An interesting comparison of the two books, Poppy.Poppy wrote:I very much enjoyed reading about the scientific entrance to the mountain in The Mountain of Adventure; I wonder if Enid had a scientist as a friend or relative who worked these things out for her, or perhaps he shone in subjects such as Science, too.
But I wouldn't see any reason to postulate real scientific input into this book, and would see reason to postulate that there was none, or not enough - because the unfortunate truth is that there would seem to be no scientific basis whatever to the whole idea of an anti-gravity substance in the wings which could levitate against gravity without the continuous input of energy. I forget the details, but I once read a proof, explained in layman's terms that I could at least roughly understand, that if such a substance existed, it would violate the Law of Conservation of Energy, which is probably *the* most sacrosanct law of physics known so far. Somehow, this would make it possible to devise a "perpetual motion" machine (which only cranks and charlatans ever claim to have invented), and from that you could derive a theoretically infinite amount of free energy where there is no energy input, which effectively comes into existence from nowhere. This is as impossible as anything in this universe is, and it's a completely absolute principle that brooks no disagreement or negotiation: there are no known loopholes whatsoever in it.
If ever even the tiniest violation of this law were discovered, and verified, it would be totally disruptive to hundreds of years of science, since all other scientific theories that depend on this law (probably the majority of them, directly or indirectly) would have to be reworked and recalculated again from the ground up, and it would set science back extremely seriously. Maybe not for hundreds of years, because the reworking and reformulation of a new understanding would probably be accomplished far more quickly than the original one was - but it would still be impossible to overstate the seriousness of the disruption - most scientific knowledge would be completely wiped out, rendered invalid or incorrect, overnight. Scientists would in fact consider it extremely unlikely that this law will ever be found invalid, and it would require extraordinary evidence. (There is an informal principle of reasoning: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".)
So the anti-gravity wings, which appear to work just by the presence of a substance that repels gravity, seem to be inherently impossible in terms of the laws of physics.
Maybe we can assume that the wings don't work in the story, and it was just the "King's" mad delusion; but, if I recall correctly, when Philip wears the wings, he does feel lighter, sort of lifted up. That tends to suggest that, in the book, the wings really do work; it's just that there is severe doubt as to whether they will be strong enough to support the weight of a human. So there is a problem here, from a scientific viewpoint. (To be sure, a story like this doesn't need deep science; but if it is to sound quasi-realistic, it must not violate reality in a blatant or obvious way.)
If Enid Blyton had worked things differently, there might have been a way around it, although I don't know enough about this to be sure of this. But I just recently heard the term "diamagnetic", and heard that some substances, such as the heavy metallic element bismuth, are strongly diamagnetic, and can repel, or be repelled by, a magnet, instead of attracted to it. (Interested people may care to look up "Bismuth" and "Diamagnetism" in Wikipedia.) Apparently this can suspend an object made of the right substances in mid-air indefinitely with no input of energy (there is a picture of it on the Wikipedia page for Diamagnetism). I don't understand how this works, but I would have total confidence that it in no way violates the Law of Conservation of Energy, and that scientists would be able to account for it - even if I wouldn't be capable of understanding the explanation. I'm so confident of this that I would gamble my very life on this with very little hesitation.
I can't say whether this could be made to operate anti-gravity wings, though: I don't know if the earth's magnetic field would be even nearly strong enough to levitate wings (and body weight supported by them) in mid-air, to permit flying - I somehow doubt it, actually. But if I desperately wanted to write a convincing story about anti-gravity, I would be looking further into this, to see if it could be rejigged to support the idea, but with only a small degree of optimism. However, Enid Blyton's story shows no sign of magnetism being involved, and it seems to be nothing more than an almost magic metal or powder or something that just automatically rises up, away from gravity.
So I would seriously doubt that Enid Blyton had much scientific advice in this story. It's a pity, in a way. This is a book I like a lot; but this anomaly does weaken it slightly for me.
Regards, Michael.
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