Challenge 731
t = (2d/g)½
Title explanation here.
In Channie Greenberg’s “Fame and Fortune”:
- “POD” is an acronym common in digital publishing. What does it represent?
- In view of POD and Owmapow’s previous publishing experience, he doesn’t need hardcopy. What can Zilpa and her organization best offer him?
- What does the story imply about the future of peer review and the prevention of fraud in scientific publication?
In Oonah V. Joslin’“s Exploring Hemispheres,” the sentence “Diver [...] fathoms fathoms of mentality” uses the same word as a verb and the verb’s direct object, and the word does not mean the same thing in each case. Can other languages do that? If so, which, and how?
In Mike Soldat’s “Choosing a Life,” the Council of Mages frowns mortally upon taking human life. How might Sur’in corrupt the Council and make it relax its rule?
In Morris J. Marshall’s “An Unexpected Delay,” some characters seem to know or say more or less than they should:
- How could “Cat Lover” estimate so precisely the age of the “jumper”?
- Is “Stella” wise to name her boyfriend as a witness?
- Gavin McLeod’s identity soon becomes practically a matter of public record. Why might Steve Menter want to make a secret of the way in which he learned of it?
- Menter, a physics professor, implies that McLeod fell to the ground from the top floor of a 30-story building in two seconds. He’s lying. Discounting wind resistance, how long would such a fall really take? From what height would a fall last only two seconds? Hint: d=½gt2.
What is a Bewildering Stories Challenge?
