I can say I owe a debt in this story to Arthur C. Clarke's Nine Billion Names of God. But in the history of science fiction there's no shortage of stories on the theme. So call this a new spin on an old classic.
To my knowledge, recasting our inflationary universe as some kind of geometric problem is original: given the vast amount of science fiction I'm ignorant of, I could be wrong. But to that degree, "The Royal Road" is an original idea to me, and I'll stick widdit.
My only footnotes are that (1) I could have been more specific in mentioning it was Ptolemy I Soter who studied with Euclid. He wasn't any-ol' late Ptolemaic king, but rather the first Ptolemy to rule Egypt - just installed by Alexander the Great. The royal road Euclid had in mind would have been the one built by Darius the Great, connecting Persia with Asia Minor....
(2) I placed this story at Stanford, and went out of my way to mention its situatedness by California's first highway, El Camino Real, because that name means, in Spanish... oh, you know. ECR connected the original Spanish Missions in California, and has roots going all the way back to the late 1600s.
(3) In the story I refer in passing to a family of superlogical abstract maths, with the power to reconcile seemingly conflicting concepts, called Balalgebras. That's utterly made up. (This idea comes from a long-ago and somewhat longer version I had written of this story.)
(4) James Franco and Morgan Freeman are real actors, used fictionally. They were not harmed in the making of this story.
My only footnotes are that (1) I could have been more specific in mentioning it was Ptolemy I Soter who studied with Euclid. He wasn't any-ol' late Ptolemaic king, but rather the first Ptolemy to rule Egypt - just installed by Alexander the Great. The royal road Euclid had in mind would have been the one built by Darius the Great, connecting Persia with Asia Minor....
(2) I placed this story at Stanford, and went out of my way to mention its situatedness by California's first highway, El Camino Real, because that name means, in Spanish... oh, you know. ECR connected the original Spanish Missions in California, and has roots going all the way back to the late 1600s.
(3) In the story I refer in passing to a family of superlogical abstract maths, with the power to reconcile seemingly conflicting concepts, called Balalgebras. That's utterly made up. (This idea comes from a long-ago and somewhat longer version I had written of this story.)
(4) James Franco and Morgan Freeman are real actors, used fictionally. They were not harmed in the making of this story.
(5) (Note from 5 years later, 3/2021) In preparing a new thumbnail drawing, I relocated from Stanford a little north up the peninsula to the NASA Ames center; and I swapped in ~1980 Scott Baio in place of James Franco. Why? Because I was moving real fast with these drawings and did not bother listening to my old story for specifics. Also, I did not care. But in reading these notes now, I can see how confusing my choice of new illustration might be. Well, whatever. Baio seems funny to see in the sky, and I am keeping him there.
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