The Unimaginable Future

"unimaginable future" cover art by John Schoenherr

 I recently blogged about "Guardian Angel" by Arthur C. Clarke, which was published in 1950 as well as his story "The Sentinel", published in 1951. I've also previously mentioned Clarke's short novel, Against the Fall of Night, which I first read in book format (a Pyramid Science Fiction edition, see the cover art shown to the right on this page) in the early 1970s. According to this article, Clarke began writing Against the Fall of Night in 1937.

Here in this blog post, I'm going to return to the November 1948 issue of Startling Stories where "Against the Fall of Night" was first published.

I say "return" because one year ago I read Jack Vance's short story "The Unspeakable McInch" which was also in that issue. Jack Vance was born in 1916, one year before Clarke, but Clarke began publishing science fiction stories in 1937 (if you count this fanzine), when he was 20. Vance's first published story arrived at magazine stands in 1945. 

in the Ekcolir Reality

You can read Clarke's 1937 fanzine story about teleportation ("Travel by Wire") as reprinted in Vector in 1960. That issue of Vector also has some discussion of the "Hieronymous Machine".

I know of one early Clarke fanzine story that was later re-published in a "pro" magazine: "The Awakening". Originally published in the year 1942 in a fanzine called Zenith, the story was later re-published in the January 1952 issue of Future Science Fiction Stories.

I have fun imagining that in some other Reality, science fiction story tellers like Clarke lived somewhat different lives. I'll give credit to Clarke for making one major character in Against the Fall of Night be a female (Seranis of Lys), but somehow he could not even be bothered to include Alvin's mother in the story. In an alternate Reality where women dominated science fiction genre, Arabella Clarke wrote other styles of science fiction stories, quite different than what Arthur Clarke produced here in our Reality.

in the Ekcolir Reality

If you ignore the fanzines, then Clarke's first professional published science fiction was in the April 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, putting him on the same professional publishing schedule as Vance (being first paid for a story at age 29). 

Both Vance and Clarke were bu$y working and earning a living by conventional means before they became full time fiction writers. Clarke and Vance also shared the experience of being separated from their fathers at a young age. 

Clarke served in the military during WWII working on radar systems and Vance was in the merchant marines. Clarke graduated from Kings College in 1948 after studying math and physics. Vance studied some science topics like physics and geology in college.

British Interplanetary Society gathering. Clarke, right.

In addition to publishing fiction, Clarke also wrote nonfiction about rocketry and space exploration. By 1948, Clarke had already served his first term as president of the British Interplanetary Society (1946-1947).

"The Awakening" is interesting and its existence is the one thing that makes me believe that Clarke began work on Against the Fall of Night many years before it was published. 

in Future Science Fiction Stories

dry Earth of the far far far far future

In "The Awakening", readers are introduced to Marlan, a dude who is tired of living in a future utopia, a far future Earth where people live in idyllic cloud-piercing cities while most of the planet's surface exists in wild, pristine splendor below. This is a future of the space age at a point in time after which the entire Solar System has been completely explored, but practical interstellar travel has not become possible. Marlan puts himself into a state of "suspended animation" so that he can be awakened in the far far far far future and have a chance to see the ultimate fate of Humanity.

image source: Clayton Graham's website

In Clarke's imagined far far far far far future, Earth's oceans are gone and the Moon has been reduced to a ring of rubble that orbits the desiccated planet Earth. Life remains on Earth in the form of some sort of intelligent descendant of the insects. Humanity is long gone. "The Awakening" was an early demonstration of Clarke's ability to put we humans into the context of a vast and ancient universe. There is no good reason to suspect that any recognizable remnant of the human species will remain a billion years from now, but for Against the Fall of Night, Clarke allowed humans to survive through vast stretches of time.

The adventures of the atavistic Alvin of Lotosland.

Figure 1. interior art for Against the Fall of Night

For his story Against the Fall of Night, Clarke imagined a far future in which interstellar travel had become quick and easy. However, readers must wade through dozens of pages before Alvin gets his hands on a spaceship.

Yes, the main character is named Alvin, a boy who grows up in the city Diaspar with his dad Convar. Diaspar has mile high buildings and a population that has lost its fear of heights, but the people of Earth have a new fear: fear of the Invaders. Cultural memories of the Invaders have lasted the past 500,000,000 years, since the ancient days when there was an active spaceport at Diaspar. In Alvin's time, the spaceport lies lost and buried under the drifting sands of a world-spanning desert. As in "The Awakening", Earth's oceans are long gone from the face of the planet.

cover art by Frank Kelly Freas

Diaspar is home to one of the two human cultures that Clarke imagined could last for half a billion years. The other is Lys, a rural community of telepaths. However, the entire first part of the story is about Alvin living in the "prison of Diaspar" and trying to get out. Alvin is educated by his tutor, Jeserae and sessions with a hypnone, a futuristic learning machine. It is easy for me to imagine that the hypnone and other machines of this far future are based on sophisticated nanotechnology. 

When Alvin completes a session with the hypnone, it dissolves and disappears from sight until it is needed again. Clarke attributes the long survival of Diaspar's urban civilization to their machines. Humans in Alvin's time have forgotten how these super-sophisticated machines were created, but the futuristic machines of Diaspar endlessly repair themselves and keep the city functioning for its human occupants across a span of many hundreds of millions of years.

only Alvin looks at the stars

The people of Diaspar have long lifespans. We are told that Alvin is the first child born into this city of millions of residents during the past 7,000 years and that his youth will last for "long centuries". Alvin is not content to devote himself to conventional concerns such as spending 1,000 years to learn the complexities of futuristic music. No, Alvin is obsessed with the world outside of Diaspar. Alvin is atavistic in that only he, among all the remaining people, has curiosity and a desire for knowledge.

unimaginable and forgotten (and wrong)

I think Clarke was correct to suggest that in order for an isolated city like Diaspar to exist unchanged for half a billion years, the people would need to have a strange inhuman lack of initiative. In "The Awakening", Clarke depicted people of the future being bored with their utopian existence. Here in Against the Fall of Night, almost the entire population of Diaspar is content to lead long lives without adventure and discovery; they are totally uninterested in the outside world and only know the streets and towers of the city. 

cover art by Richard Powers

 Telepathy. The machines of Diaspar can "read the thoughts" of humans and respond to unspoken commands. When Alvin finally reaches Lys, he discovers that the people there have retained the ability to "read minds", an ancient trait that the people of Diaspar lost. Clarke also talks about other biological changes to the people of Diaspar such as losing and gaining teeth several times through the ages. 

The word "genetics" appears in Against the Fall of Night, but Clarke remained mostly focused on future physical science advances and technologies like interstellar spaceship drives and anti-gravity devices. I suspect that Clarke wanted to make it easy for his readers to relate to Alvin and other characters in the story, so he abandoned that path taken in "The Awakening" of depicting humans as being replaced during the course of continued biological evolution in the future. The ruler of Lys, a woman named Seranis, can not only read Alvin's thoughts, but also place her own speech-like thoughts directly into Alvin's mind.

1960 edition; art by Robert Engle

Lys has lakes and forests and even non-human animals, including pet insects. Seranis claims that the oceans of Earth still exist, underground. Lys is a mostly forested park-like territory, surrounded by mountains and thus it is protected from the drifting sands of the desert that covers the rest of the planet's surface. Seranis also claims that it was the people of Lys who long ago defended Earth against the Invaders.

The people of Lys are not long-lived and there are many children there. Traveling with the son of Seranis, Alvin treks to the edge of Lys where there is a large black crater like a scar in the forest. At the center of the crater is the scene depicted in the image at the top of this blog post: a jumble of large blocks, the ruins of an ancient fortress: Shalmirane.

Alvin meets robot

Alvin meets the three flying robotic drones of the Master (see Figure 1, above). According to ancient legend, the Master came to Earth long ago from "the planets of eternal light", the planets of the Seven Suns. While visiting Lys, Alvin hears tales of the Great Ones who had gone off on some great adventure, but who would eventually return to Earth.

Clarke's description of the Master's robotic drones

 After the death of the Master, cult-like followers remained in Lys to carry the legend of the Great Ones down through the passing eons. The last cult member, an old man living in the ruins of Shalmirane, allows Alvin to take control of one of the three robots.

the drone takes Alvin back to Diaspar from Lys

Seranis does not want Alvin to return to Diaspar, claiming that in the past, all residents of Diaspar who came to Lys remained there. However, Alvin makes use of one of the Master's robots to escape from Lys and return to Diaspar.

Using her telepathic powers, Seranis takes control of Alvin's mind and she makes Alvin order the robotic drone to halt. However, Alvin had ordered the drone to take him back to Diaspar and ignore all his further orders until they are back in Diaspar.

Sirens; in the November 1948 Startling Stories

Musical Interlude. In the story, Clarke suggests that the experience of Alvin being subjected to the telepathic powers of Seranis is similar to hearing the Song of Sirens. The uncredited artist who made illustrations for the story was inspired to make the illustration shown to the left.

Safely back in Diaspar, the Master's robot leads Alvin to the Master's long-abandoned spaceship, which had been sitting at the spaceport of Diaspar for millions of years where it was eventually covered by drifting sand. That spaceship carries Alvin to the mysterious Seven Suns, which Clarke tells us lie at the center of the universe. However, using some sort of hyper-spatial drive, Alvin's journey takes only half a day.

1970 edition; art by Ron Walotsky

I like the idea that the system of the Seven Suns was constructed by means of some advanced technology. For my fanfiction stories such as The Alastor Network and Meet the Phari I imagine that the Alastor star cluster was artificially assembled.

On a planet in the system of the Seven Suns, Alvin meets an entity named Vanamonde: "a pure mentality". Vanamonde can move effortlessly through outer-space at great speed and has telepathic powers, but it has no clear understanding of its ancient origins. Vanamonde is like an oracle: an information source that holds vast knowledge without really understanding anything. 

Clarke asks readers to look upon Vanamonde as still being an infant, although Vanamonde is half a billion years old and has spent that time wandering through the universe.

cover art by Angus McKie

By telepathically sifting through Vanamonde's memories, the people of Lys learn that in the distant past, people created beings of "pure mentality", but one such, "The Mad Mind", went on a rampage and destroyed the interstellar empire of the ancients, which included humans and many alien species from other worlds. After a long struggle, the Mad Mind was locked inside the Black Sun.

After dealing with the Mad Mind, most of the remnant peoples of the empire (the Great Ones of Earthly legend) "departed from our universe", leaving behind a few remnant civilizations like Diaspar and Lys. What about the feared Invaders? They are nothing but legend. What about the ancient fortress, Shalmirane? It's energy transmitter had been used to destroy the Moon when it came too close to Earth.

image source

Against the Fall of Night was one of the first science fiction stories that I read as a young boy. I was intrigued by Clarke's attempt to imagine the fate of Earth at a time more than a billion years in the future. In the story, Clarke included the idea that after humans colonized all the planets and moons of our Solar System, Earth was contacted by aliens from other planets who were vastly more technologically advanced. However, in Clarke's imagined future, humans were able to learn from the aliens and "catch up" technologically. It was human ingenuity that eventually led to the creation of "pure mentalities" like Vanamonde and the Mad Mind.

For stories set in my own Exodemic Fictional Universe, I prefer to imagine that alien beings have visited Earth long ago. My biggest disappointment in reading Against the Fall of Night is that Clarke turned it into a "humans only" club with no aliens given a significant role in the story.

interior art by Williams

 Unimaginable. Against the Fall of Night is set about 1,500,000,000 years in our future. Clarke included several advanced technologies in his story that make possible faster-than-light space travel, immortality, telepathy and matter duplication. However, teleportation is not used during the events depicted in Against the Fall of Night. This seems like an odd choice for Clarke since his 1937 story "Travel by Wire" and his 1946 publication "Loophole" both have plots that are built around the use of teleportation technology.

Next: game of the future

UFOlogy by Sam Merwin in the November 1948 issue of Startling Stories (July 1948 UFO)

ABC and Vance

In the Ekcolir Reality.

ABC meaning Asimov, Brunner and Clarke. Last month I celebrated the science fiction writing of Jack Vance by reading several stories that he published in 1951. Back in March, I read "Satisfaction Guaranteed", a positronic robot story that was published by Asimov in 1951. Here in this blog post, I'm going to continue that theme and comment on two short stories by Brunner and Clarke that were published 70 years ago, in 1951. The stories concern aliens who are watching Earth... and waiting...

Apparently, Arthur C. Clarke wrote "The Sentinel"  in 1948 and it was first published in 1951 in 10 Story Fantasy. Hoping for a sale, maybe Clarke's agent routinely sent "The Sentinel" to all the editors of science fiction magazines such as Donald Wollheim. I'd be interested to know if there were any other editors who rejected the story as a "clunker", possibly suspecting that it was too thoughtful for most readers.

Figure 1; Wilson reaches the little plataeu
interior art from 1951

When I was discovering printed science fiction stories in the early 1970s, Avon was gradually getting out of the Sci Fi field, but it was through their distribution of cheap paperback books that I was able to read Asimov's Foundation saga and other interesting novels (example). In the early 1950s, Avon was experimenting with several Sci Fi and fantasy magazines and somehow "The Sentinel" ended up in 10 Story Fantasy, published under the title "Sentinel of Eternity". That was the only published issue of the magazine. "The Sentinel" is famous because it is one of Clarke's stories that contributed ideas that went into the 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. "The Sentinel" has been widely anthologized, but today I finally read "The Sentinel" in its original published form that included the illustration shown to the left on this page.

Mare Crisium

 Sea of Crises. The events of the story begin in the year 1996 when the first human exploration of Mare Crisium is taking place. The name "Mare Crisium" is attributed to Giovanni Riccioli, who in his writing about the Moon stated his belief that there was no life on the Moon.

Clarke wrote "The Sentinel" for submission to a BBC writing contest and his target audience was likely to be familiar with an idea popularized in fiction: that other planetary bodies such as the Moon (see "The Death of the Moon") and Mars might be "dying worlds" that long ago may have had more water and environmental conditions suitable for life.

Mars 2020

Life on Mars
Fictional accounts of life on Mars are often traced to the imaginative Giovanni Schiaparelli who reported seeing linear surface features on Mars that other astronomers could not see by telescopic observation. Nicolas Flammarion fanned the flames of fantasy about intelligent life on Mars, suggested that an ancient Martian civilization might have long ago engineered paths for the distribution of a dwindling water supply across the surface of Mars. Not to be left on the sidelines of history, Percival Lowell built an observatory and his imaginary sightings of "canals" on Mars culminated in his 1908 book Mars As the Abode of Life. Many of Clarke's British readers were certainly familiar with The War of the Worlds and its depiction of Martian invaders at war with humans in England. If there could be intelligent beings from Mars, then why not Earth's Moon as well?

Moon dust videos

Clarke included in "The Sentinel" the idea that the relatively flat surface of Mare Crisium had once (a billion years ago) been covered by water a half mile deep. In 1911 "Caterpillar" was adopted as the name for steel plate-tracked vehicles (originally a British invention). The first page of "The Sentinel" reads like a carefully designed product placement advertisement for Caterpillar tractors. I remember as a boy listening to some folks fret about the possibility that Apollo astronauts might sink into deep Moon dust. Clarke seems to have been more concerned about crevices and steep mountains as likely impediments to driving around on the surface of the Moon. However, Moon dust does play a role in Clarke's story.

Jezero Crater

In Clarke's imagination, the entire southern end of Mare Crisium was covered by river deltas, created in an ancient age when torrential rains fell on the nearby mountains. 

Clarke's description of the surface of the Moon in "The Sentinel" sounds most similar to what has been found on Mars (see the image to the left) where there actually are sedimentary deposits and the remnants of ancient river deltas.

cover art by Carolus Thole

While on their drive across the flat Mare, the exploration team spots a strange metallic glint emanating from the top of a mountain located along the edge of the Mare. They decide to investigate and while approaching the Mysterious Mountain™ there are discussions among the team concerning living things on the Moon and the unlikely possibility of intelligent life having existed on the Moon in the far past. 

In the Ekcolir Reality.
Original art by Frank Paul

In Clarke's imaginary fictional universe of "The Sentinel", it was well known that "primitive" plant-like organism had once existed on the Moon (Clarke calls it "creeping moss"). Also creeping into the story is the whispered possibility that some as-yet undiscovered advanced life-form may have once existed on the Moon. Maybe in another Reality there could have been a sequel to "The Sentinel" about the plant people of the Moon.

At first, the explorers of Mare Crisium have no reason to suspect that they have discovered an artifact left on the Moon by space aliens. Clarke includes in the story a more likely source of the metallic glint: a recent meteor strike may have laid bare a brightly reflective metal deposit on the side of the mountain.

Clarke's description of the alien artifact.

The story as told in "The Sentinel" is a first person account that is narrated by Wilson, a selenologist, who climbs the Mysterious Mountain with Garnett, his assistant. Look at those jagged peaks in Figure 1, above. Lucky for Wilson and Garnett, the low gravity of the Moon allows them to climb the steep mountain and discover an alien artifact. The "roughly pyramidal structure" has "glittering mirror surfaces" that have long been protected by a force-field.

the circular edge of the force-field

This is where Clarke brings in the Moon dust (see the passage shown to the left on this page). Wilson realizes that he has discovered an alien machine, protected from meteorite strikes for "an eternity" (well, only hundreds of millions of years) by the force-field.

Wilson wonders how long the alien artifact has been there; possibly since before there was life on Earth. Towards the end of the story, Wilson says that the artifact has been dated to about the time when on Earth "life emerged from the sea".

1951

As depicted in "The Sentinel", Wilson's account of the alien machine's discovery is written 20 years later (2016), at a point in time after which atomic power had been used to break through the alien force-field. In doing so, the artifact was damaged. Wilson guesses that for eons the alien artifact had been sending a signal back to its creators. Now, with that signal interrupted, Wilson wonders if the aliens might come to investigate Earth. "The Sentinel" is a rare story that neatly avoids Clement's Paradox.

John Bunner's 1951 story "The Watchers" was published in an even more obscure venue than was "The Sentinel": a fanzine called Slant. Brunner was only 17 in 1951.

In the Ekcolir Reality.

The "Watchers" reside inside a plastic bubble on the Moon, surrounded by devices that keep them alive. Lucky for us, there are two Watchers who have to discuss their mission and so provide us with an account of why they are watching Earth. "Discuss" might not be the best word since Brunner seems to imply that the two Watchers are telepathically linked.

The Watchers of Brunner's imagination make use of a "perception probe" that detects interesting objects on Earth and transmits images of science fiction magazines (issues of Galaxy, Astounding, New Worlds...) back to the Watchers. Based on what they see in the pulp Sci Fi magazines, the Watchers conclude that Earthlings will soon have spaceships and will then visit the Moon.

Is that a sea or psi monster?

It is not clear how long the Watchers have been waiting for Earthlings to develop a technological civilization and spaceships. "The Watchers" is very short, so there are few clues, but I like to imagine that Brunner tried to depict the Watchers as some kind of artificial life-form that could be switched on and off, allowing them to wait through many eons while life evolved on Earth.

After writing "The Sentinel", Clarke went on to write other stories (example) that allowed him to explore and imagine how advanced aliens might interact with primitive humans. I have not read many of Brunner's novels; I'd be interested to know if any of them concerned what happened when his alien Watchers finally made contact with humans. I hope The Atlantic Abomination is not the best that Brunner could come up with for an ancient aliens novel. 

Star King

From among Asimov, Brunner, Clarke and Vance, which of these authors had the most intriguing story about ancient aliens? I'm partial to Vance's Star King because in that novel, Vance had the audacity to suggest that aliens played a role in creating we humans. However, among this group of writers, Clarke seemed to take most seriously the idea of humans meeting aliens who are far more technologically advanced than we are.

Related Reading: more Avon novels, Asimov fiction set in 2016 & "The Golden Helix" & The Clarke-Brunner Effect 

Next: Clarke's 1948 story Against the Fall of Night

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Making a New Law

submarines in space

 I've previously blogged about John W. Campbell and his early (1950) support for Dianetics. By 1952, Campbell dropped Dianetics from the pages of Astounding, apparently annoyed by the lack of evidence for Hubbard's new "science" of the mind. I've also previously blogged about Campbell's published support for the idea (in 1956) that there exists a mysterious force ("eloptic energy") that can be detected by a "Hieronymous Machine". Here in this blog post, I'll comment on Campbell's 1960 infatuation with the "Dean Drive", what Campbell's proclaimed to be a "true space-drive" that would open up the Solar System.

Fact and Fiction. Early science fiction story tellers imagined how chemical rockets and atomic energy might be used to send people on adventures into outer space. Later, people actually did ride chemical rockets into space and even began using atomic energy. 

Reason

Isaac Asimov was delighted to have made up and published stories about robots (example) and then watch as an industrial robotics industry came into existence. Given these intriguing linkages between fact and fiction, it was easy to imagine that the science fiction genre had an important role to play in exploring imaginary technologies that would later become actual fields of technological advancement.

As editor of Astounding, Campbell was in the entertainment business. How could he be expected to resist the temptation to stir up his readers with provocative ideas at the fringe of science? Campbell asked his readers to imagine the "emotional problems" that would arise should some maverick inventor discover a "true space-drive" (something better than rocketry). Campbell implied that the rocketry industry would resist such an advancement just as buggy-whip manufacturers had resisted the rise of the new-fangled automobile.

"The Space-Drive Problem" by Campbell

By 1960, it was clear that rocketry was not going to allow people to effortlessly traipse around the universe as depicted in many science fiction tales. Something new, some as-yet-unknown method was needed to speed people to the stars.

When Campbell latched on to Norman Dean and his claim that he had demonstrated a new physical principle that could be used to make a "reactionless spaceship drive", Campbell told readers that rocket engineers would resist recognition of this new discovery. My entire life I've had to endure people telling me that there were cures for cancer, a design for a car that gets 100 miles to the gallon and evidence for space aliens, all of which had been covered up by "them" (or They). 

"Space-Drive Problem" by Campbell

Drive me crazy. Campbell's imagination was quick to leap from Dean's power drill space-drive (see the image to right, above) to the specter of Russians attaining the ability to send a spaceship to Mars in three days, negating "mutually assured nuclear destruction" and thus destroying the current world political balance.

Campbell not only told readers that politicians and scientists would lie in order to "cover up" a "true space-drive", but he, Campbell, was a rebel who not only believed that Dean had invented and patented a "true space-drive", but Campbell was also going to make sure that the whole world knew about it. All this ranting came rushing out in Campbell's article before he could be bothered to explain exactly what Dean's space drill actually was and how it worked. This was a sorry "who needs evidence?" performance by Campbell and we can easily imagine a trained scientist like Asimov reading Campbell's essay on the "Dean drive" and shaking his head in dismay.

"The Space-Drive Problem" by Campbell

Campbell had first chummed the waters with hints of a "true space-drive" in the December 1959 issue of Astounding. In his editorial for that issue, he claimed to have seen a photograph showing a power drill configured in a device so that it was able to cancel Earth's gravitational force. He waxed poetic about a new version of the Laws of Motion that would theoretically support the idea that a 25 horse-power motor, correctly configured to power a "true space-drive", could lift a 3,000 pound vehicle into space against Earth's gravitational attraction. 

"The Space-Drive Problem" by Campbell

Campbell rather breathlessly promised to report back to his readers as soon as he knew more about this amazing new space-drive technology. He could not end his 1959 editorial without commenting that "authorities in the field" were causing trouble for the inventor of the "true space-drive".

In the June 1960 essay that identified Mr. Norman L. Dean as the inventor of the "true space-drive", Campbell claimed that Mr. Dean had previously built a device that could self-levitate (the photograph mentioned by Campbell in December 1959 was taken as proof of that claim). In June, Campbell's essay provided a set of photographs (shown on this page) illustrating features of Dean's "space-drive demonstration model".

"The Space-Drive Problem" by Campbell

Not content to merely state his belief that the future of space travel would come from showing that the Laws of Motion were wrong, Campbell condemned the "authorities" for not taking Norman Dean seriously. Campbell listed NASA, the Office of Naval Research and an unspecified Senate Committee as all having failed to even look at Dean's "space-drive demonstration model".

 

"The Space-Drive Problem" by Campbell. Photographic "evidence" of "true space-drive".

"The Fourth Law of Motion"

After Campbell's long-winded account of the gravity-defying "Dean drive" in June 1960, you might wounder why NASA continued spending billions of dollars on gigantic chemical rockets. Just in case any of Campbell's readers were still wondering about that, the May 1962 issue of Analog contained an essay by Dr. William O. Davis titled "The Fourth Law of Motion". The essay included several photographs from "Huyck Laboratories" such as the one shown to the right. 

The essay by Davis claimed that there was evidence to support the idea that the three Laws of Motion as learned by school children were not complete. Davis assured readers that there was a cutting edge research program into the Laws of Motion being carried out by "Huyck Corporation" of Stamford Connecticut. Readers were told about the "Huyck Laboratories" of the "Huyck Research Center" in Milford Connecticut where Davis and his team were full speed ahead on the "Huyck Dynamic Systems Project".

In the September 1963 issue of Analog

In Campbell's editorial that month (May 1962), he stated that he thought that Davis had correctly discovered and described a new 4th Law of Motion that would revolutionize human civilization. Campbell lamented the sad state of affairs by which "authorities" in American Science™ were ignoring this revolutionary breakthrough. Campbell said that the Russians were more open-minded than Americans and Campbell predicted that when Humanity used a "true space-drive" based on the 4th Law of Motion to spread out into space, everyone would be speaking Russian. Campbell also condemned his own science fiction magazine readers for having written so many letters to him telling him to abandon his fantasies about the "Dean Drive".

archive.org

 Feedback. In the September 1960 issue of Analog, Campbell's editorial was an update on the "Dean Drive". Campbell reported that a Mr. Cal Isaacson of "Wellesley Engineering Inc." in Waltham Massachusetts claimed that after contacting Dean, the crakerjack team at Wellesley Engineering had built their own "demonstration model" of the Dean contraption and were able to reproduce the claimed gravity-nullifying effect that had been described by Campbell in June. So, you might ask: what is "Wellesley Engineering Inc."? Don't worry about that, Campbell assured readers that to his certain knowledge, "seven of the nation's greatest corporations" were investigating the "Dean Drive".

The December 1960 issue of Analog contained "Final Report On the Dean Device" by John W. Campbell, Jr. in which he predicted it might take five more years before then on-going secret research on the "Dean Drive" would yield practical results.

The other Dean Drive! image source

The May 1962 article from "Huyck Research" was not the last word on the Laws of Motion and the "Dean Drive" in Analog. In the September 1963 issue of Analog was a letter from G. Harry Stine, stating that the team at "Huyck Laboratories" could not confirm the claims made by Dean in May 1963 for his rotary device. This was followed in January 1964 with a rebuttal by Dean saying that the Huyck device did not conform to Dean's specifications. It seems that by this point in time, Campbell had lost interest in the whole issue of a "true space-drive" and he simply said: "O.K. boys, you settle the argument between you."

in the June 1928 issue of Amazing Stories

 

In the Ekcolir Reality.

I suspect that Norman Dean viewed Campbell's interest in promoting "new science" as a way to make money. According to this webpage, Campbell and Dean did such a good job of hyping the "Dean Drive" that Jerry Pournelle went to visit Dean with a check for half a million dollars in his pocket. Pournelle was ready to buy the gravity-defying technology, but sadly (for Dean) he could not get his hands on the money. Pournelle actually wanted proof that Dean's gizmo worked before he would hand over the cash.

It is good advice in general... if someone is selling you the Brooklyn Bridge or a "true space-drive", before you hand over your money make sure that the salesman can deliver the goods as promised. It would be interesting to know if Campbell's promotions of Dianetics, the "Hieronymous Machine" and the "Dean Drive" attracted more readers to his magazines than were driven away.

Related Reading: reactionless drives

Coming Soon: Chapter 12 of Meet the Phari.

Next: Searching for ancient aliens in 1951

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