Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 53 — page 121: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION shell is cylindrical in shape because it has to travel through air rapidly, but it cannot con- tain much explosive in pro- portion to the amount of metal used to make it. The desirable large explosive con- tent has to be sacrificed to the more urgent need to ensure its ability accurately to reach a given mark at a given distance. A mine laid at sea can be designed to enclose the maxi- mum amount of explosive in _ the smallest area of metal, regardless of ballistics. In such a case the best shape for the job becomes a sphere. This can be proved by a fairly simple application of that branch of mathematics known as the calculus. You can demonstrate the same idea with a piece of modelling clay and some metal foil. Make the clay into a long rocket-like cylinder and then find out how much of the metal foil you need to cover it. Then roll the same piece of clay into a ball, cover it with foil and see how much you need. THE FAT MAN AND THE THIN You may be thinking: ““The spaceship is going to cost such a whale of a sum for its in- nards—why fidget about the cost of the shell?” Well, yes, of course, if that were all, but do not forget that extra casing is extra weight, and less useful load for more fuel. Besides, consider the long, thin, cylindrical man and the short, fat spherical fellow. Watch them ona cold windy day go down to the water to bathe—and come out wet. It is the cylindrical job that gets really blue and shivers like an aspen tree and gets dressed at the double. He has too much cooling surface to lose calories of bodily warmth and not enough inner bulk as a reserve of heat. The spherical chap is much better off with a lower ratio of cooling surface to inner warm tissue content. Watch them again, the same pair on the way home from work in a crowded bus or train, on a scorching hot sum- mer day. The cylinder has it over the sphere this time. His skin can perspire moderately over a surface which is large in proportion to his bulk, and the evaporation of the sweat takes away the unwanted calories to leave his blood comfortably cooled.The tubby fellow is sweating like a fountain from every available pore but his smaller ratio of skin to bulk does not give him 120 comicloooks.com