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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.books,net.sf-lovers,net.physics
Subject: Re: Re: Procyon's Promise & antimatter black holes
Message-ID: <601@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-Aug-85 12:30:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmintl.601
Posted: Thu Aug 15 12:30:20 1985
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Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
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Summary: Complaints are beside the point


[this is not a spoiler]

I just read _Life_Probe_, the predecesser to _Procyon's_Promise_.
It is quite clear there, when McCollum first introduces the anti-matter
black holes, that he knows there is no difference between matter and
anti-matter black holes by current theory.  He is assuming that that
theory is wrong, and that anti-matter black holes have a longer lifespan.
This is much the same sort of thing every science fiction writer does.

Now, I think he would have been better to have been more vague about
what his I-masses were (or consult a physicist to get a more plausible
explanation).  Firstly, the kind of difference between matter and anti-
matter black holes he proposes is just not very likely.  Second, the
time, shortly after the big bang, when quantum black holes might have
formed is well before the separation of the primal ylem into matter
and anti-matter.

Oh, well, at least he tried.