This page is an experiment in science fiction.
I am Michael Busch, a graduate student in planetary science at Caltech (my webpage). I also read a fair amount of science fiction, and have a weakness for thinking about strange science-fiction-like ideas. So when one of the undergrads in Avery House here asked what would happen if Caltech was transported to another planet, I figured out a way to do it while only bending two postulates of physics. Fortunately, Kip Thorne and Robert Forward have already considered the effects of these particular bendings, so I was able to focus on what it would be like to be on campus during the transportation.
I eventually wrote a story describing the movement of Caltech, which I extended to include MIT, a very powerful but very restrained alliance of alien species, and a rather harrowing qualifying exam. I was preparing for my quals here at the time, which were considerably less severe, and the influence they had is not lost on me. The MIT Science Fiction Society has published this story, Take-Away Exam, in their magazine (Twilight Zine no. 47).
Strange physics and one plot twist aside, all I have done in Take-Away Exam and Qualifying Exam – the extended version posted here – is to set up a variation on an old scenario: we have a group of people with limited resources set on an island so far from help that they have no choice but to help themselves. Defoe did this with Robinson Crusoe, Wyss with the Swiss Family Robinson. There is an entire genre of literature from the 19th century called the ‘robinsonade’, which was summarized by Jules Verne in the preface to Deux ans de vacances (itself a story of a group of New Zealand schoolboys wrecked on an island):
“One can imagine the Robinson of a 12-year-old, the Robinson of the Artic, the Robinson of young women, … an infinite number of books that compose the cycle of Robinsons”.
To be fair, I have mutated the scenario so that I can put the students of Caltech and MIT into it in the 21st century, but the basic idea is the same.
So I posed this thought experiment to the real students of the Institutes: given the scenario I have set up, what would happen? I have written one possible series of events, and it may not be entirely reasonable, but I hope you find it at least amusing.
To read the sections of the story in order, start by clicking the link labeled ‘01 Take-Away’, then move to ‘02′, ‘03′, etc. The non-numbered sections are supplementary information I find useful. For a single file, you can download a PDF: here.
Author’s warning: there are a large number of references in the story that will be understandable only if you are familiar with the culture and slang of Caltech and/or MIT. There are also references that are there simply from my peculiar store of trivial knowledge. If anything isn’t clear, please stick a notice on the ‘Questions & Comments’ page and I’ll try to address it.
