Thiotimoline

Infobox short story |
name = The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline
title_orig =
translator =
author = Isaac Asimov
country = United States
language = English
series = Thiotimoline
genre = science fiction short story
published_in = "Astounding Science Fiction"
publisher = Street & Smith
media_type = Magazine
pub_date = March 1948
english_pub_date =
preceded_by =
followed_by = The Micropsychiatric Applications of Thiotimoline Infobox short story |
name = The Micropsychiatric Applications of Thiotimoline
title_orig =
translator =
author = Isaac Asimov
country = flag|USA
language = English
series = Thiotimoline
genre = science fiction short story
published_in = "Astounding Science Fiction"
publisher = Street & Smith
media_type = Magazine
pub_date = December 1953
english_pub_date =
preceded_by = The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline
followed_by = Thiotimoline and the Space Age Infobox short story |
name = Thiotimoline and the Space Age
title_orig =
translator =
author = Isaac Asimov
country = flag|USA
language = English
series = Thiotimoline
genre = science fiction short story
published_in = "Analog Science Fiction and Fact"
publisher = Street & Smith
media_type = Magazine
pub_date = October 1960
english_pub_date =
preceded_by = The Micropsychiatric Applications of Thiotimoline
followed_by = Thiotimoline to the Stars Infobox short story |
name = Thiotimoline to the Stars
title_orig =
translator =
author = Isaac Asimov
country = flag|USA
language = English
series = Thiotimoline
genre = science fiction short story
published_in = "Astounding"
publisher = Random House
media_type = Print (Hardback)
pub_date = 1973
english_pub_date =
preceded_by = Thiotimoline and the Space Age
followed_by = Thiotimoline is a fictitious chemical compound conceived by science fiction author Isaac Asimov and first described in a spoof scientific paper titled "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline" in 1948.

Chemical properties

In Asimov's writing, thiotimoline is notable for the fact that when it is mixed with water, the chemical actually begins to break down "before" it contacts the water. This is explained by the fact that in the thiotimoline molecule, there is at least one carbon atom such that, while two of the carbon's four chemical bonds lie in normal space and time, one of the bonds projects into the future and another into the past. Thiotimoline is derived from the bark of the shrub "Rosacea Karlsbadensis rufo", and the thiotimoline molecule includes at least fourteen hydroxy groups, two amino groups, and one sulfonic acid group, and possibly one nitro compound group as well. The nature of the hydrocarbon nucleus is unknown, although it seems in part to be an aromatic hydrocarbon.

Background

The story of the genesis of this spoof was one of Asimov's favorite personal anecdotes, one he retold a number of times in print. In the spring of 1947, Asimov was engaged in doctoral research in biochemistry and, as part of his experimental procedure, he needed to dissolve catechol in water. As he observed the crystals dissolve as soon as they hit the water's surface, it occurred to him that if catechol were any more soluble, then it would dissolve "before" it encountered the water.

By that time Asimov had been writing professionally for nine years and was shortly to face the challenge of writing up his research as a doctoral dissertation. He feared that the experience of writing readable prose for publication might have impaired his ability to write the prose typical of academic discourse, and decided to practice with a spoof article (including charts, graphs, tables, and citations of fake articles in nonexistent journals) describing experiments on a compound, thiotimoline, that was so soluble that it dissolved in water up to 1.12 seconds before the water was added.

Asimov wrote the article on 8 June 1947, but he was uncertain as to whether the resulting work of fiction was publishable. He finally offered it to John W. Campbell, the editor of "Astounding Science Fiction", his preferred publication outlet. Campbell was delighted with the piece, and accepted it for publication, agreeing to Asimov's request that it appear under a pseudonym in deference to Asimov's concern that he might alienate potential doctoral examiners at Columbia University if he were revealed as the author.

Some months later Asimov was shocked to see the piece appear in the March 1948 issue of "Astounding" under his own name. In later years Campbell insisted that this was an oversight, though Asimov maintained a suspicion that Campbell had acted deliberately out of greater worldliness, for, in Asimov's words, "The Columbia Chemistry Department proved far less stuffy than I had feared" and his examiners effectively delivered their favorable verdict on his dissertation by good-naturedly asking him a final question about thiotimoline. In "Opus 100" (1969) Asimov called the thiotimoline article "an utter success", and noted that the New York Public Library "was pestered for days by eager youngsters trying to find the nonexistent journals so they could read more on the subject".

Micropsychiatric Applications

In 1952, Asimov wrote a second spoof scientific paper on thiotimoline called "The Micropsychiatric Applications of Thiotimoline". Like the first, it included charts, graphs, tables, and citations of fake articles from fake journals (along with one real citation: Asimov's own earlier spoof article from "Astounding", which was listed tongue-in-cheek as the "Journal of Astounding Science Fiction"). This second article described the use of thiotimoline to establish a quantitative classification of "certain mental disorders". It also expounds a putative rationale for thiotimoline's behaviour: namely that the chemical bonds in the compound's structural formula are so starved of space that some are forced into the time dimension. According to the second article, thiotimoline's time of solubility varies depending on the determination of the person adding the water, a phenomenon the article calls "willosity". It also claims that one effect of willosity is that when people with multiple personalities add the water, some parts of the thiotimoline dissolve before others, due to some of the individual's personalities being more determined than others. "The Micropsychiatric Applications of Thiotimoline" appeared in the December 1953 issue of "Astounding".

The first two thiotimoline "articles" appeared together in Asimov's first collection of science essays, "Only a Trillion" (1957), under the joint title "The Marvellous Properties of Thiotimoline". Asimov also included the original article in his 1972 collection "The Early Asimov".

The Space Age

Asimov wrote a third thiotimoline article on 14 November 1959 called "Thiotimoline and the Space Age". Instead of a fake scientific paper, this third article took the form of an address by Asimov to the 12th annual meeting of the American Chronochemical Society, a nonexistent scientific society. In his address, Asimov "describes" his first experiments with thiotimoline in July 1947, and timing the compound's dissolution with the original endochronometer, "the same instrument now at the Smithsonian". Asimov laments the skepticism with which chronochemistry has been greeted in America, noting with sorrow that his address has only attracted fifteen attendees. He then contrasts the thriving state of chronochemistry in the Soviet Union, with the research town of Khrushchevsk, nicknamed "Tiotimolingrad", established in the Urals.

According to Asimov, two Scottish researchers have developed a "telechronic battery", which uses a series of interconnected endochronometers to allow a final sample of thiotimoline to dissolve up to a day before water is added to an initial sample. Asimov says there is "strong, if indirect, evidence that the Soviet Union possesses even more sophisticated devices and is turning them out in commercial quantities". He believes that the Soviets are using telechronic batteries to determine ahead of time whether satellite launches will be successful.

Finally, Asimov describes attempts to create a "Heisenberg failure", to get a sample of thiotimoline to dissolve without later adding water to it. In every case where the thiotimoline dissolved, some accident occurred that caused some water to be added to it at the proper time. Several attempts to create a Heisenberg failure in the mid-1950s coincided with a series of hurricanes striking New England; when the coincidences were noted, the attempts were abandoned.

"Thiotimoline and the Space Age" appeared in the October 1960 issue of "Astounding", which was then in the final stages of changing its name to "Analog". The article was reprinted in full in "Opus 100".

To the Stars

Asimov's final piece on thiotimoline was a short story called "Thiotimoline to the Stars" which he wrote for Harry Harrison's John Campbell memorial anthology, "Astounding" (1973). In it, Admiral Vernon, Commandant of the Astronautic Academy, gives a speech to the graduating "Class of '22". Vernon's speech explains that thiotimoline was first mentioned in 1948 by a semi-mythical scientist named Azimuth or Asymptote, but that serious study of the compound didn't begin until the 21st century scientist Almirante worked out the theory of hypersteric hindrance. Later scientists worked out ways to form endochronic molecules into polymers, allowing large structures such as spaceships to be built out of endochronic materials. One effect of endochronicity is that if one fails to add water to an object that has reacted to water, the object will travel into the future in search of water to interact with.

An individual with sufficient inborn talent, Vernon explains, can perfectly balance a starship's endochronicity with relativistic time dilation, so that a ship traveling at relativistic speeds can age at the same rate as the rest of the universe, allowing it to return to its starting point within months, rather than centuries, of its departure. Vernon emphasizes that starship pilots are expected to match endochronicity with relativity exactly: a sixty-second difference between the two is regarded as barely acceptable, and a 120-second difference is considered grounds for dismissal. Vernon also emphasizes that endochronic molecules are unstable, and must be renewed before each trip, so that an endochronic ship that finds itself lost might not have sufficient endochronicity to return to its proper time. A ship that finds itself in the future might be able to re-endochronize itself if the technology still exists; a ship that finds itself in the past will be marooned there.

Finally, Vernon reveals that the auditorium where he is giving his speech is actually an endochronic starship, and that during his speech, they have all flown to the outskirts of the Solar System. The graduates felt no acceleration because canceling out time dilation also caused the canceling out of inertia. When Vernon concludes his speech, the graduates will be landing in the United Nations Port at Lincoln, Nebraska, where they will be spending the weekend.

After they land, Vernon receives an awful shock and passes out when his pilot informs him that the ship is surrounded by Indians. Of course, what the pilot didn't tell Vernon was that the ship landed on the outskirts of Calcutta.

Asimov included "Thiotimoline to the Stars" in his 1975 collection "Buy Jupiter and Other Stories".

Other references to thiotimoline

In Robert Silverberg's 1989 story "The Asenion Solution", thiotimoline is used to send excess quantities of plutonium-186 to the end of time, where they will fall over the brink into anti-time and lead to the Big Bang. "The Asenion Solution" appeared in the Asimov festschrift "Foundation's Friends".

Topi H. Barr's story "Antitiotimoline" deals with a chemist who accidentally creates a thiotimoline-like compound which extrudes only into the past, enabling the scientist to create images of past events. The narrator complains that thiotimoline is extremely difficult to obtain, and suspects that the CIA or other agencies are controlling the supply for their own reasons. The story appeared in the December 1977 issue of "Analog".

The November/December 2001 and March/April 2002 issues of the IEEE Design & Test of Computers included spoof articles on the use of thiotimoline for debugging computers. [ [http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MDT.2001.10043 The Last Byte ] ] [ [http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MDT.2002.10009 Yet Another Thiotimoline Application ] ]

Spider Robinson's story in the Callahan series called "Mirror mirror, off the wall" published in the late 70s early 80s, republished in "The Callahan Chronicles" in 1996, also references thiotimoline.

References