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LUCIFERS_HAM

                                                   March     6, 2004
                                          Revised: November 17, 2004

A scene from the Niven/Pournelle
novel "Lucifer's Hammer:

Hamner driving cross-country in some sort
of early SUV, a woman crashed out asleep 
on the seat next to him. He comes to a   
huge ground fault, a drop-off of several 
feet.  Is there any way he can drive over
this?                                    
                                         
Throughout this story, despite being                         
the hotshot astronomer who first                                       
observes the comet's approach, his           (I have the weird feeling  
knowledge does him absolutely *no*            that this is some twisted
good.  He's put upon, chased away,            reflection of "Project X"
and gets stuck just running for it,           in _Atlas Shrugged_.)    
just like everyone else.                                                 
                                                                     
When he encounters this problem                                 
with the way blocked, he starts    
doing calculations in his head, 
solving the physics problem...     
                               
The trick is to realize that the front of the
car will drop like a free-falling object, and
the rear of the car is going to need to clear
the edge before the nose hits the ground.
   
Once that's understood, calculating    
the minimum speed needed is pretty    
simple if you're up on freshman          
physics.                           
                                   
He backs up, guns the engine, races              
over the edge, and makes it.  The car            Needless to say, 
bangs down on the ground, on all four            you don't want to 
wheels, and he keeps on driving.                 try this with an 
                                                 actual SUV. 
The woman sleeping next to him is                
so exhausted that she doesn't even
wake up.

   He has no audience.
   No one but him knows.


        He who rules the equations...

          (He who is cold enough?)


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