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by CRConrad
363 days ago
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A) Did you find anything? I would also have bet Asimov. (The "slightly sexist" point also speaks for that, IMO; I think Clarke was less so.) B) Á propos another comment[1] by you, too old to reply to now[2]: Betcha you meant Gustavsberg, not "Gustavsen". They're Swedish, BTW, not Norwegian. ___ [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44012715 [2]: Yeah, I admit: That's why I came here. But, hey, I found a discussion about two of the Grand Old Three! |
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Here's the ChatGPT question and answer:
Which SF author wrote a story in which communication speed over astronomical distances was made faster by sending messages continually instead of waiting for a reply? In the story it was pointed out that this is how women exchange news on the telephone.
ChatGPT said:
The story you're thinking of is “My Son, the Physicist” by Isaac Asimov (1962). In it, a communications engineer struggles with the long delays of radio messages to Pluto (about 12 hours one way). His mother suggests what women do on the telephone: “Just keep talking”—transmit continuously rather than wait for a reply—effectively creating a live conversation despite the latency en.wikipedia.org+1tvtropes.org+1 .
This clever idea highlights a real aspect of human communication—especially on the phone—where continuous exchange helps bridge delays, and adapts it to an interplanetary scale. So yes, Asimov used that domestic analogy to demonstrate a practical solution to astronomical message delays.