So I was trying to explain the speed of light to my super curious eight year old. I was doing pretty well given that my knowledge of physics after all these years exists at the very edge of recallable consciousness.
I then went beyond the edge, and tried to explain to him what I thought to be true: that if we could travel at near the speed of light, we could, in theory, go BACK in time, but not come forward.
Colin puzzled over that for a while and determined that to come back to the future, the time traveler would have to go faster than the speed of dark. “Dad, what is the speed of dark?”
Time to change the subject.
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All of this reminds me of a story I read long ago, a short story by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. Try as I might I can’t find the title of this story. It concerns a man named Stein who committed a crime. In order to evade prosecution, he used a time machine to travel forward in time to emerge one day passed the expiration of the statute of limitations for his crime. He was promptly arrested, charged, and tried. But the judge had to rule that he be released due to the statute of limitations. His ruling was phrased quite tersely: “A niche in time saves stein.”
If anyone can direct me to the book in which this story appeared, I’d be grateful.
Gail and Keith
All I can find is that it was in a short story written by Stein. One link says he wrote the story just do he could use the pun. Now you've got me curious! G
Gail and Keith
Oops, I mean Asimov. g
Randy Greenwald
That's all I could find as well. We may still have the book around the house somewhere. I could go back in time to when I read it, but I could not get back, I fear.Or something like that.
The Domestic Intellectual
Had to share this with the Beloved Physicist!
Randy Greenwald
I was afraid you'd do that… (!) I probably got the time travel stuff all messed up!
Gus/Adri
My research, faulty as it may be, led me to the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, not a book.-ge