Talk:The Cold Equations

Early science fiction did... what?

Either I'm missing something in reading the sentence, or this is a very slanted point of view: "...the power of entertaining people other than shallow pseudo-intellectuals and frustrated academics." That's neither nice nor accurate about early full-fledged science fiction. Arthur C. Clarke and those guys were selling like hot cakes! Am I reading this wrong?—The Realms of Gold (talk) 07:59, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Similar stories

I separated stories that are similar from stories where a specific allegation of borrowing has been made. Useful to have all of the data. --GwydionM (talk) 11:45, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

This is not about interpretation. It states that they are similar. No link is claimed. --GwydionM (talk) 10:56, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

GwydionM, the suggestion that they are similar enough to warrant mention here is in itself a claim that requires a source. This is a Wikipedia article, not a forum; this is not the place for us to opine at length about other stories that this one reminds us of, unless a reliable source explicitly makes that link. There are hundreds of sci-fi stories about the crews of spacecraft facing moral dilemmas over limited or dwindling resources of one sort or another, but it's just not appropriate to list them at length here. Unless we have a source expounding upon thematic links between these stories, they just aren't encyclopedically relevant to the understanding of this topic and it is pure WP:Original research to decide they are so similar that they must be mentioned here. If you can provide a source on this topic, that would, of course, be another matter altogether, but I see none supporting the mention of these stories, making their presence here a completely arbitrary cross-categorization, which policy explicitly directs us to avoid. Snow ^{let's rap} 17:36, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

You seem intent on upholding two decidedly silly principles:

a) Throw away as much data as possible, rather than making readers aware of connections.

b) Nothing may be mentioned without a written source, even it is banally obvious.

Unfortunately the regulators might agree with you and have done so elsewhere. So I'll not bother further. You waste your own time, you will waste no more of mine. --GwydionM (talk) 09:20, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Is that the case for those who state Robert Cromie's "A Plunge into Space" from 1890 has effectively the same story?--2606:A000:131D:4413:80FB:1EDC:9FA3:2AFF (talk) 14:23, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Please identify "those who state" this? DS (talk) 19:06, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

I'll do better then that. I'll quote a reference: "The protagonists of A Plunge into Space (1890) comprising a Vernian assortments of types – travel in a spherical Spaceship powered by Antigravity to Mars, where they discover humans living under Utopian conditions, and a romance ensues between a human and the Martian known as Mignonette. The cast re-embarks for earth only to find that Mignonette has stowed away, and that there is not enough air to support them all; rather closely presaging the outcome of Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations" (August 1954 Astounding), the girl then semi-voluntarily plunges into space." - the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. How about actually addressing the question rather then side stepping it?--2606:A000:131D:4413:6D28:46EE:673B:3126 (talk) 16:49, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Quoting a reference is exactly what we need, thanks! DS (talk) 14:12, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

For those reading this article now who don't understand what the above was about, there was a section called "Allegations of borrowing" at the time it was written which read as follows:

Kurt Busiek and others have alleged that Godwin essentially took the concept from a story published in EC Comics' Weird Science #13, May–June 1952, called "A Weighty Decision", by Al Feldstein. In that story there are three astronauts who are intended to be on the flight, not one, and the additional passenger, a girl that one of the astronauts has fallen in love with, is trapped aboard by a mistake rather than stowing away. As in "the Cold Equations", various measures are proposed but the only one which will not lead to worse disaster is for the unwitting passenger to be jettisoned. Algis Budrys said that "the Cold Equations was the best short story that Godwin ever wrote and he didn't write it".

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction points to Robert Cromie's "A Plunge into Space" from 1890 as having a plot very similar to "The Cold Equations", and the theme of Feldstein's story is itself similar to the story "Precedent", published by E. C. Tubb in 1949. As in "A Weighty Decision" and "The Cold Equations", a stowaway must be ejected from a spaceship because the fuel aboard is only enough for the planned passengers. It is possible that neither Feldstein nor Godwin intentionally plagiarized from the stories that came before, but merely produced similar variations on the classic theme of an individual being sacrificed so that the rest may survive, which has graduated from a "rowboat" to a spacecraft.

--

It was removed shortly after "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction" part was added as the first part didn't have a source. I'm not sure if it qualifies as reliable but in The Cold Equations & Other Stories there is "Afterword: Sometime It All Works" by David Drake which addresses the first paragraph. Drake states "The plot is lifted directly from "A Weighty Decision," a story in the May-June, 1952, issue of the EC comic Weird Science. I don't believe that coincidence could have created plots so similar in detail" and goes into the story that Campbell had Godwin change the original happy ending and theorizes "Finally, the plot is such an obvious steal from the comic that I think Godwin would have concealed it better if he hadn't intended to use a completely different ending.". In the Preface of the whole book (by Barry N. Malzberg) the quote by Algis Budrys appears but it in regards to the debate of the intentions behind the story not in regards to any claims of copying.

Even if the statement by David Drake is deemed verifiable by wikipedia standards the "Allegations of borrowing" section would need a serious rewrite to be useable per NOR guidelines and I have no idea on how to do it. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction indicates that David Drake is wrong as it is doubtful either of the other writers even knew of Robert Cromie's "A Plunge into Space" but to state so would be OR so I'm not sure what can be done with the section but it sure can't go back in as it stands. This is put here so others wiser then me can figure out what to do with it as I believe it belongs in the article.--174.99.238.22 (talk) 20:27, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I think I have come up with a way of restoring this and have heavily reworked it as "Similar earlier stories" referencing "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction" and David Drake in a way that the reader is allowed to come to their own conclusions.--174.99.238.22 (talk) 06:35, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

On a side note I learned about The Coldest Equation arc of the Quentyn Quinn, Space Ranger webcomic which not only collects many of the arguments against the story as presented and gives two another reasons for such a situation happening — governmental bureaucracy run amok and the claims about piracy were a fake — an excuse to explain high shuttle losses. More over they used used honey pot tactics to encourage stowaways which would justify their claims of 'piracy'.--174.99.238.22 (talk) 21:58, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

The Coldest Equation arc also has a character point out that the "First rule of engineering is 'a pair and a spare'. You put in redundant systems wherever you can and you have at least a ten percent margin of error." followed up with the comments on the lack of any backups in terms of power, fuel, or life support and that the margins were so thin as to be "suicidally insane". Another character asks the pilot "how much does the pilot's chair weigh?" followed by all the other things the pilot could have thrown out the airlock. The character also point out the other issues such as not having a simple lock to prevent unauthorized entry or the lack of a standard pre flight check of craft and cargo. It brings up one thing often ignored in most criticisms of the story - not using the provided blaster to shoot the girl so she didn't suffer.--174.99.238.22 (talk) 07:08, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Copied from Lightspeed Magazine?

From "Allegations of borrowing" on, this article seems to be a nearly word-for-word paraphrase of http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/the-cold-legacies . JadeNB (talk) 00:40, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

If you check the article history, and the publication date at Lightspeed, you'll see that this is because Mike Brotherton did a "nearly word-for-word paraphrase" of the "Allegations of borrowing" secction. DS (talk) 12:00, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Bad Math?

The Real Problem with “The Cold Equations” goes into another problem with the story - the math premise is wrong.--174.99.238.22 (talk) 08:19, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

The Cold Equations - A critical study (1977) by Richard Harter was reprinted by the author in 1997 one both usenet and a web page and points out a key factor: "The story explicitly specifies .1g deceleration (p71) for 80 minutes (17:50-19:10,p72), that she is discovered one hour after launch (p63), and that the final deceleration will be at 5g (p73)" ie by the time the girl was discovered the mission was in all odds already doomed because "Reducing the deceleration to .1g for 80 minutes uses up some of the safety margin".--174.99.238.22 (talk) 07:28, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Alex R. Howe's 'The Real Problem with “The Cold Equations”' explains that "in the rocket equation, fuel requirements increase exponentially with speed, but only linearly with weight." (sic) "The ship is going to run out of fuel and won’t be able to land? Maybe just turn the engines off, and save some fuel for the landing. The ship will hit the atmosphere going 100 miles per hour too fast, but that’s not a problem because there’s one part of the ship that absolutely must have more than a one percent safety margin: the heat shield!" Howe recommends Gateway by Frederick Pohl which "actually delves deeper into the consequences of those themes while being far less contrived than Godwin’s story."--174.99.238.22 (talk) 07:58, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Alex R. Howe is a full-time astrophysicist (Research Fellow, University of Michigan) and part-time science fiction writer which makes him a reliable source by wikipedia standards. More over Wikipedia:Notability is about if given topic warrants its own article not content within an already established article. Finally, Wikipedia:No original research involves facts, allegations, and ideas for which no reliable, published sources exist. If the information has a reliable published source it cannot be original research by definition.--174.99.238.22 (talk) 02:33, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

First of all, being a full-time astrophysicist doesn't really mean much. You need to show that he has a reputation worth noting, then maybe we can include his blog musings. There isn't much to go on on his personal blog nor his professional bio, so it took me some time to find his publication history, but per WP:USINGSPS: Take care when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else will probably have done so. Also, it would help to see how many times these articles were cited by others (not very likely for the most recent articles).

Secondly, you haven't shown Quentyn Quinn, Space Ranger nor its analysis to be notable. That's original research on your part. DonQuixote (talk) 04:28, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Reception

I entirely understand the modern criticism of this story, but is it not a little strange that the Reception section for a story published in 1954 consists entirely of criticism from the 90s onwards? This seems particularly striking when, as the lede says 'In 1970, the Science Fiction Writers of America selected it as one of the best science-fiction short stories published before 1965'.

Based on what people have on their shelves or from the Internet.

Someone might get hold of old fanzines etc. and find what was said at the time. Not just for here. It could be someone's PhD or a useful book.

And it's not the only one. Extermination was commonly acceptable, for instance E E Doc Smith, especially the later Skylark novels.

I've done a study based just on works still read, and in the wider culture. 'Vrilism and Fantasy-Genocide' --GwydionM (talk) 08:28, 28 April 2021 (UTC)