3.3 KiB
What if? by xkcd
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Author: u/raymestalez *
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Score: 22
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Created: 2015-08-07T09:14:13
Post:
Comments:
u/ArgentStonecutter [+5] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (an hour later)
I guess this blows away that Poul Anderson (I think) story where a spaceship saves itself by reaching the level it floats in a gas-giant atmosphere.
I only recall one line in the story now, "Like a bubble in a densitometer, the floated". Utterly ungoogle-able. Anyone remember this one?
u/Hurkel [+1] (3 hours later)
Anyone remember this one?
Cold Victory.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (4 hours later)
Cold Victory
That's a short story collection. What was the name of the particular story?
u/Hurkel [+3] (4 hours later)
Brake.
I found a pdf of the book here.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (4 hours later)
Thanks!
Edit: and I found a typo in the very sentence that I was looking for:
Like an old drop in a densitometer, like a free balloon over eighteenth-century France, like a small defiant bubble in the sky, the “Thunderbolt” floated.
Should be "oil drop".
[obviously my memory compacted the sentence since I first read it]
u/sparr [+2] (2 days later)
The PDF is an OCR of the book. There are a lot of "typos" switching "i" for "l" and vice versa, and some o/a and some e/c as well.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (4 hours later)
It could still work so long as the spaceship was many, many times stronger and less meltable than a submarine. Being less dense would help too.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (4 hours later)
It was definitely less dense, particularly after they stripped it of all unnecessary mass to pull the trick off. It helps that it was made of improbably strong materials.
u/sparr [+1] (2 days later)
There are a few stories where ships descend into Jupiter's atmosphere and float with hot-hydrogen balloons before lifting back off using rockets.
u/DangerouslyUnstable [+4] (8 hours later)
I love the what-if posts but Randall has clearly taken on more than he can chew since the update schedule has gotten completely bonkers. Even after a several month hiatus, he is apparently not doing regular weekly posts anymore.
I realize that as a consumer of his products (and one who doesn't even pay at that!) I have very little right to complain about scheduling, but I honestly wish he would go to a less frequent but more regular schedule.
All that being said, perhaps one of the best comics for rational fiction type stuff.
u/raymestalez [+2] (29 seconds later)
Everybody probably knows about it already, but I figured it belongs on this subreddit.
u/PeridexisErrant [+1] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (2 days later)
I'm not sure it's quite fiction, but this seems like a case to apply the spirit instead of the letter of the rules!