"The Tachypomp" is a

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

Edward Page Mitchell Edward Page Mitchell (1852–1927) was an American editorial and short story writer for ''The Sun'', a daily newspaper in New York City. He became that newspaper's editor in 1897, succeeding Charles Anderson Dana. Mitchell was recognized as a m ...

originally published January 1874 anonymously in ''

The Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot Plasma (physics), plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as ...

'', a

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

daily newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

. It was Mitchell's first

science-fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, sp ...

story. Mitchell was known for his editorial work on ''The Sun'', but because his science-fiction stories were published anonymously, his well-regarded work was mostly forgotten until its rediscovery in the early 1970s. "The Tachypomp" is an early use of

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

as the principal premise of a science-fiction story, and it was one of the first to use the word " android", here used to describe a purely mechanical creature.

Publishing information

After the original publication in ''The Sun'', the story was reprinted in

Clifton Fadiman Clifton Paul "Kip" Fadiman (May 15, 1904 – June 20, 1999) was an American intellectual, author, editor, and radio and television personality. He began his work in radio, and switched to television later in his career. Background Born in Brook ...

's '' Fantasia Mathematica'' (1958). In 1973, "The Tachypomp" and other stories were reprinted in ''The Crystal Man: Landmark Science Fiction'', edited by

Sam Moskowitz Sam Moskowitz (June 30, 1920 – April 15, 1997) was an American writer, critic, and historian of science fiction. Biography As a child, Moskowitz greatly enjoyed reading science fiction pulp magazines. As a teenager, he organized a branch of ...

Plot synopsis

The plot revolves around Mr. Furnace’s (the narrator) quest to marry his math professor’s daughter. Unfortunately, the math teacher does not approve of him, as he does not excel in mathematics. The professor sets him a challenge: to discover the principle of infinite

speed In kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a non-negative scalar quantity. Intro ...

. The narrator turns to his tutor, and is able to find the solution in the tachypomp. Eventually the professor agrees to allow Mr. Furnace to marry his daughter. The tutor tells Furnace about several scientific discoveries. These include: * an android capable of computing

vulgar fraction A fraction (from , "broken") represents a part of a whole or, more generally, any number of equal parts. When spoken in everyday English, a fraction describes how many parts of a certain size there are, for example, one-half, eight-fifths, thre ...

s and composing

sonnets A sonnet is a fixed poetic form with a structure traditionally consisting of fourteen lines adhering to a set Rhyme scheme, rhyming scheme. The term derives from the Italian word ''sonetto'' (, from the Latin word ''sonus'', ). Originating in ...

; * a hollow tube leading through the earth to the

Kerguelen Islands The Kerguelen Islands ( or ; in French commonly ' but officially ', ), also known as the Desolation Islands (' in French), are a group of islands in the subantarctic, sub-Antarctic region. They are among the Extremes on Earth#Remoteness, most i ...

(where a Dutch navigator Rhuyghens is said to have found an "abysmal pit"); * a solution to

squaring the circle Squaring the circle is a problem in geometry first proposed in Greek mathematics. It is the challenge of constructing a square (geometry), square with the area of a circle, area of a given circle by using only a finite number of steps with a ...

; * a

perpetual motion Perpetual motion is the motion of bodies that continues forever in an unperturbed system. A perpetual motion machine is a hypothetical machine that can do work indefinitely without an external energy source. This kind of machine is impossible ...

machine; * the tachypomp.

Tachypomp

The term "tachypomp" refers to a fictional device theoretically capable of attaining infinite speed. The machine itself is a series of trains (or any train-like vehicle) each half the length of the preceding, stacked vertically. The trains would thus move in tandem, and their speeds would be added to find the speed of the train on top. For instance, if the bottom train were moving 40 miles per hour and the train above that 40 miles per hour, then the speed of the higher train would be 80 miles per hour. Though an interesting idea in theory, the

special theory of relativity In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory of the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's 1905 paper, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", the theory is presen ...

dictates that the speed of light in vacuum is absolute and represents an ultimate speed limit for the universe (at least

locally In mathematics, a mathematical object is said to satisfy a property locally, if the property is satisfied on some limited, immediate portions of the object (e.g., on some ''sufficiently small'' or ''arbitrarily small'' neighborhoods of points). P ...

). If a Tachypomp were constructed, relativistic principles such as

length contraction Length contraction is the phenomenon that a moving object's length is measured to be shorter than its proper length, which is the length as measured in the object's own rest frame. It is also known as Lorentz contraction or Lorentz–FitzGerald ...

and

time dilation Time dilation is the difference in elapsed time as measured by two clocks, either because of a relative velocity between them (special relativity), or a difference in gravitational potential between their locations (general relativity). When unsp ...

would prevent any component of the system from achieving or exceeding the speed of light. The final line of the story, "Still I can see no reason why the Tachypomp should not have succeeded. Can you?" would be addressed thirty years later, when these relativistic effects were laid out by

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

in 1905.

References

External links

The Tachypomp and other stories by Edward Page Mitchell
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tachypomp, The 1874 short stories American short stories Fictional trains Fiction about faster-than-light travel