5/26/2023 0 Comments Tau zeroAll of that stuck with me, and I remembering wondering if a parent traveled close enough to the speed of light, might not their children grow older than them while they were away? I remembered a commercial for Omni magazine which described the twins paradox. The notion that time slows down as a person approaches the speed of light fascinated me. I was more effected by The Forever War than by Tau Zero. Haldeman’s novel took the personal approach, looking at the effect of time dilation on a few individuals, over a much small time scale. Anderson’s book examined the extremes, reaching out for the end of time, the end of the universe, the end of all things–all within a single human lifespan. The two novels took different approaches to time dilation: that effect that relatively has on time when one approaches the speed of light. Haldeman’s novel was published a few years later. Anderson’s novel, which was based on his short story “To Outlive Eternity”, was first published in 1970. I next encountered it in Poul Anderson’s Tau Zero, which I read in January 1999. That is when I read Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War. The effects of relativity play a significant role in that novel. If memory serves, I first encountered time dilation in a visceral way in November 1997.
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