Conference noted::sf

I've been a Piers Anthony fan ever since Macroscope, and then a superfan
when I discovered his Xanth series.  Not all of his work is attractive
to me (such as Ox/Orn, and the Tarot worlds series), but most of his
books (and there ARE a lot of them) are delightful.
				Steve

Now, I enjoy the Xanth stories, but you have to admit,he can get
carried away with his play on words.  It's hilarious to the point of 
thinking 'Please stop this, I want to think sanely for a while!!!'

	Fantasy can live for ever, in my opinion, GIVE ME MORE.

	I love the Xanth series, a wonderful bit of witty, slightly
	mad bit of escapism......

	Any opinions on Anne McCaffry's dragons -- great, wish I had
	one.  I eagerly wait for more from her pen - not just the
	dragons.

	CJA

    I like authors who 'crossover' the 'line' between the
    two and do it well. I like 'hard sf' ala Niven and
    some fantasy. My personal fave is Poul Anderson for
    those reasons. 

	>Any opinions on Anne McCaffry's dragons -- great, wish I had
	>one.  I eagerly wait for more from her pen - not just the
	>dragons.
    
    I've heard Anne McCaffery speak and she flatly denies that the dragon
    novels are fantasy.  She sets those novels on a distant planet that
    was settled by humans and then forgotten, large due the disruptions
    of the first threadfall that they experienced after landing.  The
    origins of the dragons has much more to do with science than with
    fantasy, but saying more would be a spoiler of sorts.
    
    Wook

    I seem to remember reading some place that McCaffery's reason for
    writing her first dragon story was to see if she could come up with
    a line of "scientific" reasoning behind dragons (that is, explain
    dragons in the manner of science fiction, rather than fantasy).
    
    					Michael

< Note 27.6 by SMAUG::RESNICK "IBM Interconnect Engineering" >

<    a line of "scientific" reasoning behind dragons (that is, explain
<    dragons in the manner of science fiction, rather than fantasy).
    
While re-re-reading "The Hobbit" it occurred to me to ask the following 
questions in this file.  What sort of "explanations" could one come up 
with to explain the ability of dragons to breath fire. In talking it over
with a friend at lunch, it was suggested that the dragon might be constipated
and the backed up flatulence, in trying to escape, had to vent itself via the
path of least resistance. If the dragon happened to grind its teeth, the sparks
thus created might truly ignite the (mostly methane) gas. 

Any more serious suggestions?

Another problem I see with most of the dragons pictured in bestiaries and other
works of art lies in the aerodynamic design of the beasts. Usually, their wings
are positioned FAR too much forward of where their apparent center of gravity 
is.  (Unless, hmmmm.... no that can't be. Methane is not lighter than air.)

Dave  

    Methane is most definately lighter than air.  If memory serves the
    molecular weight of methane is 16 (12 for the carbon and 1 for each
    of the 4 hydrogens) and the molecular weight of "air" is about 29
    (air is about 80% nitrogen, molecular weight 28 and 20% oxygen,
    mollecular weight 32).                         
    
    I have also heard it proposed that dragons manufacture hydrogen
    and use it for both flame and bouyancy.  Since flame color associated
    with dragons is red, I am not sure either methane or hydrogen could
    be the cause.  Look at a gas stove, the flame color is BLUE!  Wood
    burns with a nice red/orange color, as does your stove when the
    water boils over (the water changes the flame chemistry so that
    the color shifts to red/orange.
    
    Tony

Is methane mostly a byproduct of the digestion of vegetable or animal matter?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that it came from vegetable matter.

Dave

    	Although I have not read the series, I believe the DRAGONRIDERS
    series by MacAuffrey gives a "scientific" explanation for flying,
    fire-breathing dragons such as the kind conjured up from the Middle
    Ages.
    
    	Larry
    

    In Dragonriders the dragons chew (appropriately enough) 'firestone'
    which creates the gas.  I disremember where the spark comes from,
    though I vaugely remember it being catalytic.  There are a number
    of chemical reactions that liberate hydrogen when minerals are placed
    in sulfuric acid (stomach acids).
    
    Willie
    

< Note 27.11 by SNDCSL::SMITH "William P.N. (WOOKIE::) Smith" >
<	There are a number of chemical reactions that liberate hydrogen 
<	when minerals are placed in sulfuric acid (stomach acids).
    
I thought that stomach acid was mostly hydrocloric, but then, what do I know 
about dragons.

Dave

    
    Heinlein had that method, though I think the flame was ignited by
    a catalyst.
    
    								/alan

    According to a book I read a few years ago, the flight and fire
    mechanisms are related.  Dragons have spines growing from their
    vertebrae into their stomachs.  There, the calcium carbonate of the
    bones interacts with the hydrochloric acid to generate hydrogen.
    
    The stomach forms a huge bladder of warm hydrogen, giving the dragon
    the bouyancy necessary to fly.  It also explains the somewhat blimp-
    like outline of most depicted dragons.
    
    As a weapon and as a territorial/threat display, the dragon belches the
    hydrogen out while clashing its teeth to produce the spark needed to
    ignite it.  Of course, this means that a lot of flaming grounds the
    dragon.
    
    Dragons, alas, are not herbivorous.  They need to eat high-calorie
    food, i.e. meat, to maintain their active lifestyle and to avoid taking
    on too much weight to fly.  They also need to each the bones to supply
    themselves with the calcium carbonate for their own hydrogen
    production.
    
    Finally, and as an aside, their treasure-hoarding is similar to that of
    jackdaws.  The males collect large quantities of shiny things to
    attract the females.  Unfortunately for both species, so do humans.
    
    I believe source book for all this was entitled "The Flight of
    Dragons," but I do not remember the author.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

< Note 27.14 by RSTS32::WAJENBERG "Celebrated ozone dweller" >
<    The stomach forms a huge bladder of warm hydrogen, giving the dragon
<    the bouyancy necessary to fly.  It also explains the somewhat blimp-
<    like outline of most depicted dragons.
    
This in not how JRRT painted Smaug in "The Hobbit". He (Smaug) was definitly on
the svelte side, perhaps from having lain more or less dormant for so long. 
Considering the "desolation of Smaug", he either had to have lain dormant for a 
long period, or else he had to roam far and wide for his plunder and food. The
men of laketown stated that it had been more than a generation since he had been
a menace to them in anything more than memory.

Another fine point, and one which is just an observation and not one which 
troubles me, is that it would take an enormous volume of gas to buoy a dragon.
Consider the size of hot air balloons or blimps in relation to the actual 
payload they support.

    re: .14
    
    Aren't bones made of calcium phosphate?  Wouldn't calcium carbonate
    and hydrochloric acid produce carbon dioxide?  Any chemist out there
    that can confirm this?
    
    Wook

< Note 27.16 by WOOK::LEE "Wook... Like 'Book' with a 'W'" >
<      -< Are you sure it was calcium carbonate? >-

<    re: .14
<    Aren't bones made of calcium phosphate?  Wouldn't calcium carbonate
<    and hydrochloric acid produce carbon dioxide?  Any chemist out there
<    that can confirm this?
    
Sounds right to me. Perhaps dragons require a daily dose of calcium carbide.
When mixed with water, it produces acetylene gas. What a blast.

Dave

    
    Here's a thought:
    
    If the dragon secretes a lot of HCl in it's stomach, it could use
    ANY metal it ate to generate Hydrogen. Gold wouldn't react 
    to generate Hydrogen, of course, (I refuse to consider an aqua regia
    based dragon!), but the dragon might mistakenly munch down an
    occasional tiara or diadem or two along with the other metal it
    scavenges during it's foraging. 

    The book referenced earlier where this explanation came from is
    by Peter Dickinson.  It is indeed called "The Flight of Dragons".
    It dates from around 1979.  The author is apparently quite ignorant
    of basic chemistry (as well as the problem of getting hydrogen from
    applying acid to bones, there's the fact (already noted, I believe)
    that hydrogen burns with an almost colorless flame, unless contaminated
    with something else).  The calcium carbide route seems more reasonable
    except that acetylene doesn't offer much in the way of lift.  Worse,
    acetylene and chlorine for an explosive mixture that detonates
    spontaneously upon exposure to light.  So a great way to blow up
    a dragon would be to feed it some Chlorox...
    
    len.
    

    A dragon doesn't have to get all its lift from the hydrogen or methane
    it might generate during the digestive process. It does have the
    wings. The combination of light gases and wing action could be
    sufficient.
    
    Another consideration is how fast the wings move. Hummingbirds can
    remain suspended by moving their wings very fast. Also, some years
    ago, the conventional wisdom went that bumblebees were aerodynamically
    unable to fly, but being ignorant of this fact, proceeded to do
    so anyway. Apply enough power, and a rock can fly, and the hell
    with the density, design, and other factors.
    
    - Richard

    As I recall, bumblebees (and dragonflies oddly enough) rely on
    turbulance from the front pair of wings to increase the lift of the
    second pair, so for a dragon to exploit that technique, it would have
    to have two pairs of wings.
    
    Just a thought.
    
    Wook

    I went back and read the section in Dickinson's book on how dragons
    fly (while the book purports to be authoritative, I consider just
    "one man's opinion"); he claims that dragons' stomach acid reacts
    with calcium (not calcium carbonate or calcium phosphate, but rather
    metallic calcium) to generate hydrogen which provides both lift
    and flaming breath.   He leaves unexplained where the calcium comes
    from; the skeletal structure obviously, but how does it get reduced
    to metallic calcium?
    
    Also, it seems to me that the reaction of calcium with the water
    diluting the hydrochloric acid in the digestive fluids would also
    produce calcium hydroxide as well as calcium choride, and that
    some of the calcium hydroxide would react with the HCl to produce
    more calcium chloride and more water.   Where does all the calcium
    chloride go, and given a reasonable concentration of HCl in the
    digestive fluids, how much hydrogen could be expected?
    
    Regarding hummingbird-like wing flapping; the energy expended would
    be enormous (hummingbirds, like most very small animals, have very high
    metabolisms); could a dragon's metabolism support such an expenditure?
    
    len.
    

    Wook- Did you look _under_ the first pair of wings?  :-)
    
    Metallic calcium would be more efficient than calcium combined with
    something else in an acidic reaction, but I'm hard put to think
    of a credible source. But what the heck, if a dragon can come up
    with raw calcium to convert to hydrogen, it ought to be able to
    figure out how to generate enough energy to make like a hummingbird!
    
    - Richard

    Well I think we should stop all this speculation and just go and
    get us a dragon. We could ask him/her for the answers but if they
    were not very cooperative we would just kill them.
    
    ;-)
    Ben

    
    Ok, let's employ a thief to round out our party to 14, and go.
    
    Dwalin

<    Ok, let's employ a thief to round out our party to 14, and go.



			Is that 14 octal or hex?



						Bilbo Busch

    	Back to Piers Anthony...
    
    Xanth was good, but far from his best.  Another two series had me
    running to the bookstore every time I heard a rumor a new volume
    was out:
    		- Bio of a Space Tyrant (5 vol.)
    		- The Apprentice Adept
    
    							-John
    
    Asimov + Anthony = I never get any work done.
    

    speaking of "Tyrant", any rumors of the 6th volume mentioned in the 
    epilogue of #5? That is, the diary of Hope's sister.
    
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

    I finished the latest ADEPT recently and found it to be enjoyable.
     It was a little stale due to the fact that there are only a limited
    number of possibilities in the 'World' he created and Piers has
    about used them up.  It was predictable... but I still enjoyed it.
    
    RE: _Apprentice Adept_ Piers Anthony
    

    re: -.1&-.2
    
    I agree that Anthony tends to beat his story ideas to death.  I
    thought the original Apprentice Adept series was among his best.
    I don't like his new ones so much as they are just re-dressing 
    the same plot with a SLIGHT (and none-too-clever) change.
    
    Andy