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| :''For the Tau Zero Foundation, see [[Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program#Legacy]].''
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| {{infobox book | <!-- See [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels]] or [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Books]] -->
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| | name = Tau Zero
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| | title_orig =
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| | translator =
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| | image = [[File:TauZero(Anderson).jpg|200px]]
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| | caption = Cover of first edition (hardcover)
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| | author = [[Poul Anderson]]
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| | illustrator =
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| | cover_artist = Anita Siegel<ref>[http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?265421 isfdb]</ref>
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| | country = [[United States]]
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| | language = [[English language|English]]
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| | series =
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| | genre = [[Science fiction novel]]
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| | publisher = [[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday]]
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| | release_date = 1970
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| | english_release_date =
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| | media_type = Print ([[Hardcover]] & [[Paperback]])
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| | pages = 208 pp
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| | isbn = ISBN 1-56865-278-X
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| | oclc= 37202159
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| | preceded_by =
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| | followed_by =
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| }}
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| '''''Tau Zero''''' is a [[hard science fiction]] novel by [[Poul Anderson]]. The novel was based upon the short story "To Outlive Eternity" appearing in ''[[Galaxy Science Fiction]]'' in 1967. It was first published in book form in 1970.
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| The book is regarded as a quintessential example of "[[hard sci-fi]]", as its plot is guided by technology until the dramatic conclusion. It was nominated for the [[Hugo Award for Best Novel]] in 1971.<ref name="WWE-1971">{{cite web
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| |url=http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_year_index.asp?year=1971
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| |title=Science Fiction & Fantasy Books by Award: 1971 Award Winners & Nominees
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| |work=Worlds Without End|accessdate=2009-07-26}}</ref>
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| ==Plot==
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| ''Tau Zero'' follows the crew of the starship ''Leonora Christine'', a colonization vessel crewed by 25 men and 25 women aiming to reach a distant star system. The ship is powered by a [[Bussard ramjet]], which was proposed shortly before Anderson wrote the book. This engine is not capable of [[faster-than-light]] travel, and so the voyage is subject to [[Theory of relativity|relativity]] and [[time dilation]]: the crew will spend 5 years on board, but 33 years will pass on the Earth before they arrive at their destination. The ship accelerates during the first half of the journey and decelerates during the second. However, it flies through a [[nebula]] before the half-way point, damaging the deceleration module. Since the engines must be kept running to provide particle/radiation shielding, and because of the hard radiation produced by the engines, the crew can neither repair the decelerator nor turn off the accelerator.
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| The text consists of narrative prose interspersed with paragraphs in which Anderson explains the scientific basis of relativity, time dilation, the ship's mechanics and details of the cosmos outside.
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| As there is no hope of completing the original mission, the crew increase acceleration even more; they need to leave the [[Milky Way]] altogether in order to reach a region where the local gas density, and the concomitant radiation hazard, are low enough that they can repair the decelerator. The ship's ever-increasing velocity brings the time dilation to extreme levels and takes the crew further and further away from any possibility of contact with humanity. The initial plan is to locate and land on a suitable planet in another galaxy. Millions of years would have passed since their departure, and in any case they would be millions of light years from Earth. However, they find the vacuum of intergalactic space insufficient for safety; they must instead travel to a region between superclusters of galaxies to make repairs. They do, but the extremely thinly spread matter is then too dispersed to use for deceleration. They must wait, flying free but essentially without the ability to change course, until they randomly encounter enough galactic matter to try to decelerate enough to search for habitable planets. To make the waiting time shorter, they continue accelerating through the first several galaxies they encounter, more and more closely approaching the speed of light with tau, or [[proper time]], decreasing closer and closer to zero.
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| The storyline is similar to that of the long poem and later opera ''[[Aniara]]'', in which the ship was unable to stop and doomed to travel endlessly, but ''Tau Zero'' has a more upbeat ending (albeit one that does not conform to modern thinking on the evolution of the universe).{{citation needed|date=November 2013}} By the time the ship is repaired, tau has decreased to less than a billionth and the crew experience "billion-year cycles which passed as moments". But by the time that they are ready to attempt to find a future home, they realize that the universe is approaching a [[big crunch]]. The universe collapses (a process the starship survives because there is still enough uncondensed hydrogen for maneuvering, outside the monobloc) and then explodes in a new [[big bang]]. The voyagers then decelerate, examining potential star systems. They eventually disembark at a planet with a habitat suitably similar to Earth, on which the vegetation has a vivid bluish-green color.
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| ==Origin of the title==
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| The novel's title is derived from the value of the time contraction factor Tau (<big><math>\tau</math></big>), where <math>\tau = \sqrt{1-v^2/c^2}</math> where ''v'' is the velocity and ''c'' the [[speed of light]]. At a given [[velocity]], the duration that is experienced on the non-accelerating Earth may be multiplied by tau to yield the duration experienced on board the ship. Therefore, as Anderson writes, "the closer that [the ship's velocity] comes to [the speed of light], the closer tau comes to zero", and the longer the time that passes outside the ship for a duration inside. The ship in the story intended to attain a tau of 0.015, but as they continue to accelerate beyond the original schedule, it decreases.
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| This usage of tau is somewhat idiosyncratic. In physics, tau is more usually used to represent the ''total'' [[proper time|elapsed time of the moving clock]], so Anderson's "tau factor" is what would conventionally be written d<big><math>\tau</math></big>/dt. Physicists also prefer to use gamma (γ) to represent the [[Lorentz factor]] in [[time dilation]], which in Anderson's terminology would be 1/<big><math>\tau</math></big>.{{citation needed|date=November 2013}}
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| ==Themes==
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| Much of the novel deals with the crewmembers' reactions to being the last remnants of humanity, and the prospect of being confined with their colleagues indefinitely. Though they were prepared to "lose" twenty Earth years during their journey and spend five on board the ship, the knowledge that they are being carried further and further into the future has various effects on the psychology of the characters. The novel describes the changing and extreme time dilation effects as well as events from the perspective of both the ship and an external observer.
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| Incidental to the main themes is the political situation on the Earth from which the protagonists set out: a future where the nations of the world entrusted [[Sweden]] with overseeing disarmament and found themselves living under the rule of the Swedish Empire. This sub-theme reflects the great interest which Anderson, an American of [[Danish people|Danish]] origin, took in [[Scandinavia]]n history and culture. In later parts of the book, characters compare their desperate situation to that of semi-mythical characters of Scandinavian legend, with the relevant poetry occasionally quoted.
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| ==References==
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| {{reflist}}
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| ==External links==
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| *[http://www.worldswithoutend.com/novel.asp?ID=342 Tau Zero] at Worlds Without End
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| * {{isfdb title|id=1044}}
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| {{Poul Anderson}}
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| [[Category:1970 novels]]
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| [[Category:American science fiction novels]]
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| [[Category:Novels by Poul Anderson]]
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| [[Category:Works originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction]]
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| [[Category:Hard science fiction]]
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| [[Category:Doubleday (publisher) books]]
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Wilber Berryhill is what his spouse loves to contact him and he completely enjoys this title. My day occupation is an invoicing officer but I've currently utilized for another 1. For a while I've been in Alaska but I will have to move in a year or two. What me and my family members adore is doing ballet but I've been taking on new things recently.
Here is my web blog: online psychic chat