[nesfa-reading-group] NESFA Reading Group

[Richard Schwartz]

Fellow SFF Fanatics


In our June book, Children of Ruin, there is a tank of octopuses kept in the center of a rotating space ship, presumably with little or no gravity at that location.  The question is "would the water stay in such a tank with no lid?".  Being curious, I asked an astrophysicist. 


Answer - 
Well, assuming there's no other weirdness when the gravity goes away (like, the sudden release of force/pressure has everything springing upward a little in stress-relief), if there's no disturbance the water should stay in the aquarium. Its surface tension might/would try to pull it into a spherical shape; capillary forces might try to pull it up & spread it over the walls of the aquarium; but the water is pretty massive (compared to those forces), and I'd guess it would take a long time to move it much. Assuming nothing else disturbs it!

You could think of a real experiment that might be exactly the same. You could have an aquarium with a sheet of glass covering the open top, held in place by (for example) a bunch of electromagnets. Then, in space (in the Space Station, e.g.),fill the thing chock full of water through the appropriate little pipe with air vent, etc. When its totally full, give everything time to settle down, then release the cover and flick it away. Same question: what happens to the water? Answer: 1. See above; or, 2. Whothehell knows??


Richard (Schwartz) 

On May 9, 2021 at 1:49 PM, Louis Galvez III <nesfalou at gmail.com> wrote:


Over the last year the NESFA Reading Group met online 11 times. We didn’t meet in May of 2020, as we adjusted to the new realities of COVID.

On 6/5/20 we discussed Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
On 7/3/20 we discussed Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw
On 8/7/20 we discussed A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine 
On 9/3/20 we discussed The Dark Side of the Sun by Terry Pratchett 
On 10/1/20 we discussed Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear 
On 11/6/20 we discussed Scented Gardens for the Blind by Janet  Frame 
On 12/4/20 we discussed The Memory Police by Yoko  Ogawa 
On 1/8/21 we discussed A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik 
On 2/5/21 we discussed A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie 
On 3/5/21 we discussed Piranesi by Susanna Clarke 
On 4/2/21 we discussed The Shockwave Rider and The Stone That Never Came Down, both by John Brunner 
On 5/7/21 we discussed Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey 

Future Discussions

On 6/4/21 we will discuss Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky 
On 7/2/21 we will discuss Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta by Doris Lessing (*)
On 8/6/21 we will discuss Seven of Infinities by Aliette de Bodard 

(*) Next Book Selection

Book Selections

We stopped using Survey Monkey in our process of selecting books because Survey Monkey recategorized  ranked voting as a premium (no longer free) feature. We used Google Forms for our last book selection. 

Monthly 
On 5/7/21 we discussed Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey. We had 12 attendees, 8 of them being the usual suspects. The book was received mostly well. The highest ranking, 5/5 stars. The lowest ranking, 2.66/5 stars. The mean ranking, 4/5 stars. 



	
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NESFA Reading Group
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