05 September 2009

Dragon's Egg ~ Life on Neutron Star; Great SF!

Just woke up and re-read Dragon's Egg by Robert Forward about life on a neutron star -- and the Human first contact with the Cheela, the intelligent beings on one such star -- the Egg -- in the constellation Draco! The high gravity, many billion times that on Earth, means that everything is made of tightly-packed nuclear matter. Forward speculates about how the surface of such a star might allow for life in a way analogous to how the surface of Earth has -- only such life would have a clockspeed of a million times our own. Great book, laden with speculative astroxenopology and compelling characters, and, as Forward slyly points out, Dragon's Egg is "a textbook on neutron star physics disguised as a novel." Lovely!

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