Twin Paradox

Time for the Stars (Paperback) - '별을 위한 시간' 원서
Robert A. Heinlein / Phoenix Pick / 2016년 12월

이 글에는 스포일러가 포함되어 있습니다.

STUNNING science fiction novel ONLY IF you ripped off the very last page of it

Just kidding. But it's still true that because of the freaking last page, all my feelings just evaporated all of a sudden and there's nothing left. I feel really sorry that if the author just finished the novel with Tom taking a new ticket to the Connie and on his way on board him looking back the Earth for the last time and he just stood there for a while retrospect his times with Pat, niece, grandniece and great-grandniece and finally say something like, "I still got time for the stars" then turning back with infinite indigo-colored sky with glittering stars greeting him then it would be PERFECT. Maybe Heinlein get too tired to think of the last scene so he just wrapped it up like that. 

Tho I still kind of like this novel. I like the atmosphere of it. The novel is based on the Einstein's twin paradox or theory of relativity. Since there's not much place in the earth to live, Long Range Foundation run a project to find other stars which has similar condition with the earth so that humans colonize it and live there. However LRF's another purpose was dig into the theory of relativity. The reason LRF needed telepath twins is that they are the only possible communication means in the torchship which runs at a speed of light. All those years (70-odd years on the earth and 3 years in the torchship called Elsie) research was kept on going and people on the earth finally revealed the concept of irrelevance and they took a leap by reaching the sixty-or so light-years faraway star just in a second. 

I felt kind of sad and empty at the end since everything that people on Elsie had done looks in vain. There were times that their work was a huge help to the earth but time flies and at the end scientific development on the earth just exceed the status of Elsie which making all the people in the ship a poor Rip Van Winkle. I can't never forget the depiction of reserve Captain Urqhardt and Mr.Regato when they met the "current" cutting edge technology of the Earth.

Time just passing by, and there's no way but to adjust to it. We gotta find our values by ourselves and purpose of it but it is a great sorrow to watch the cherished values of the old time becoming obsolete. The thing that the very cherished value of a man could be end up in vain and made him realizing it is just too cruel. Tho we have to move on. As long as we breathe and open our eyes in the morning, we got to move on and on until we reach our very ends.

The trick in easy living is to find out what your unconscious mind really wants and give it to it on the cheapest terms possible, before it sends you through emotional bankruptcy to get its own way. - P194

I couldn‘t sleep that night. A breeze on my face and the sounds of others sleeping around me and the distant noises of live things outside our snooper fences and the lack of perfect darkness all kept me awake. A ship is alive, too, and has its noises, but they are different from those outdoors; a planet is alive in another way. - P264

"Up to now," she told me, "we‘ve concentrated on the relative aspects of the space-time continuum. But what you m-r people do is irrelevant to space-time. Without time there is no space; without space there can be no time. Without space-time there can be no conservation of energy-mass. Heavens, there‘s nothing.

"Don‘t you see Tommie? I‘ve explained it to you, I know I have. Irrelevance. Why, you telepaths were the reason the investigation started; you proved that ‘simultaneity‘ was an admissible concept...and the inevitable logical consequence was that time and space do not exist."

"They don‘t? Then what is that we seem to be having breakfast in?"

"Just a mathematical abstraction, dear. Nothing more" - P356

Uncle Alfred McNeil leaned forward and said in a soft, tragic voice that spoke for all of us, "Just a moment, sir. Are you telling us that what we did...wasn‘t necessary?" - P361

"Uh, Mr. Whipple," Chet Travers asked, "just when will we get home?"

"Oh, didn‘t I tell you? Almost immediately...say soon after lunch." - P363

"I want to say good-by, Captain. It‘s been an honor to serve with you...and a pleasure." The last was not a lie; right then I meant it.

He looked surprised; then his face broke into a grin that I thought would crack it; his face wasn‘t used to it. He grabbed my hand and said, "It‘s been my pleasure, too, Bartlett. I wish you all the luck in the world. Er..What are your plans?" - P367