F.A.Q.Ask SID |
Some of the most Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) are posted here. Other FAQs will be added as new questions are asked.If you have a question for SID, just click here to send SID a message. Q. Where does the Professor get his money? A. Being a genius has its advantages. As a young man Professor Strang made his fortune in research and inventions and invested it well. Q. Does anyone else know about the Professor's Telescope? A. Not yet! Q. What kind of car does the Professor drive? A. A Saturn, of course! Q. How long did it take Professor Strang to build the Discovery VII? Were there six unsuccessful models before it? A. The Discovery VII, the Chrysalis, and SID were developed over a period of eighteen years. The first six models were not totally unsuccessful, they just needed some fine tuning. Everyone learns from their mistakes! Q. How far into space can the telescope "see"? A. It depends on the brightness of the object at which you are looking. Some near sky objects are dim and difficult to spot, but some very bright stars millions of light years from Earth are visible to the interested star-gazer. Q. If you pointed the telescope to someplace on Earth, could it send Eric and Meredith there? A. No. Tachyons beams create a very powerful energy wave that if focused at our planet would disrupt nearby power sources and communications. In addition, the focal length of such a beam is 100,000 miles, much too long to make any Terran destinations possible! Q. How much bigger is Saturn than Earth? Is Saturn's gravitational pull more than Earth's? Why? A. Saturn is approximately 10 times the size of Earth, not counting its rings, but its gravitational pull is actually slightly less due to its mass and composition. Q. Could Eric have landed the Chrysalis on Saturn? A. No. The Chrysalis was built for interstellar and orbital exploration only and would be unable to handle the extreme pressure of Saturn's atmosphere.  Q. What do you call your vehicle with the graphics on its sides?A. After much discussion (about five minutes) we decided on naming it the, "Cosmic Cruiser". Q. How did the Professor make the pictures spin in the science room? A. SID was actually the one who performed that trick, from his perch in the Professor's pocket. He used the same technique of altering brain waves that makes thought transference possible. The pictures didn't really move at all, but SID made it seem that they did. Q. Do Meredith and Eric have other interests like music or sports? A. Meredith is fascinated by the similarities between math and music. She has a better than average voice and sings in the school choir. Eric is a rabid baseball fan and follows the careers of his favorite team members closely. He enjoys boring Meredith with baseball facts, a set of statistics which she finds totally incomprehensible. They both occasionally attend activities such as movies and camping trips held by the youth group at a local church. Q. Can SID really read minds? A. As amazing as SID is, he is not a mind reader. He is able to sense the activity of brain waves and interpret certain patterns that they follow, especially in connection with the operation of the Discovery VII Telescope. His ability in some instances comes surprisingly close to human intuition! Q. What happened to the Professor's wife? A. Professor Strang's wife Julia was killed while on an archeology expedition when David was five years old. Q. Why does the story take place in Durango, Colorado? A. The home in which the Professor lives was left to him by his parents. After he retired from teaching, he and David moved there and built the observatory. The homes' southern location on the outskirts of town, and its position high on the bluff overlooking a large forested area, makes it an ideal spot for night sky viewing. Its secluded location also keeps the Professor's telescope away from prying eyes! Q. How does the telescope work? How does it send the Chrysalis and its user into space? A. Thought transference is a complicated process that involves the traveler's brain, the Discovery VII telescope, the Chrysalis, and SID. Basically it works like this: The user sights his destination through the telescope and engages the clock drive in order to keep the scope locked on during transference. This sends a signal to SID, who intercepts the travelers' brain wave energy and converts it to digital information. At the same time, he engages a matter-to-energy transformer which converts both the physical body of the user and the Chrysalis which is waiting nearby in the Professor's laboratory into microscopic atomic particles. Then digital information and atomic particles alike are attached to a tachyon beam which is created at the base of the telescope and sent to the chosen destination where, if all goes well they are reformed into a cosmosphere and an explorer with a headache! Q. Why can only kids make the telescope work? A. Children have minds that are fairly uncomplicated. They are trusting souls who are open to the possibilities of space travel. With very few exceptions, the mind of an adult is like a maze of intersecting passageways, with many twists and turns. The older and less vulnerable a person is, the harder it is for SID to intercept and convert their brain waves. Remember, thought transference depends on complete trust in the Discovery VII and its systems! Q. Will Eric and Meredith go on more adventures through the Professor's Telescope? A. Many more adventures are in store for our two heroes. Will you be going along with them? |
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