Education, Translation and Global Market Pressures Wan Hu all chapter instant download
Education, Translation and Global Market Pressures Wan Hu all chapter instant download
Education, Translation and Global Market Pressures Wan Hu all chapter instant download
com
https://textbookfull.com/product/education-translation-and-
global-market-pressures-wan-hu/
OR CLICK BUTTON
DOWNLOAD NOW
https://textbookfull.com/product/biota-grow-2c-gather-2c-cook-loucas/
textboxfull.com
https://textbookfull.com/product/corpus-based-translation-and-
interpreting-studies-in-chinese-contexts-present-and-future-kaibao-hu/
textboxfull.com
https://textbookfull.com/product/advances-in-artificial-systems-for-
medicine-and-education-ii-zhengbing-hu/
textboxfull.com
Advances in Computer Science for Engineering and Education
II Zhengbing Hu
https://textbookfull.com/product/advances-in-computer-science-for-
engineering-and-education-ii-zhengbing-hu/
textboxfull.com
https://textbookfull.com/product/advances-in-computer-science-for-
engineering-and-education-iii-zhengbing-hu/
textboxfull.com
https://textbookfull.com/product/climate-change-and-global-
development-market-global-players-and-empirical-evidence-tiago-
sequeira/
textboxfull.com
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-global-market-for-investor-
citizenship-jelena-dzankic/
textboxfull.com
https://textbookfull.com/product/omics-applications-for-systems-
biology-wan-mohd-aizat/
textboxfull.com
WAN HU
EDUCATION,
TRANSL ATION AND
GLOBAL MARKET
PRESSURES
CU
RR
IC
UL
UM
DE
SI
GN
IN
CH
IN
A
AN
D
TH
E
UK
Education, Translation
and Global Market Pressures
Wan Hu
Education, Translation
and Global Market
Pressures
Curriculum Design in China and the UK
Wan Hu
School of Foreign Studies
CUFE
Beijing, China
vii
viii Preface
Bibliography
Schäffner, C. (2012). Standardisation and benchmarking for improving translator
training. Chinese Translators Journal, 33(6), 37–45.
Tang, J., & Gentzler, E. (2008). Globalisation, networks and translation: A
Chinese perspective. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology, 16(3/4), 169–182.
The European Master’s in Translation. (2010). The European Master’s in
Translation (EMT) Strategy. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/info/depart-
ments/translation_en (Accessed: 31 July 2015).
Acknowledgements
Undertaking the research for this book was a long, challenging but
rewarding journey. I was very lucky to have many people help me to fin-
ish this book, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all
here.
First and foremost, great thanks go to Dr. Maike Oergel, who has
spent numerous hours reading, reviewing and making suggestions for
the improvement of the book. I am deeply grateful to her for sensitivity
and intelligence, and above all for genuinely guiding me to become an
academic. She has been a great supervisor in the academic world and a
role model in life.
I am deeply indebted to my six anonymous interviewees who pro-
vided me with invaluable details for the analysis of the case studies in this
book. I thank Prof. Defeng Li and Dr. Kathryn Batchelor, whose insight-
ful comments helped me refine this book.
My sincere thanks also go to Dr. Yannan Guo, Dr. Xiaohui Yuan,
Dr. Julie King and Dr. Yvonne Lee for their teaching in the early years
of my studies in the UK. I am also deeply grateful to Mr. David Bowen,
Mr. Klaus Mundt, Mr. Gareth Shaw and Ms. Ya-chun Liu. Many thanks
for their constructive discussions about the book, and for their guidance
on language and formatting issues.
It would be remiss of me if I didn’t thank the anonymous reviewer
and the excellent editorial team of Palgrave Macmillan. The reviewer’s
encouraging and insightful comments helped me regain confidence when
xiii
xiv Acknowledgements
xv
xvi Contents
Conclusion 235
Appendices 239
Abbreviations
xix
xx Abbreviations
HE Higher Education
HEIs Higher Education Institutions
IO International Organisations
IP Intellectual Property
KTPs Knowledge Transfer Partnerships
LSP Language Service Providers
MATI MA in Translation and Interpreting
MATIS MA in Translation and Interpreting Studies
MATS MA in Translation Studies
MBA Master of Business Administration
MLA Master of Language Administration
MoE Ministry of Education
MPA Master of Public Administration
MTI Master of Translation and Interpreting
PACTE Process of Acquisition of Translation Competence and
Evaluation
PBL Project-based learning
RAE Research Assessment Exercise
REF Research Excellence Framework
T&I Translation and Interpreting
TAC Translators Association of China
TOT Training of Trainers
TS Translation Studies
UCL University College London
UN The United Nations
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization
WEG Wanli Education Group
WTO World Trade Organisation
List of Figures
xxi
List of Tables
xxiii
xxiv List of Tables
1.1 Introduction
Universities have never before (in human history) been so significant
(Collini 2012). The role of universities has also been a perennial ques-
tion in the field of higher education. In defining and encapsulating the
idea of the university, Wilhelm von Humboldt at the turn of the eight-
eenth and nineteenth centuries and John Henry Newman in the mid-
nineteenth century made invaluable contributions. Humboldt’s idea of
the university, as Holford puts it, ‘is freedom of scientific research and
autonomy in teaching: for Newman, students, and their liberal educa-
tion and character information, are at the heart of the idea of the univer-
sity’ (2014, p. 13). An assumption they both shared is that the purpose
of universities should be the pursuit of knowledge for individuals. The
social role of universities was given attention, but with a greater focus on
the individual contribution to society.
In today’s world, however, ‘modern information technology is spread-
ing information more widely than ever before in history’ (Nye 2004,
p. 1). The connections among both nations and industries have been
largely increased. The commercialisation of higher education is being
pushed ahead by governments worldwide (Bok 2004). As a result, the
purpose of universities has changed in accordance with increasingly
knowledge-driven economies, indicating that knowledge is required in
order to make their contribution to society. This demands that degree
courses need to be developed with the market’s needs in mind to
This specifies that the key principles of neoliberalism are ‘market dereg-
ulation, state decentralisation, and reduced state intervention into eco-
nomic affairs in general’ (Campbell and Pederson 2001, p. 1). Despite
criticism, it is acknowledged that neoliberalism has been regarded as the
reigning policy framework in contemporary globalisation (Scholte 2000,
p. 35) and still influences today’s political, economic and cultural systems.
and culture. In terms of teaching and learning, despite debate, the idea
of embedding employability into the curriculum has been recognised in
most universities. With market and global forces, the HE sector is now
required to supply suitably skilled graduates to the workplace. Therefore,
the strategy of enhancing the skills of students in order to meet employ-
ers’ recruitment requirements has now been put on the agenda (Hills
et al. 2003, p. 211; Rodríguez de Céspedes 2017).
According to Lambert et al. (2007, p. 526), the commercialisation
and marketisation of education is a ‘global’ phenomenon, albeit the
effects may be displayed in different ways due to different national edu-
cational systems. The HE sectors in both the UK and China,2 the two
subjects of this study, have also been affected by this global economic
development in recent years.
The period since the introduction of neo-liberal values has witnessed
numerous changes to UK universities, including the expansion of higher
education as well as the strengthening of the higher education market
in a global context (Krause 2009). These changes come from many
directions. Firstly, ‘an opening up of the student recruitment market
is spiced by a sense of consumerism among those who will pay higher
fees (or strictly, higher graduate contributions)’ (Greenaway and Rudd
2014, p. 1). Secondly, students request that greater employability skills
be taught in academic classroom hours (Atkins 1999; Boden and Nedeva
2010; Jameson et al. 2012), which poses tensions between academia
and profession, and between theoretical teaching of content and the
skills needed in the market in many degree programmes. Thirdly and
most importantly, in order to maintain the UK HE sector as a byword
for excellence in the global market, the HE-Business engagement3 is
much enhanced nowadays. This engagement can be explained as a bilat-
eral relationship between the HE sector and the private sector includ-
ing business and industry. Within this partnership, HE providers serve
as sources of graduate talent, academic expertise, international reach and
technology, while companies have the capacity to absorb innovation,
to support business growth, trade and inward investment (Rudd 2013;
Greenaway and Rudd 2014). This HE-Business interface belongs to the
wider method of ‘knowledge transfer partnerships (KTPs)’, which refers
to a range of activities usually directed at producing practical outcomes,
often stemming from research (Schofield 2011, p. 5). In the UK, knowl-
edge transfer is a growing tendency with regard to the research and
impact mission among most universities. This process could mutually
6 W. Hu
benefit both universities and the business sector in many ways,4 but the
notion is still controversial among some academics, and it may be too
naïve to expect academics fully and suddenly to accept business engage-
ment and innovation due to the longer established research-intensive sys-
tem, and it could be more difficult for academics working in the Arts
and Humanities to build up partnerships with industry and to generate
enough impact on the wider society than for their colleagues in the facul-
ties of science and engineering. In view of all these changes, universities
in the UK are becoming practical in terms of knowledge and technology
transfer, and economic development and global forces. They are increas-
ingly considered as an instrument to boost economic growth via creating
and applying new knowledge.
Since its integration into the world economy, the Chinese govern-
ment has also emphasised the importance of knowledge in enhancing
its economic development and ability to compete in the global econ-
omy. Despite the fact that each country might adopt different national
policies, similar developments and challenges can be found in China in
that the HE sector has also experienced pressures from neo-liberal glo-
balisation. In this sense, policy arrangements should be implemented
along market lines, and educational reforms are required to be in line
with those in economic sectors to establish close links between educa-
tion and the market. This has been the most prominent orientation
(Yang 2012). The social and economic impacts of universities are also
reinforced by government, specifying that the optimised higher educa-
tion structure needs to meet national and regional socio-economic devel-
opment needs. These themes have formed the milieu for the reform
of China’s higher education sector since the 1980s (Jiang 2005; Mok
2009; Yang 2012). As such, a series of reforms and strategies have been
adopted in its HE system in response to market forces. Firstly, in order
to create more opportunities for access to universities, China has wit-
nessed the expansion of higher education in both student numbers and
in the number of Chinese universities since the late 1990s. This indicates
that a massification of the HE sector in China has been implemented.
Another change in Chinese society is the introduction and adoption
of a decentralisation policy, which replaces the former ‘centralised’ and
‘state-dominated model’5 and gives more authority to local governments
in terms of allocating resources, financing higher education, and man-
aging personnel and salaries in universities (Mok 2001, 2009; Mok and
Ngok 2001); while the Ministry of Education (MoE) acts as coordinator
1 TRANSLATION STUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEMS … 7
The trip from Lincoln Head to Canalopsis was a fast one. Doug
drove the little flier through the thin air of Mars at a breakneck speed
and covered the twelve hundred miles in just shy of an hour. At the
spaceport, Channing found that he was not denied the entrance as
the reporter had been. He was ushered into the office of Keg
Johnson, and he and the manager of the Canalopsis Spaceport
greeted Don with a worried expression on his face.
"Still gone," said Johnson cryptically. "Like the job of locating her?"
Don shook his head with a sympathetic smile. "Like trying to find a
grain of sand on a beach—a specified grain, I mean. Wouldn't know
how to go about it."
Keg nodded. "I thought as much. That leaves her out of the picture.
Well, up to now space travel has been about as safe as spending the
evening in your easy-chair. Hello, Arden, how's married life?"
"Can't tell yet," she said with a twinkle. "I've got to find out whether I
can break him of a dozen bad habits before I'll commit myself."
"I wish you luck, Arden, although from that statement, it's Don that
needs the luck."
"We came to see if there was anything we could do about the Solar
Queen," offered Channing.
"What can anybody do?" asked Keg with spread hands. "About all
we can do is to put it down in our remembrances and turn to
tomorrow. Life goes on, you know," said Keg in a resigned tone, "and
either we keep up or we begin to live in the past. Are you going to
stay here for a day or two?"
"Was thinking about it," said Don.
"Well, suppose you register at the Terraland and meet me back here
for lunch. If anything occurs, I'll shoot you a quickie." Keg looked at
his watch and whistled. "Lordy," he said ruefully. "I didn't know how
late it was. Look, kids, I'll run you downtown myself, and we'll all
have lunch at the Terraland. How's that?"
"Sounds better," admitted Channing. "My appetite, you know."
"I know," laughed Arden. "Come on, meat-eater, and we'll peel a
calf."
It was during lunch that a messenger raced into the dining room and
handed Keg a letter. Keg read, and then swore roundly. He tossed
the letter across the table to Don and Arden.
TO THE OPERATORS OF ALL SPACELINES:
IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT YOUR SHIPS
NEED PROTECTION. THE ABSENCE OF THE SOLAR
QUEEN IS PROOF ENOUGH THAT YOUR EFFORTS
ARE INSUFFICIENT TO INSURE THE ARRIVAL OF A
SPACESHIP AT ITS DESTINATION.
I AM CAPABLE OF OFFERING PROTECTION AT THE
REASONABLE RATE OF ONE DOLLAR SOLARIAN FOR
EVERY GROSS TON, WITH THE RETURN OF TEN
DOLLARS SOLARIAN IF ANY SHIP FAILS TO COME
THROUGH SAFELY. I THINK THAT YOU MAY FIND IT
NECESSARY TO SUBSCRIBE TO MY INSURANCE,
SINCE WITHOUT MY PROTECTION I CANNOT BE
RESPONSIBLE FOR FAILURES.
ALLISON (HELLION) MURDOCH.
"Why the dirty racketeer," stormed Arden. "Who is he, anyway?"
"Hellion Murdoch is a man of considerable ability as a surgeon and a
theoretical physicist," explained Don. "He was sentenced to the gas
chamber ten years ago for trying some of his theories out on human
beings without their consent. He escaped with the aid of fifteen or
twenty of his cohorts who had stolen the Hippocrates right out of the
private spaceport of the Solarian Medical Research Institute."
"And they headed for the unknown," offered Keg. "Wonder where
they've been for the last ten years?"
"I'll bet a hat that they've been in the Melapalan Jungle, using the
machine shop of the Hippocrates to fashion guns. That machine
shop was a dilly, if I remember correctly."
"It was. The whole ship was just made to be as self-sustaining as it
could be. They used to run all over the System in it, you know,
chasing bugs. But look, Don, if I were you, I'd begin worrying about
Venus Equilateral. That's where he'll hit next."
"You're right. But what are you going to do?"
"Something that will drive him right out to the relay station," said Keg
in a sorrowful tone. "Sorry, Don, but when I put an end to all space
shipping for a period of six weeks, Hellion Murdoch will be sitting in
your lap."
"He sure will," said Channing nervously. "Arden, are you willing to
run a gantlet?"
"Sure," she answered quickly. "Are you sure that there will be no
danger?"
"Reasonably sure, or I wouldn't take you with me. Unless Murdoch
has managed to build himself a couple of extra ships, we've got a
chance in three that he'll be near one of the other two big
spaceports. So we'll slide out of here unannounced and at a peculiar
time of day. We'll load up with gravanol and take it all the way to the
station at six G."
"He may have two or three ships," said Keg. "A man could cover all
the standard space shipping in three, and he might not have too bad
a time with two, especially if he were only out looking for those which
weren't paid for. But, look, I wouldn't check out of the Terraland if I
were you. Keep this under cover. Your heap is all ready to take sky
from Canalopsis Spaceport and you can leave directly."
"Hold off on your announcement as long as possible," Don asked
Keg.
Johnson smiled and nodded. "I'll give you time to get there anyway.
But I've no control over what will be done at Northern Landing or
Mojave. They may kick over the traces."
"Arden, we're moving again," laughed Don. "Keg, ship us our duds
as soon as this affair clears up." Channing scribbled a message on
the back of Murdoch's letter. "Shoot this off to Walt Franks, will you?
I won't wait for an answer, that'll take about fifty minutes, and by that
time I'll have been in space for twenty."
They paused long enough to stop at the nurse's office at the
spaceport for a heavy shot of gravanol and a thorough bracing with
wide adhesive tape. Then they made their way to the storage space
of the spaceport where they entered their small ship. Channing was
about to send the power lever home when the figure of Keg Johnson
waved him to stop.
Keg ran up to the space lock and handed in a paper.
"You're it," he said. "Good luck, Channings."
It was another message from Hellion Murdoch. It said, bluntly:
TO DONALD A. CHANNING, PH.D.:
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS:
CONSIDERABLE DIFFICULTY HAS BEEN
EXPERIENCED IN TRANSMITTING MESSAGES TO
THE INTERESTED PARTIES. I DESIRE A FREE HAND
IN TELLING ALL WHO CARE THE PARTICULARS OF
MY INSURANCE.
SINCE YOUR RELAY STATION IS IN A POSITION TO
CONTROL ALL COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN THE
WORLDS, I AM OFFERING YOU THE OPTION OF
EITHER SURRENDERING THE STATION TO ME, OR OF
FIGHTING ME FOR ITS POSSESSION. I AM
CONFIDENT THAT YOU WILL SEE THE INTELLIGENT
COURSE; AN UNARMED STATION IN SPACE IS NO
MATCH FOR A FULLY ARMED AND EXCELLENTLY
MANNED CRUISER.
YOUR ANSWER WILL BE EXPECTED IN FIVE DAYS.
ALLISON (HELLION) MURDOCH.
Channing snarled and thrust the power lever down to the last notch.
The little ship leaped upward at five G, and was gone from sight in
less than a minute.
Arden shook her head. "What was that message you sent to
Franks?" she asked.
"I told him that there was a wild-eyed pirate on the loose, and that he
might take a stab at the station. We are coming in as soon as we can
get there and to be on the lookout for us on the landing
communications radio, and also for anything untoward in the nature
of space vessels."
"Then this is not exactly a shock," said Arden, waving the message
from Murdoch.
"Not exactly," said Channing dryly. "Now look, Arden, you go to
sleep. This'll take hours and hours, and gabbing about it will only lay
you out cold."
"I feel fine," objected Arden.
"I know, but that's the gravanol, not you. The tape will keep you
intact, and the gravanol will keep you awake without nausea. But you
can't get something for nothing, Arden, and when that gravanol
wears off, you'll spend ten times as long with one-tenth of the trouble
you might have had. So take it easy for yourself now and later you'll
be glad that you aren't worse."
The sky blackened, and Channing knew that they were free in
space. Give them another fifteen minutes and the devil himself
couldn't find them. With no flight plan scheduled and no course
posted, they might as well have been in the seventeenth dimension.
As they emerged from the thin atmosphere, there was a fleeting
flash of fire from several miles to the east, but Channing did not pay
particular attention to it. Arden looked through a telescope and
thought she saw a spaceship circling, but she could not be sure.
Whatever it was, nothing came of it.
The trip out to the station was a monotonous series of uneventful
hours, proceeding along one after the other. They dozed and slept
most of the time, eating sparingly and doing nothing that was not
absolutely necessary.
Turnabout was accomplished and then the deceleration began,
equally long and equally monotonous. It was equally inactive.
Channing tried to plan, but it failed because he could not plan
without talking and discussing the affair with his men. Too much
depended upon their co-operation. He fell into a morose, futile
feeling that made itself evident in grousing; Arden tried to cheer him,
but Don's usually bubbling spirit was doused too deep. Also, Arden
herself was none too happy, which is necessary before one can
cheer another.
Then they sighted the station and Channing's ill spirit left. A man of
action, what he hated most was the no-action business of just sitting
in a little capsule waiting for the relay station to come up out of the
sky below. Once it was sighted, Channing foresaw action, and his
grousing stopped.
They zipped past the station at a distance of ten miles, and
Channing opened the radio.
"Walt Franks! Wake up, you slumberhead."
The answer came inside of half a minute. "Hello, Don. Who's
asleep?"
"Where are you? In Joe's?"
"Joe has declared a drought for the duration," said Franks with a
laugh. "He thinks we can't think on Scotch."
"We can't. Have you seen the boys?"
"Murdoch's crew? Sure, they're circling at about five miles, running
around in the plane of the ecliptic. Keep running on the colure and
the chances are that you won't even see 'em. But, Don, they can
hear us!"
"How about the landing stage at the south end?"
"There are two of them running around the station at different heights
from north to south. The third is circling in a four-mile circle on a
plane five miles south of the station. We've picked up a few HE
shells, and I guess that, if you try to make a landing there, you'll be
shot to bits. That devil is using the meteor detector for a gun pointer."
"Walt, remember the visual loran?"
"Y'mean the one we used to find the Empress?"
"Uh-huh. Rig it without the mirrors? Get me? D'you know what I want
to do?"
"Yop. All we have to do is clear away some of the saw grass again.
Not too much, though, because it hasn't been too long since we cut it
before. I get you all right."
"Fine. How soon?"
"I'm in the beam control north, I've got a portable mike, and I walk
over to the mirror and begin to tinker with the screws. Ouch! I've
skun me a knuckle. Now look, Don, I'm going inside and crack the
passage end. I've broadcast throughout the station that it is to be
cracked, and the men are swarming all over the axis of the station
doing just that. Come—a-running!"
Channing circled the little ship high to the north and came down
toward the axis of the station. He accelerated fiercely for a portion of
the time, and then made a slambang turnabout. A pilot light on the
instrument panel gleamed, indicating that some of the plates were
strained and that the ship was leaking air. Another light lit, indicating
that the automatic pressure control was functioning, and that the
pressure was maintained, though it might not long be.
Then in deceleration, Channing fought the ship on to a die-straight
line with the open door at the north end. He fixed the long, long
passageway in the center of his sights, and prayed.
The ship hit the opening squarely, and only then did their terrific
speed become apparent. Past bulkhead after bulkhead they drove,
and a thin scream came to their ears as the atmosphere down in the
bowels of the station was compressed by the tiny ship's passage.
Doors slammed behind the ship as it passed, and air locks were
opened, permitting the station's center to fill to its normal pressure
once more.
Then the rocketing ship slowed. Channing saw a flash of green and
knew that the Martian saw grass was halfway down the three-mile
length of the station. He zipped past storerooms and rooms filled
with machinery, and then the ship scraped lightly against one of the
bulkheads.
It caromed from this bulkhead against the next, hitting it in a
quartering slice. From side to side the ship bounced, crushing the
bulkheads and tearing great slices from the flanks of the ship.
It slowed, and came to rest against a large room full of packing
cases, and was immediately swarmed over by the men of Venus
Equilateral.
They found Channing partly conscious. His nose was bleeding but
otherwise he seemed all right. Arden was completely out, though a
quick check by the station's medical staff assured Don that she
would be all right as soon as they gave her a workout. He was
leaving the center of the station when Franks came puffing up the
stairway from the next lowest level.
"Gosh," he said. "It's a real job trying to guess where you stopped.
I've been hitting every hundred feet and asking. Well, that was one
for the book."
"Yeah," groaned Don. "Come along, Walt. I want a shower. You can
give the resumé of the activities while I'm showering and trying to
soak this adhesive off. Arden, lucky girl, will be unconscious when
Doc rips it off; I never liked the way they remove tape."
"There isn't much to tell," said Franks. "But what there is, I'll tell you."
Channing was finishing the shower when Walt mentioned that it was
too bad that they hadn't started his electron gun a few weeks sooner.
Don shut off the water, fumbled for a towel, and said: "What?"
Franks repeated.
Again Channing said: "What? Are you nuts?"
"No. I've been tinkering with an idea of mine. If we had another
month to work on it, I think we might be able to clip Murdoch's ears."
"Just what are you using in this super weapon, chum?"
Franks explained.
"Mind if I put in an oar?" asked Channing.
"Not at all. So far we might be able to fry a smelt at twenty feet, or
we could cook us a steak. But I haven't been able to do a thing yet.
We had it working once, and I think we heated a meteor somewhat,
but the whole thing went blooey before we finished the test. I've
spent the last week and a half fixing the thing up again, and would
have tried it out on the next meteor, but your message brought a halt
to everything but cleaning up the mess and making ready just in
case we might think of something practical."
"I'll put in my first oar by seeing the gadget. Wait till I find my pants,
and I'll go right along."
Don inspected the installation and whistled. "Not half bad, sonny, not
half bad."
"Except that we haven't been able to make it work."
"Well, for one thing, you've been running on the wrong track. You
need more power."
"Sure," grinned Walt. "More power, he says. I don't see how we can
cram any more soup into this can. She'll melt."
"Walt, what happens in a big gun?"
"Powder burns; expanding products of combustion push—"
"Functionally, what are you trying to accomplish? Take it on the basis
of a solid shot, like they used to use back in the sailing ship days."
"Well," said Walt thoughtfully, "I'd say they were trying to heave
something large enough to do damage."
"Precisely. Qualifying that statement a little, you might say that the
projectile transmits the energy of the powder charge to its objective."
"Right," agreed Walt.
"And it is possible to transmit that energy mechanically. I think if we
reason this idea out in analogy, we might be able to do it electrically.
First, there is the method. There is nothing wrong with your idea,
functionally. Electron guns are as old as radio. They—"
The door opened and Arden entered. "Hi, fellows," she said, "What's
cooking?"
"Hi, Arden. Like marriage?" Walt asked.
"How long do people have to be married before people stop asking
that darn fool question?" asked Arden.
"O.K., how about your question?"
"I meant that. I ran into Warren, who told me that the brains were
down here tinkering on something that was either a brilliant idea or
an equally brilliant flop—he didn't know which. What goes?"
"Walt has turned Buck Rogers and is now about to invent a ray gun."
"No!"
"Yes!"
"Here's where we open a psychopathic ward," said Arden sadly. "So
far, Venus Equilateral is the only community that hasn't had a village
idiot. But no longer are we unique. Seriously, Walt?"
"Sure enough," said Channing. "He's got an idea here that may work
with a little tinkering."
"Brother Edison, we salute you," said Arden. "How does it work?"
"Poorly. Punk. Lousy."
"Well, sound recording has come a long way from the tinfoil cylinder
that scratched out: 'Mary had a little lamb!' And transportation has
come along swell from the days of sliding sledges. You may have the
nucleus of an idea, Walt. But I meant its operation instead of its
efficiency."
"We have an electron gun of super size," explained Walt. "The
cathode is a big affair six feet in diameter and capable of emitting a
veritable storm of electrons. We accelerate them by means of
properly spaced anodes of the proper voltage level, and we focus
them into a nice bundle by means of electrostatic lenses—"
"Whoah, Tillie, you're talking like the venerable Buck Rogers himself.
Say that in words of one cylinder, please," chuckled Arden.
"Well, any voltage gradient between electrodes of different voltage
acts as a prism, sort of. When you have annular electrodes of the
proper size, shape, and voltage difference, they act as a lens."
"In other words, the ring-shaped electrodes are electrostatic lenses?"
"Nope. It is the space between them. With light or electrons a convex
lens will converge the light no matter which direction the light is
coming from."
"Uh-huh. I see in a sort of vague manner. Now, fellows, go on from
there. What's necessary to make this dingbat tick?"
"I want to think out loud," said Channing.
"That's nothing unusual," said Arden. "Can't we go into Joe's? You
can't think without a tablecloth, either."
"What I'm thinking is this, Walt. You've been trying to squirt electrons
like a fireman runs a hose. Walt, how long do you suppose a sixteen-
inch rifle would last if the explosives were constantly replaced and
the fire burned constantly?"
"Not long," admitted Walt.
"A gun is an overloaded machine," said Don. "Even a little one. The
life of a gun barrel is measured in seconds; totalling up the time of
transit of all the rounds from new gun to worn barrel gives a figure
expressed in seconds. Your electron gun, Walt, whether it be fish,
flesh, or fowl, must be overloaded for an instant."
"Is overload a necessary requirement?" asked Arden. "It seems to
me that you might be able to bore a sixteen-inch gun for a twenty-
two. What now, little man?"
"By the time we get something big enough to do more than knock
paint off, we'll have something bigger than a twenty-two," grinned
Channing. "I was speaking in terms of available strength versus
required punch. In the way that a girder will hold tremendous
overloads for brief instants, a gun is overloaded for milliseconds.
We'll have a problem—"
"O.K., aside from that, have you figured out why I haven't been able
to do more than warm anything larger than a house brick?"
"Sure," laughed Channing. "What happens in a multi-grid radio tube
when the suppressor grid is hanging free?"
"Charges negative and blocks the electron stream ... hey! That's it!"
"What?" asked Arden.
"Sure," said Walt. "We fire off a batch of electrons, and the first
contingent that arrives charges the affair so that the rest of the beam
sort of wriggles out of line."
"Your meteor is going to take on a charge of phenomenal negative
value, and the rest of your beam is going to be deflected away, just
as your electron lenses deflect the original beam," said Channing.
"And now another thing, old turnip. You're squirting out a lot of
electrons. That's much amperage. Your voltage—velocity—is nothing
to rave about even though it sounds high. Watts is what you want, to
corn a phrase."
"Phew," said Walt. "Corn, he says. Go on, prodigy, and make with
the explanations. I agree, we should have more voltage and less
quantity. But we're running the stuff at plenty of voltage now. Nothing
short of a Van Der Graf generator would work—and while we've got
one up on the forty-ninth level, we couldn't run a supply line down
here without reaming a fifty-foot hole through the station, and then I
don't know how we'd get that kind of voltage down here without ...
that kind of stuff staggers the imagination. You can't juggle a
hundred million volts on a wire. She'd squirt off in all directions."
"Another thing, whilst I hold it in my mind," said Channing,
thoughtfully. "You go flinging electrons off the station in basketful
after basketful, and the next bird that drops a ship on the landing
stage is going to spot-weld himself right to the south end of Venus
Equilateral. It wouldn't be long before the station would find itself
being pulled into Sol because of the electrostatic stress—if we didn't
run out of electrons first!"
"I hardly think that we'd run out—but we might have a tough time
flinging them away after a bit. Could it be that we should blow out a
fist full of protons at the same time?"
"Might make up a concentric beam and wave positive ions at the
target," said Channing. "Might help."
"But this space-charge effect. How do we get around that?"
"Same way we make the electron gun work. Fire it off at a devilish
voltage. Run your electron velocity up near the speed of light; the
electrons at that speed will acquire considerable mass, in
accordance with Lorenz's equation which shows that as the velocity
of a mass reaches the speed of light, its mass becomes infinite. With
a healthy mass built up by near-light velocities, the electrons will not
be as easy to deflect. Then, too, we can do the damage we want
before the charge can be built up that will deflect the stream. We ram
'em with a bundle of electrons moving so fast that the charging effect
can not work; before the space charge can build up to the level
required for self-nullification of our beam, the damage is done."
"And all we need is a couple of trillion volts. Two times ten to the
twelfth power. Grrr."
"I can see that you'll need a tablecloth," said Arden. "You birds can
think better over at Joe's. Come along and feed the missus, Don."
Channing surveyed the instrument again, and then said: "Might as
well, Walt. The inner man must be fed, and we can wrangle at the
same time. Argument assists the digestion—and vice versa."
Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.
textbookfull.com