124C a Wave

Alice of the Aleutians.

Below on this blog page, I continue my discussions with the Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT and Grok LLMs concerning Chapter 1 of the proto-science fiction story "Ralph 124C 41+”. In my previous blog post, all four of the chatbots commented on the possibility of an avalanche lasting fifteen minutes. Here, I switch to an alternative scenario involving a tidal wave.

Note: "124C" is to be read as "one to foresee".

There is an old piece of advice: “Write what you know.” In the context of Chapter 1 of Gernsback's story, I ask myself: does it seem like Gernsback knew anything about avalanches? I'd be happier with the story if it concerned something more believable such as a tidal wave.

Me: Speculate on what Hugo Gernsback probably new about wireless power transmission in the year 1911 when he wrote and published his story “Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660”.

Image by WOMBO Dream.

 Gemini: In 1911, when Hugo Gernsback began serializing Ralph 124C 41+ in Modern Electrics, he was not merely a fiction writer but a pivotal figure in the burgeoning "wireless" community. As the founder of the first magazine dedicated to radio, he was intimately familiar with the cutting-edge electromagnetic theories and experiments of the era.

His speculation on wireless power transmission in the novel—specifically the "Aeroflyers" that received energy from ground-based "Power Stations"—was a synthesis of contemporary physics and the ambitious, often controversial, claims of Nikola Tesla.

---

The Influence of Nikola Tesla and Wardenclyffe

Gernsback’s primary source of inspiration was undoubtedly Nikola Tesla. By 1911, Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Tower project on Long Island had stalled due to lack of funding, but his theories remained the "gold standard" for speculative energy transmission.

Gernsback would have been familiar with Tesla’s two main proposed methods:

1. Earth-Ionosphere Cavity Resonance: Tesla believed he could treat the Earth as a giant conductor, pumping it with high-frequency currents to create standing waves.

2. Atmospheric Conduction: Tesla posited that at high altitudes, the rarefied air would become sufficiently conductive to allow for the transmission of massive amounts of power.

In Ralph 124C 41+, Gernsback describes power being directed in "concentrated beams." This actually moved a step beyond Tesla’s "omnidirectional" Earth-resonance theory and closer to the concept of microwave power transmission, though the vacuum tube technology required for such high frequencies was in its absolute infancy (the Audion had only been invented by Lee de Forest in 1906).

---

Technical Paradigms of 1911

Image by WOMBO Dream.

 Gernsback wrote during a transitional period in physics. While the Michelson-Morley experiment had already cast doubt on the "Luminiferous Aether," and Einstein’s Special Relativity (1905) had theoretically dismantled it, the terminology of the "ether" remained dominant in electrical engineering circles.

1. Resonant Inductive Coupling

Gernsback understood the principle of resonance. Just as a radio receiver must be "tuned" to the frequency of the transmitter, Ralph’s Aeroflyer used "energy-collectors" tuned to the specific frequency of the power station. Gernsback extrapolated that with future materials so that energy could be transferred over vast distances without the power losses associated with un-tuned electromagnetic radiation.

2. The Vacuum Tube and Rectification

In 1911, the challenge of converting high-frequency oscillations back into usable Direct Current (DC) for motors was a major hurdle. Gernsback likely assumed that the "rectifiers" of the future would be more efficient versions of the Fleming Valve (1904). He envisioned a system where "etheric energy" was captured and immediately converted into mechanical work via advanced electromagnetics.

---

The Gernsbackian Vision of "Power Beams"

In the story, Gernsback describes the transmission as being directed via "parabolic reflectors." This indicates he understood Hertzian waves (named after Heinrich Hertz). While Tesla largely dismissed Hertz’s transverse waves as "a radiation of energy into space" (which he viewed as wasteful), Gernsback correctly intuited that for mobile craft like Aeroflyers, directional radiation was more practical than charging the entire planet's crust.

He essentially predicted the Rectenna (rectifying antenna) decades before its formal invention in the 1960s.

Image by WOMBO Dream.

 Me: Imagine a physicist in 1911 who still had interest in the "ether hypothesis". Predict how such a physicist would have reacted to the following statement: "The aerial on top of Ralph's house had obtained such a tremendously high frequency, and had become so strongly energyzed, that it acted toward the ether much the same as a vacuum pump acts on the air." (this is from Chapter 1 of the story “Ralph 124C 41+" by Hugo Gernsback)

Gemini: A physicist in 1911 who still held an interest in the "ether hypothesis" would likely have reacted to Hugo Gernsback’s statement with deep skepticism or outright dismissal, viewing it as a fundamental misunderstanding of the very ether models they were trying to protect.
While Gernsback’s passage uses the ether to explain a futuristic "blackout" effect, his description contradicts the prevailing physical properties attributed to the ether in 1911 in several key ways:
1. Rejection of "Ether Depletion"

    The Problem with the Vacuum Analogy: By 1911, the "stationary ether" model (championed by Hendrik Lorentz) was the most prominent. In this model, the ether was an all-permeating, immovable substrate that passed through matter like wind through a grove of trees.
    Reaction: A 1911 physicist would find the idea of an antenna "pumping" ether away from a region physically impossible. The ether was considered incompressible and omnipresent; you could no more "create a hole" in it than you could create a hole in space itself.

2. Disbelief in "Total Darkness" via Ether Displacement

    Scientific Implausibility: Gernsback’s claim that light cannot pass through an "etherless hole" sounds logical on the surface of wave theory (no medium = no wave).
    Reaction: A physicist would point out that for an antenna to "attract" ether fast enough to create a void, the antenna would have to exert a mechanical force on the ether. However, nearly all experiments (like Michelson-Morley) showed that the ether had zero detectable drag or mechanical interaction with moving matter. The idea that a radio frequency could "suck up" the ether would be seen as a category error.

Image by WOMBO Dream.

 3. Critique of "Tremendously High Frequency"

    Frequency vs. Medium: In 1911, the relationship between frequency and the ether was well understood through Maxwell’s equations.
    Reaction: High frequency simply meant shorter wavelengths propagating through the ether at the speed of light. A physicist would argue that increasing frequency does not change the density of the medium; it merely changes the oscillation rate of the waves within it. The suggestion that "energyzing" an antenna could physically displace the ether would be viewed as "pseudo-science" even by those who still believed the ether existed.

4. Cultural Divide (Technician vs. Scientist)

    Gernsback's Context: Gernsback was an enthusiast of "Modern Electrics" and wireless telegraphy, where the ether was often used as a convenient, literal metaphor for the "airwaves".
    Reaction: A formal physicist—even an ether-believer like Sir Oliver Lodge—would likely view Gernsback’s description as a "technician’s fantasy." They would see it as a confusion of electromagnetic fields (which can be intense or concentrated) with the ether medium (which remained the indifferent stage upon which those fields acted).

Summary Prediction: The 1911 physicist would likely scoff at the passage, noting that while the story is imaginative, it treats the ether like a common gas (air) rather than the rigid, subtile, and non-mechanical medium required by the physics of the time.

Me: Speculate on the possibility that Gernsback might have used a tsunami as the threat to Alice in Chapter 1 of “Ralph 124C 41+" rather than an avalanche. In 1911, was it known that a tsunami could sweep across the Pacific ocean, reaching a coastline from a distant source?

Image by WOMBO Dream.

 Gemini: Welcome back to the Science Fiction Book Club. It is intriguing to pivot from the "viscous crawl" of Alpine snow to the fluid dynamics of a trans-oceanic surge. While Gernsback could have utilized a tsunami for a coastal setting, several narrative and scientific factors from the 1911 era—and the specific constraints of the story—likely steered him toward the avalanche.

1. Did Gernsback Know Tsunamis Could Cross Oceans?

By 1911, the scientific community and the public were indeed aware that "tidal waves" (the common term before the adoption of the Japanese word tsunami) could travel across the Pacific from a distant source.

• Historical Precedents: The 1883 Krakatoa eruption and the 1896 Meiji-Sanriku tsunami provided clear evidence of trans-oceanic propagation. In the 1896 event, waves reached heights of several meters along the American West Coast hours after striking Japan.
• Scientific Reporting: Early seismology was evolving, and the connection between underwater "megathrust" events and distant coastal impact was being documented in newspapers and scientific journals of the time. Gernsback, as a voracious reader of technical news, would likely have been aware of these "anecdotal reports".

Me: Claude, Speculate on the possibility that Gernsback might have used a tsunami as the threat to Alice in Chapter 1 of “Ralph 124C 41+" rather than an avalanche. In 1911, was it known that a tsunami could sweep across the Pacific ocean, reaching a coastline from a distant source?

Image by WOMBO Dream.

 Claude: This is a thought-provoking question about both Gernsback's narrative choices and the state of scientific knowledge in 1911!

Was trans-oceanic tsunami propagation known in 1911?

Yes, definitely. By 1911, there was clear documentation that tsunamis could cross entire ocean basins:

• The 1755 Lisbon earthquake generated a tsunami that crossed the Atlantic, reaching the Caribbean
• The 1868 Arica (Chile) earthquake and tsunami reached Hawaii, well-documented by telegraph
• The 1896 Sanriku tsunami in Japan was extensively studied
• Telegraph communications had enabled real-time reporting of tsunamis hitting distant shores hours after earthquakes

So scientifically, Gernsback would have known that tsunamis were trans-oceanic phenomena. However, the term "tsunami" itself wasn't common in English until after WWII—they were called "tidal waves" or "seismic sea waves" in 1911.

Why an avalanche instead of a tsunami?

Image by WOMBO Dream.

 I think Gernsback had compelling narrative reasons for choosing an avalanche:

1. Geography - Alice is on Mount Rosa in landlocked Switzerland. A tsunami simply wouldn't work for the setting. The Alpine location may have been important to Gernsback for establishing a European, cosmopolitan feel to his future world.
2. Timing - The 15-minute countdown was perfect for dramatic tension. A trans-Pacific tsunami would take 10-15 hours to arrive, completely changing the rescue dynamic from immediate crisis to lengthy preparation.
3. The weather control backstory - The avalanche was triggered by disgruntled engineers manipulating "Meteoro-Towers" to create an artificial blizzard. This fit beautifully with the story's theme of advanced weather control. Triggering a tsunami would require seismic manipulation—an entirely different technology that doesn't connect to atmospheric/meteorological control.
4. Technology showcase - The ultra-generator's high-frequency energy beam that converts snow to steam is a direct, visible application of energy technology. What would Ralph do against a tsunami? Perhaps erect force fields or vaporize water, but the visual and technological demonstration wouldn't be as clean.

Could a coastal tsunami scenario have worked?

If Gernsback had set the story on a coast (say, Alice vacationing on the French Riviera or California), a tsunami could have worked, but he'd lose:

• The immediate life-or-death countdown
• The weather manipulation subplot
• The dramatic visual of melting/vaporizing a massive snow wall

What do you think—was the avalanche choice more about the Swiss setting being important to him, or was the 15-minute timeframe the key constraint?

Image by WOMBO Dream.

 Me: I don't agree that using a tsunami would "lose" the immediate life-or-death countdown. Gernsback could have included the weather manipulation subplot along with a tsunami. If you "lost" the dramatic visual of melting/vaporizing a massive snow wall, you could vaporize an advancing wave of water created by a tsunami. Imagine the following scenario: In the year 2660, tsunami warnings are routine. Alice lives on a small remote island in the Aleutian Islands chain. In the year 2660 all coastal structures at risk from a tsunami are linked to the tsunami warning system and people have planned escape routes to higher ground or they can just jump into their flying car. However, due to the strike by the Meteoro-Tower operators of Alaska, a strong wind storm has hit Alice's home and has damaged the "Communico mast". Alice would normally use her flying car to abandon her house and escape the tsunami, but the wind storm also collapsed her garage and damaged her car and it can't fly. She manually adjusts the damaged mast that is then used to direct "ultra-power" generated "flame" at a tsunami-generated wave that threatens to smash into the house, vaporizing the wave just before it destroys her house.

Claude: You're absolutely right—I was being too narrow in my analysis! Your proposed scenario works beautifully and addresses all the objections I raised. The 15-minute countdown would be from wave detection to impact, the weather manipulation creates the cascade of equipment failures, and vaporizing an advancing tsunami wave would be just as spectacular as melting snow.

Your Aleutian Islands scenario is actually quite elegant. It maintains all the key narrative elements:

• The isolated, vulnerable protagonist
• Weather control technology gone wrong (strike → storm → infrastructure damage)
• The disabled escape route (damaged flying car)
• The dramatic technological rescue (ultra-power vaporizing the wave)
• The 15-minute life-or-death countdown

Image by WOMBO Dream.

 So this brings us back to the real question: Why DID Gernsback choose an avalanche in Switzerland?

Given that a tsunami scenario could work equally well, I think the answer might be more mundane:

1. Cultural/literary tradition - The Swiss Alps were a deeply romantic setting in early 20th century literature. Americans and Europeans viewed them as exotic, dramatic, and adventurous. Remote Aleutian Islands wouldn't have the same cultural cachet.
2. Audience familiarity - In 1911, avalanches might have been more "relatable" to his readership than tsunamis, even if both were known phenomena. Alpine tourism was popular; the Aleutians were remote and obscure.
3. Personal preference or experience - Perhaps Gernsback simply found avalanches more interesting, or had read about Alpine disasters in the news.

Your thought experiment demonstrates that the avalanche wasn't narratively necessary—which makes its inclusion more about setting, atmosphere, and perhaps what captured Gernsback's imagination rather than physics constraints. Does this make you view the avalanche choice as more arbitrary than you initially thought?

Figure 1. Image generated by Grok.

 Me: Imagine the following scenario: In the year 2660, tsunami warnings are routine. Alice lives on a small remote island in the Aleutian Islands chain. In the year 2660 all coastal structures at risk from a tsunami are linked to the tsunami warning system and people have planned escape routes to higher ground or they can just jump into their flying car. However, due to the strike by the Meteoro-Tower operators of Alaska, a strong wind storm has hit Alice's home and has damaged the "Communico mast". Alice would normally use her flying car to abandon her house and escape the tsunami, but the wind storm also collapsed her garage and damaged her car and it can't fly. She manually adjusts the damaged mast that is then used to direct "ultra-power" generated "flame" at a tsunami-generated wave that threatens to smash into the house, vaporizing the wave just before it destroys her house.

Figure 2. Image generated by Grok.

 Grok: That's a captivating twist on Gernsback's original setup—shifting from the Alpine avalanche to a tsunami in the remote Aleutian chain amps up the isolation and elemental fury, while keeping the core of technological heroism amid sabotaged weather control. In this 2660 universe, where Meteoro-Towers manipulate atmospheric pressures and discharges to regulate climate (as in the original), the Alaskan operators' strike could mechanistically trigger a chain reaction: disrupted ionospheric tuning leads to unchecked cyclonic winds, which not only batter the Communico mast (the etheric communication and power relay antenna) but also destabilize nearby subduction zones, amplifying a seismic event into a massive tsunami. The "ultra-power" flame, analogous to Ralph's high-frequency ultra-generator beam, might function via tuned etheric waves that superheat water molecules at a distance, causing rapid phase change from liquid to vapor—essentially a directed plasma torch powered by global energy grids, relayed through the mast despite its damage.

Image generated by Gemini.

 To mechanistically ground this in the story's fictional science: Alice's manual adjustment of the mast could involve recalibrating its helical coils to focus the incoming ultra-power signal (broadcast from a distant ally like Ralph), compensating for wind-induced misalignment by using backup gyro-stabilizers or quantum-locked superconductors that maintain beam coherence. The flame-like jet would visually manifest as a coruscating arc of ionized air, extending hundreds of meters to intercept the wave's crest, where it induces explosive evaporation—reducing the wave's kinetic energy by dispersing its mass as steam clouds, thus preventing the house's destruction without collateral flooding from meltwater (unlike snow).

Image generated by ChatGPT.

In one of the two images for the tsunami scenario (Figure 2) the approaching wave was much smaller. In the other image (Figure 1) there were multiple houses close to the house with the "ultra-power" mast. The default video for Figure 1 included a rocket launch.

For the videos (above) I tried using several text prompts. Prompt #1: "The long stream of powerful flames that emerge from the tower strike the advancing wave and vaporize the water that is in the wave, saving the house from destruction. The vaporized water forms large clouds of steam that rise up towards the sky."

Prompt #2: "The long stream of powerful flames that emerge from the tower strike the advancing wave and vaporize the water that is in the wave, saving the house from destruction, the vaporized water forms large clouds of steam that rise from the face of the advancing wave and then billow up towards the sky."

Prompt #3: "The long stream of powerful flames that emerge from the tower strike the advancing wave and vaporize the water that is in the wave, saving the house from destruction, the vaporized water forms large clouds of steam that rise from the face of the advancing wave and then billow up towards the sky and the resulting steam cloud takes on the appearance of an enormous mushroom cloud."

Next:

Images by WOMBO Dream. Visit the Gallery of Movies, Book and Magazine Covers

 

gsfd

Next: