Well, where to begin...

Nathan, I'm guessing you're an undergrad. Where do you get time to write these long posts? I can barely get time to stop by the forums. The only reason I'm here now is because I had a week off for spring break.

Of course, I am grateful for the long and detailed replies. It seems like you've been preparing these replies for quite some time. You are right, however, that your writing style could use some improvement.

Well, it took me at least an hour to read all that, and I'm afraid my reply won't be nearly as long. (Perhaps that isn't such a bad thing as "brevity is the sould of wit" [from Hamlet I believe], good advice Nathan ).

First of all, thanks for the clarifications of the concepts of dark matter, dark energy, and related stuff in cosmology. I must admit, cosmology and particle physics aren't my usual cup of tea (I'm more of a math person), and you have gotten more technical than I expected anyone on the boards to get, so I can't really correct or otherwise confirm what you're saying, but it seems right. Yes, I was thinking of the Schwarzschild radius of a black hole (I personally don't think zero-volume black holes are possible, but that's just my opinion, and I don't know if there is any evidence one way or another for such objects), but you're right, white dwarfs are probably a better example.

As for Callahan's Unfavorable Instigation, it's been awhile since I read the book, and I don't remember enough of the details to be aware of any problems in its physics. When I have more time, perhaps I'll reread it and then post something here.

As for wizards becoming famous scientists on Earth, the issues you and Caitlin brought up are ones that I had not thought of at the time. While it is certainly conceivable that a wizard could use their deeper understanding to become more famous, and get away with it to a certain extent, chances are the ideas aren't going to be original, so it would be somewhat dishonest to do so. (I'm not convinced that unconventional ideas would have trouble getting publish as long as the ideas are well supported.) It does seem likely that working with other wizards would be more fruitful. It is certainly conceivable that the Manual could serve as an outlet for wizards doing research in The Art. For example, as the Plane Gazetteer keeps wizards up to date on the conditions of various planets, it's possible another section of the manual could do the same for the latest research in wizardry. Peer review might possibly be done by some of the Powers themselves in this case. Nevertheless, it seems wizards do use their skill to help clean up the environment, so it's not inconceivable that some wizards who are scientists might try to use their wizardry to help the general people by secretly using it to make tools or come up with inventions. As for non-wizard scientists in a astahfrith society, it does seem likely that they could be at a serious disadvantage, but in those cases, the Speech seems to be accessible to everyone. So, even if a non-wizard scientist cannot use the Speech, since he or she (or it, or they!) can understand it, I'd imagine it would limit the advantages of the wizardly scientist somewhat.

As for the haiku, well, if we do take the word 'world' as having two syllables, then we run into trouble with the last line of the haiku, namely, "A world of struggle", which would then have six syllables. So, looks like you can't have your cake and eat it this time. Personally, I find the use of haikus in English to be a bit off. I mean, a haiku is poetry form developed for the Japanese language (where I believe words are often one syllable, but I'm not too sure [I know this is the case with some Chinese languages such as Mandarin and Fujinese and probably several other languages of eastern China, but even though the Japanese language does borrow some things from the Chinese languages, the two types are very distinct]), so there's bound to be some problems with applying it to English. Nevertheless, I think DD does a very good job with her haikus in general.

Jennifu: You're certainly right that DD could still technically get away with everything given that she did refer to the dark matter that was taking over as a 'perversion' of actual dark matter. Nevertheless, it might be a bit misleading and give the wrong impression of what dark matter really is, and I think there's nothing wrong with a bit of clarification.

Young reader: It's true that very little of this nitpicking has anything to do with consistency in the storyline (which is a good thing), and perhaps we have taken this nitpicking a bit over the top, but I think it's fun. In any case, I'm certainly not discouraging DD from using physics, far from it. In fact, one of the positive aspects of this series is that it does get the reader to think about such things. The fact that we are even having this discussion attests to it, and I hope everyone who has been following it got something out of it. I'm sure I have.

In any case, this post has gone on far longer than I expected (Nathan, look what you did!), so I'll end with a quote, something Fibonacci once wrote at the end of a letter he send to friend: "I would've written a shorter letter if I had more time." *

*Unfortunately I don't have a completely reliable source for this, as it was a story one of my HS teachers told me, but it'll have to do.