Science
The science in the "Skylark" series, while not entirely accurate, is believable: Newton's laws are obeyed, planets circle suns; there is description of something like a black hole or neutron star; and matter-energy conversion propels the spacecraft. The observation that a spaceship has covered a distance apparently impossible in the time elapsed is met with the response "Einstein's theory is still a theory. That distance is an observed fact"; such effects as time dilation and mass increase are simply ignored. This claim had more potential validity in the 1920s, when the story was written, than it holds at present; much like now-known-incorrect depictions of Venus or Mars in other classic space opera, it must be allowed as "poetic license".
Read more about this topic: Skylark (series)
Famous quotes containing the word science:
“Already nature is serving all those uses which science slowly derives on a much higher and grander scale to him that will be served by her. When the sunshine falls on the path of the poet, he enjoys all those pure benefits and pleasures which the arts slowly and partially realize from age to age. The winds which fan his cheek waft him the sum of that profit and happiness which their lagging inventions supply.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
““What we know, is a point to what we do not know.” Open any recent journal of science, and weigh the problems suggested concerning Light, Heat, Electricity, Magnetism, Physiology, Geology, and judge whether the interest of natural science is likely to be soon exhausted.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)