The 2084 Precept by Anthony D. Thompson Read Free Book Online Page B

or less common usage in the U.K. as
well. Not so, however, in Germany, for example. Their billion
remains the English Long Scale version, a million millions, just as
it always was. And a trillion is a million billions as opposed to a
thousand billions, just as it always was. And yes, the Germans have
created a different word - Milliarde - to denote a thousand
million. Useful to know if you are a translator. Or even if you're
not.
    "Whatever…" he continued, "you are not
seeing things as they are at present, you are seeing what was there
long before your solar system even existed, let alone, of course,
yourselves. And what you are looking at is approximately 35,000
times the mass of your sun—mass not to be confused with size—and it
emits about 1 trillion times as much energy; yes, that's one
trillion, if you can imagine that, which you can't.”
    He looked at me, presumably to see if I was
interested in this particular monologue of his. Which I wasn’t. But
I was pretending to be. Well enough for him to persevere.
    “To enable you to put this into
perspective”, he continued, “your sun has a maximum temperature of
around 15 million degrees centigrade at its core, and its nuclear
fusion converts roughly 700 million tons of hydrogen into helium
and energy in the form of gamma rays every second , thereby
emitting some 400 trillion megawatts of power. So just try
imagining a quasar like this one."
    "What exactly is a megawatt?" I asked. Keep
him humored, let him think I find all of this interesting. But
don't overdo it, don't give the game away, keep it simple.
    "A megawatt? A megawatt is a million
watts."
    "Uh huh…difficult for me to grasp the
magnitude of the numbers you're talking about here, Mr. Parker."
Small talk, keep up the interest.
    "I know," he said, "I am aware of that if
you don't mind my saying so. Just imagine yourself trying to
explain your planet to a group of ants in your garden, assuming you
could converse with them. They would hear you, but you would know
in advance that they could not possibly understand the immensity
and complexity of what you were explaining. And that is the
position I find myself in with your good self, no offence intended
at all, it's just the way things are."
    I didn't say anything, no point. Lunatics
live in a world of their own creation, there's nothing you can do
about it. And be thankful for small mercies, I told myself, at
least he's not pretending to be Napoleon, with his cavalry waiting
for him around the corner at Waterloo. Waterloo Station, I mean,
just over the river from here.
    "To continue," he said, "I and my brothers
currently live in that region. We have a planet, which circles a
star, which is close to 500 times larger than yours. Not as large,
for example, as Eta Carinae, a star of which your scientists are
aware and which is 800 times larger than your sun and which, as
they also know, will soon explode, a supernova you call it. In
fact, the biggest star you are aware of is the one you call Canis
Majoris, which is a red giant and on its way to being two thousand
times larger than your sun. Your scientists also believe they have
detected a few stars which are even larger, but their measurement
accuracy is too uncertain due to either cosmic dust clouds or to
other phenomena. And your scientists are guessing that there are
even larger stars than those out there which they can't see. And it
just so happens that they are right."
    "So let me describe my star," he continued,
"as being a medium-big one. In all other respects it is similar to
your sun, in that it is a sphere of hydrogen and helium
gases—nearly everything of importance in the universe is a sphere,
as you may know—and, like all other stars, it is en route to its
death, merrily burning away its matter in a chain of nuclear
reactions. In exactly the same way as your sun is doing, which by
the way has about another 4.5 billion years to go. So that's the
region I come from. And now, I assume you will want