where you started. The "Ripples in the Sea of \u200b\u200bDirac", once you come back to this, delete from the tape of the time that the traveler has scratched, only his memory preserves the memory of past quell'illusorio. Of the many illusory past, always different and always the same. Every time the young man must go back to that stanza d’albergo in fiamme, perché costrettovi dagli eventi o perché la linea temporale che sta vivendo si è approcciata al momento di partenza in modo tale da rendere il ritorno inevitabile, egli è costretto a perdere qualche attimo o secondo prima di potersi rituffare nel passato. Ci sarà un giorno che non potrà più scampare alla morte, arso vivo o soffocato dal fumo. Ha lottato contro l’inevitabile e poi è sceso a patti con esso. Con il puntiglio e la caparbietà dello scienziato ormai sa che il tempo non è illimitato, ma la sua quantità, tanta o poca che sia, va vissuta fino in fondo, imparando ad accettare i drammi e le gioie e imparando a farlo con equanimità ( I live on borrowed time. So do we all, Perhaps. But I know When and Where My debt will fall two . And add: Every time I return, I use up a little bit of time. One day I will have no time left .)
The other is Dancer. 's a perfect counterpoint to the young scientist, and the perfect key because this man who dreamed of taming the time to learn to accept the indifferent dominion over human affairs. Dancer is what is called a "product of the youth counterculture of the '60s." Nothing in this romantic coloring by Landis, which provides special care in fact never go over the top figure in the sketch . Dancer is, if ever there was one, a man at peace. Not in the sense of a spirit of turbidity or a lot less than a slavish adherence to fashion "alternative" but to an instinctive understanding of the natural rhythm of life, the profound sense of time. Not in relation to human life, one might say, but just the life of the universe. Of pure instinct, Dancer seems to understand the physical nature of time molto meglio dell’amico che ne conosce a menadito la complessa matematica: "They're trapped in the illusion of time," says Dancer. He lies on his back and blows a soap bubble, his hair flopping back long and brown in a time when "long" hair meant anything below the ear. A puff of breeze takes the bubble down the hill and into the stream of pedestrians. They uniformly ignore it. "They're caught in the belief that what they do is important to some future goal." . In un giorno di primavera del 1965 Dancer pronuncia queste parole osservando le persone intorno a lui e al suo amico, il quale considererà che He was right, more right than he could Have possibly imagined. Dancer is one of the serenity of those who know their place in life is simply to live, accept the flow of time until the individual life you will melt inside. Dancer dies invariably on the morning of February 9, 1969, no matter what his friend could do this does not change, and will happen every time he returns to give birth to that friendship, and living with new and unwavering intensity. For a man who has provided an almost eternity of time and timing, and actually has been to see the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous or the Palestine of the time of Christ, must return to the birds and their footprints is perhaps illusory summarized in what happens in one of those 9 February 1965: He died with a secret smile on His face. I've never understood That smile . The scientist can not accept not understand, but it is likely that the friend - the scientist, in turn, calmed by contact with Dancer - can do. It understands the value, with a true sense of friendship: mutual discover. And it is certainly a privilege to do that over and over again: Dancer, too, will never die. I Will not Let Him. Every time I get to final That February morning, the day he died, I return to 1965, To That perfect day in June. He Does not Know me, he never knows me. But we meet on That Hill, the only two willing to enjoy the day doing nothing .
The figures of the two main characters and the story in really show the whole force of a poetic soul searching, decided to penetrate the meaning of our life and the mystery of nature. The solid scientific system is not only not inconsistent with this narrative language, or minor issue, but it is indeed the root of creativity. The visionary genius of Paul Dirac, his theory a world where energy can be negative - or the idea of \u200b\u200bthe Majorana neutrino exists simultaneously as its antiparticle simultaneously coexisting at any time in the two directions of time - this is the genius of the same human quality of the poet -seer that the word gives form to the universe shaped by his prophetic vision. Change the appearance, because each makes use of the mathematical symbol and one of the symbolic power of the word, but the essence of one and the other is in the act '(omni) power of' Homo Faber . Landis reminds us that knowledge stems from the desire creativa dell’uomo, e che il poeta-veggente precede lo scienziato che decodifica (o tenta di decodificare) la natura. Egli è (anche) poeta-veggente, un creatore di mondi e loro ordinatore: è colui che muta il Χάος in K όσμος . Egli è l’uno e l’altro…
Vent’anni fa, quando la lessi la prima volta, questa storia mi piacque, forse per quel fondo di malinconia, e per l’immaginifico contenuto (fanta)scientifico. Ma è stato ora, rileggendola, che l’ho apprezzata davvero in ogni sfumatura. Ne ho apprezzato un’acutezza che può scivolare inavvertita sotto il velo delle suggestioni, narrative e concettuali, che Landis ha sparso a piene mani. E si apprezzano di più anche quelle suggestioni stesse, le possibilità per l’immaginazione che si aprono riflettendoci sopra.
Increspature nel Mare di Dirac è stato pubblicato nel fascicolo n.1142 di Urania, che presentava l’antologia, curata da Don Wollheim, dei migliori racconti di sf del 1988.
Si can read the story in English at this url:
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