The Tachypomp
The Tachypomp is a short story by the American writer and editor Edward Page Mitchell , first published anonymously in the magazine The Sun in 1874 , in which an invention is described, with which theoretically a movement with unlimited speed should be possible. The story was reprinted several times, for example in Stories by American Authors in 1884 , in the anthology Fantasia Mathematica in the section of imaginary numbers in 1958 , and in The Crystal Men: Stories by Edward Page Mitchell in 1973 .
action
The first-person narrator, Mr. Furnace, the only mathematically unskilled student in the class of an enthusiastic math teacher, has fallen in love with Abscissa (abscissa / right axis), the professor's daughter. He judges his chances to be close to zero, but nevertheless goes to the professor to ask for the hand of his beloved. After a long wait, the professor appears and asks him to prove that movement at infinite speed is possible. With this impossible task he sends Mr. Furnace out the door. Mr. Furnace seeks help from Rivarol, a notorious and ingenious tutor, who tells him several strange discoveries, including an android that solves equations and writes sonnets, a perpetual motion machine , and a tunnel through the center of the earth. To help Furnace, he thinks up the Tachypomp , which consists of a series of trains or train-track systems stacked vertically on top of one another, the speeds of which should add up when traveling at the same time; with a corresponding number of train positions, a movement with faster than light speed should be possible. Happy with the solution, the two want to get down to the practical implementation of the project using the immense wealth of the first-person narrator. In eagerness, Mr. Furnace falls into the tunnel leading through the center of the earth ... Mr. Furnace wakes up in the professor's living room; apparently he fell asleep while waiting. The professor, a friendly man, has nothing against his suggestion to marry his daughter.
theory
The story was written before Einstein's formulation of his special theory of relativity and is basically based on the relativity principle according to Galileo Galilei ; Accordingly, it is possible that the described possibility of moving faster than light was meant seriously (the story ends with the words Still I can see no reason why the Tachypomp should not have succeeded. Can you? ). According to the special theory of relativity, however, this would not be possible due to effects such as compression of space and slowing down of time.