Wed 9 Feb (Science Fiction)

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In "Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov, identify something in the story which is realistic and something which is unrealistic.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2005

Answers

Someting that is very realistic in the story is people's reaction to the unknown. The people are afraid of this unknown called darkness and that act out of this fear. This fear prompts many people to join the cultists and attack the observatory. The also set fire to push back the darkness and end up destroying their civilization. One thing I found unrealistic was that after all of those civilizations that they had not advanced that much. I don't buy that they would regress that much.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2005

I found the fear of the stars both realistic and poetic...I mean, if you only saw the sky on cold fire once every thousand years, you'd either believe in an apocalypse or God or both. I thought it was realistic in terms of human nature.

However, I thought that the fact *everyone* went crazy and all records were lost sort of a stretch. I mean, it's arguable that it wasn't, but maybe *someone* didn't look up or get burned or *something* and must have remembered life as it was before...

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2005


I think for those things on the realistic side, the attitudes of religion versus science was (at least in the extreme cases) fairly well portrayed. Unrealistic? I think the ignorance of the people towards gravitational theory unrealistic. If they had relations with Earth at all, it would stand to reason that they knew about the single sun system.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2005

I've got to disagree with Will's post, in that he finds it unrealistic that the civilization would be advanced in some matters but not in others (like finding gravity). Remember that it took us around 2500 years to work gravity out, and that was only dealing with one sun - they have six to contend with, and their civilization only lasts 2050 years a pop anyway. But Will hasn't taken physics yet, so I'll cut him some slack. I judge it realistic that they would, at that point, simply accept the motion of their planet and not try to explain it.

I didn't find their explanation for the Book of Revelations feasible, however. The scientists blamed it on children and idiots - yet from what the cultist was reading, it was rather sophisticated. It seems more believable that, given the situation, some conniving demagogue would have created the religion.

Good lord, I just realized how long this post was. Sorry. If Mr. Waller is our starship captain, then who is Spock?

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2005


Well what i found unrealistic is people dying from claustrophobia by suffering from for 15 minutes, that they had to start from scratch every 2050 years (somethings would have lived on), and that these people never slepped? they had adam's apples and all that goodness making them incredibley similar to humans, i think they said they were humans, but if they've never experienced night, when/how do they sleep?!

Realistic is the rejection to scientific theory by the people. If we heard that the world is ending and we'd go mad in 2 months, we wouldn't believe it, even with all that evidence. And when it did happen, we'd blame the scientists and go to faith. It's very predictable.

John, you're Mr. Spock

This story ROCKED

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2005



I loved how the humans were unable to grasp the concept of the stars. We're used to them, seeing them almost every night, but I know that I'm still amazed when I look up and think of how many there are, how far away and how massive they are, and how tiny I am compared to them. To people who don't know of them and who've never even seen them, they were too overwhelming to possibly deal with, and thus masses were driven insane. (Kinda different to the Elves' reaction on first seeing them.)

I thought everyone reacting so calmly to the End of the World was kind of pathetic. I don't think, that at the end of the world, these scientists are going to be like, "OMG, we must save the data we accumulate from tonight for future generations, despite the fact that the whole city is going up in flame 'cause we're all gonna be nuts!" I think a more realistic reaction would have been the scientists holed up in tiny rooms under the ground waiting for the end to past and taking pictures from there. Doi

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2005


First of all, I found it unrealistic that the people were even as advanced as they were. I mean come on, 2050 years? If (for example) Mesopotamian civilizations first began around 3500 BC, then it took us over 5000 years to get to the approximate level of civilization and technology as the people depicted in "Nightfall." Besides, with most everyone going insane and cities being burned to the ground, new civilizations do not have much to build on.

What I did find realistic was the Book of Revelations. Though its contents are rather wild, anyone trying to explain a totally inexplicable phenomenon would have to sort of guess at what happened. The few sane people left were surely rather awed and scared out their wits. Besides, they probably needed some sort of simple tale to tell to the babbling masses.

As Rory noted, this story was "off the chain", so to speak.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2005


I found the fact that the people went crazy realistic, if a little extreme. The truth is, for a people who have no memories of darkness and no concept of it, people probably would have a problem dealing with it. Their whole concept of the universe was challenged. I did find it ironic, however, that they suffered from claustrophobia when they were seeing the universe. However, the idea that everyone would go completely crazy and civilization would stop is unrealistic because an eclipse would not be seen across the whole planet. Only some people would see the eclipse and even fewer would get to see the full eclipse blocking Beta. So many people would live and only part of the planet would go crazy and start lighting things on fire.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2005

There are a lot of elements of their theories that apply to Earth as well. Beyond gravitation, it seems to be a common notion that life could not exist as we know it without carbon, just as they believe life could not exist without life. This is a sense is "real." On a more acceptable level of reality, they have the same laws of physics as we do. However, it is unreal that their planet follows a predictable path. I remember learning that, and someone may want to check me on this, a system with three massive moving bodies in it is does not follow predictable set of cyclic motions. Certainly, if they have six suns close enough to the planet that they recieve ample light and heat from them, they should certainly be affected by their gravity. What I'm saying is, their system should not be as predictable as they say. There was a sense of reality behind the way in which they developed mathematical theory and physics. It would take centuries and several stages of development to reach current theories on physics. These people also seemed human, which seemed unlikely.

I think I've rambled too much, so the buck stops here.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2005


I was pretty sure that it said the whole of Kalgash would be covered in darkness, not just half or something.

One thing I thought was realistic in this story was how everyone across the planet reacted economically. Most people publicly dismissed what the scientists were saying, yet still decided to save their money and other stuff. Very human. (Though John being a Vulcan may react differently.) One thing that seemed somewhat strange to me was how it only really was this one observatory that knew about the eclipse which would happen. You would think that they would share their findings with others and that the others would accept the facts. The idea of them being alone was really portrayed, perhaps unrealistically.

On one final and very important note, all of you must go out and read the novel version of Nightfall. Now! Its really good, there are sections called Twilight and Daybreak which come before and after, and the original Nightfall section is just about doubled. It explains more of the archeology stuff especially.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2005



It would seem I am the only person so far who found this story a revolting piece of work, even considering the publication date.

I will only say that I find one of the underlying concepts of the story - darkness, and its psychological effects on the people - unrealistic.

In general, it seems to me that humans (and most other living beings really) are resilient. People have been known to go blind during their lives, lose their hearing, etc. Sensory deprivation can be overcome. I wonder if withdrawal from loss of narcotics ever becomes nearly as serious as the reactions these people exhibit. Also, when I was a kid and afraid of the dark, I felt much more comfortable in the enclosed comfort of my bed than outside at night. I find the idea of claustrophobia being synonomous with the fear of darkness absurd. At one point, Theremon even "closed his eyes against the Darkness." um...

I couldn't even chalk up most of these inconsistencies to the unknown properties of this "other world" since Asimov made so many blatent comparisons to our own, notably with the Book of Revelations, and even mentioning Earth. Freud died two years before this was published, so maybe all his psychology went with him?

The idea of the population at large rejecting a scientific notion for religious or other reasons did seem realistic though. Galileo and global warming come to mind.

Now that I've vented, I suppose I can put back the effigy of Asimov I was about to burn, and wait for another, better story to redeem him.

-- Anonymous, February 09, 2005


I would agree with a lot of people who said that a whole civilization burning itself out of exsistence in a day and a half is unrealistic. I don't think everyone would stay in the burning city and be consumed by the fire, even if they were crazy. And what happens to the people who live in the countryside? I did find the angry mob sent to attack the observatory after the eclipse started realistic. People act very irrational when they are scared. The mob is similar to the riots that have started after big blackouts like that one in NYC.

-- Anonymous, February 09, 2005

The science was unrealistic in this story. I can accept the six suns, but I cannot accept that the entire world was covered in darkness. If the one sun is the only in the sky then the five others should be on the other side of te planet, thus making their civilization not crumble.

I did, however, find the scientists' attitudes realistic. They think that they're prepared. Like humans they think that they're in control. The universe says different.

-- Anonymous, February 09, 2005


I found that one realistic thing in the story was the power of fear. In our own world, entire countries are ruled by fear, but the concept seems to show itself in the people of this world.

An unrealistic thing might be the insanity that the stars bring. I think that it might be disorienting to see little dots of bright light for the first time, but we have all seen the stars as babies for the first time. We're not all bad. Only 1 in 10 people are...

-- Anonymous, February 09, 2005


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