Tau Zero

Anderson, Poul. Tau Zero. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970. New York: Berkley, 1976. "A short version of this novel appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction for June and August 1967 under the title 'To Outlive Eternity.'"

Except for the first and last chapters, TZ set upon the Leonora Christine, a very large but not huge exploration/colonizing ship with a Bussard (scoop) star-drive engine. An accident prevents the ship from reaching its destination, and the crew and explorers continue on, gathering speed. Our universe operates under the rule that any initial and subsequent times (τ [Tau]) within a frame of reference is equal to the square root of one's velocity (v) squared divided by the speed of light squared subtracted from 1: τ = √ 1- v2/c2. Given the huge value of the speed of light squared, at ordinary velocities τ is effectively equal to 1 (1- a very small number): and, in the words of a William Gibson characer, "time be time." But as velocity increases to signifcant percentages of the speed of light, time within a frame of reference slows, and at the speed of light, v = c and Tau becomes zero: time would stop. Picking up tremendous speed, with τ approaching zero, the ship and its starting inhabitants outlive our universe. The climactic situation is humans within a mechanized and cybernetic environment, outside the universe, which is collapsing (in the "Big Crunch") into a new "monobloc" (a k a cosmic egg), for the next Big Bang. Cf. and contrast generation starships. (RDE, 23/12/96)