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SF COMMENTARY 86 February 2014 76 pages SCIENCE FICTION’S PEOPLE: J. G. BALLARD A. BELYANIN ROBERT BLOCH RAY BRADBURY ARTHUR C. CLARKE JOHN CLUTE PETER DARLING PHYLLIS GOTLIEB JAY KAY KLEIN C. M. KORNBLUTH AUDREY NIFFENEGER JOANNA RUSS OLAF STAPLEDON GRAHAM STONE GEORGE ZEBROWSKI CONTRIBUTORS: Ditmar :: James Doig :: Graeme Flanagan :: John Foyster :: Miranda Foyster :: Peter Gerrand :: Bruce Gillespie :: Mike Glyer :: Daniel King :: Fred Lerner :: John Litchen :: Patrick McGuire :: Chris Nelson :: Pamela Sargent :: Darrell Schweitzer :: Taral Wayne :: Cover: Ditmar (Dick Jenssen) Ditmar (Dick Jenssen): Cover story It took a few years, but fortunately not too many, for me to consistent axiomatic formulations of number theory include recover from the forced ingestion of Shakespeare thrust upon undecidable propositions. This is sometimes called Gödel’s me at school. The main problem was simply my immaturity and first incompleteness theorem, and answers in the negative Hil- a difficulty in understanding people and behaviour, a difficulty bert’s problem asking whether mathematics is ‘complete’ (in which still persists and which is why, probably, I find humans the sense that every statement in the language of number and their motivations much more comprehensible in novels and theory can be either proved or disproved). films than in the complicated clutter and ‘white noise’ of reality. Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem states that if But luckily our English Literature teacher was very enthusiastic number theory is consistent, then a proof of this fact does regarding Shakespeare, which meant that as I grew older I had not exist using the methods of first-order predicate calculus. a positive response and memory to guide me. Also, on leaving Stated more colloquially, any formal system that is interest- school and entering University I discovered new friends, some ing enough to formulate its own consistency can prove its of whom were a decade or two older than I, and who loved the own consistency if, and only if, it is inconsistent. plays and poems of Shakespeare. One of them was clearly much more mature than I for he had been reading the plays while still A simple way of demonstrating a statement that is obviously at school — which, so Rod told me, had one passing teacher true, but cannot be so proven, is the subject of the cover. If you exclaiming: ‘My God, Timmins, you are a strange boy. You read replace the words ‘whoever you are — you’ with, say, ‘Bruce Shakespeare.’ Gillespie’ the statement is still true and provable by you, but if I found many passing references to Shakespeare in un- you replace ‘whoever you are — you’ with your name then it’s expected places — the pages of Edwin A. Abbott’s Flatland, for still true but you cannot prove it. example, where a quote from The Tempest appeared (a play Finally, the circular text ‘I’ll put a Gödel round about the which I consider to be Shakespeare’s finest). And in two of the truth’ is a pun on Puck’s words, ‘I’ll put a girdle round about ‘best’ films I have seen there is, again, Shakespeare. Thus The the Earth’, as spoken in Shakespeare’s glorious A Midsummer Tempest is quoted by Ralph Richardson in Zoltan Korda’s The Night’s Dream. And I make no apologies for the pun, since I Four Feathers, and a wonderful bit of business from A Midsummer consider a pun to be not the lowest, but the highest form of wit, Night’s Dream appears in Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life for it conflates two disparate things (concepts, ideas, words, and Death (aka Stairway to Heaven). And so I fell in love with phrases, even images, as in some of Salvador Dali’s paintings, Shakespeare. where visual puns abound) and creates something new. The But I also became somewhat passionate about mathematics, groan response to a pun is because the listener realises his or even if I never entered its more esoteric chambers (Third Year her failure to be so creative. There is no such groan when university maths was the last formal training), and my interest Einstein conflates an accelerating lift with gravity and creates was fanned by ‘popular’ mathematical texts and scientific maga- General Relativity; rather, there is an abundance of awe and zines. It was through them that I discovered Kurt Gödel and his admiration. The basic substance of a pun is part of what scientists incompleteness theorems. He was a fascinating, and rather sad, and mathematicians do. So there! character (Reference 1) who surprised the mathematical world with his two incompleteness proofs (Refs 2, 3). There are many discussions of these in many books (Refs 4, 5). Gödel is largely References regarded as a logician — perhaps the finest of the past century or more, but he was also a mathematician. In that regard he 1Wang, Hao: A Logical Journey . showed that there were solutions of Einstein’s equations of 2 Nagel, E., Newman, J., and Hofstadter: Gödel’s Proof. general relativity that allowed for time travel (Ref. 6). He was 3 Nagel, E., Newman, J., and Hofstadter: Gödel’s Proof in great friend of Einstein, and the two would walk every day to Newman, J.: The World of Mathematics. their homes from Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study in This a four-volume set about but not of mathematics order to engage in scientific and philosophical discussions (Ref. (hardly an equation in sight). It’s from the 1950s and so 6). Gödel also managed a proof of the existence of God (flawed) does not include the latest developments, but it’s a book and showed that the American Constitution allowed for the that belongs on every SF fan’s bookshelves. creation of a dictatorship (Ref. 7). (He was told not to bring up 4 Devlin, K.: Mathematics the New Golden Age. such a proof when he went for his admission for US citizenship). This discusses some developments up to the end of the Gödel’s two incompleteness theorems were, as stated above, twentieth century. reasonably shocking inasmuch as they showed that there were 5 Yandell, Benjamin H.: The Honors Class. limits to mathematics and mathematical knowledge (see also A book on Hilbert’s Problems, some of which remain Ref. 8). Simply stated, they say that there are undecidable truths unsolved, and for which there are prizes of a million in mathematics, and that the internal consistency of mathe- dollars at stake. matics cannot be proven within that system. Thus there are some 6Yougrau, Palle: A World Without Time. statements that are obviously true but cannot be proven and that 7 Kegler, J.: http://morgenstern.jeffreykegler. com/. mathematics cannot be shown to be free of inconsistencies. As 8 Yanofsky, N. S.: The Outer Limits of Reason. Weinstein puts it (Ref. 9): 9 Weinstein, E. W.: http://mathworld.wolfram.com /GoedelsIncompletenessTheorem.html. Informally, Gödel’s incompleteness theorem states that all 2 SF COMMENTARY 86 February 2014 76 pages SF COMMENTARY No. 86, February 2014, is edited and published in a limited number of print copies by Bruce Gillespie, 5 Howard Street, Greensborough, VIC 3068, Australia. Phone: 61-3-9435 7786. Preferred means of distribution .PDF file from eFanzines.com at: Portrait edition (print equivalent) or Landscape edition (widescreen): http://efanzines.com for rom my email address: [email protected]. Front cover: Ditmar (Dick Jenssen): ‘I’ll Put a Gödel Around the Truth’. Back cover: Elaine Cochrane: ‘Tiny Dancer’ (using DJ Fractals) Artwork: Elizabeth Darling (p. 5). Photographs: Gary Mason (p. 4); Chris Nelson (p. 9); Mervyn Binns (p. 17); Judith Clute (pp. 23, 28); Mike Glyer (p. 32); David Dyer-Bennett (p. 33); Ileen Weber (p. 40). 2 COVER STORY Ditmar (Dick Jenssen) 31 3 JAY KAY KLEIN 31 Jay Kay Klein (1931–2012) 4 I MUST BE TALKING TO MY FRIENDS Mike Glyer 31 Journeys with Jay Kay: 4 FAREWELL TO PETER DARLING On the road with science fiction’s photographer 4 Editor Pamela Sargent 5 My colleague Peter Darling 1946–2013 Peter Gerrand THE REAL SCIENCE FICTION 7 The art of being Peter Miranda Foyster 34 INTRODUCTION: Raising the net: 8 Memories of Peter Darling in fandom The C. P. Snow Lecture, Ithaca College, 6 April 1995 Bruce Gillespie George Zebrowski 40 1 Killers circling the stage: 9 GRAHAM STONE (1926–2013) Why JOANNA RUSS’s fiction still puzzles me. Chris Nelson 46 ‘The Wearing Out of Genre Materials’ Bruce Gillespie J. G. BALLARD NEWS 48 2 ARTHUR C. CLARKE George Zebrowski 11 ‘Again Last Night’: 55 3 Re-visiting Childhood’s End A previously unpublished Vermilion Sands story John Litchen Daniel King 57 4 A sense of something in him: C. M. KORNBLUTH George Zebrowski SCIENCE FICTION’S PEOPLE 61 5 A glimpse of recent Russian fantasy: A. BELYANIN Patrick McGuire 13 1 ROBERT BLOCH 62 6 The Tsaddik of the Seven Wonders (PHYLLIS GOTLIEB) 13 Robert Bloch in Australia: Cinecon 1981 Taral Wayne James Doig 64 7 Displaced in Time: The Time Traveler’s Wife 17 Fandom panel, Cinecon 1981 Fred Lerner Robert Boch and John Foyster 66 8 Extreme science fiction: Recorded by Graeme Flanagan OLAF STAPLEDON (1886–1950) Transcribed by James Doig George Zebrowski 71 9 RAY BRADBURY’s The Martian Chronicles 23 2 JOHN CLUTE John Litchen 23 John Clute interviewed by Darrell Schweitzer 73 10 J. G. BALLARD’s The Drowned World John Litchen 3 I must be talking to my friends Farewell to Peter Darling In the October mailing of ANZAPA, I wrote a brief note a witty and revealing talk on behalf of Elizabeth and about my sense of loss when I heard that Peter Darling herself.