A Space Catapult with Interstellar Potential

A new propulsion method with interstellar implications recently emerged on the arXiv site, and in an intriguing video on David Kipping’s Cool Worlds channel on YouTube. Kipping (Columbia University) has built a video production process that is second to none, but beyond the imagery is his ability to translate sophisticated mathematical concepts into clear language and engaging visuals. So while we’re going to discuss his new propulsion concept using the arXiv paper, don’t miss the video, where this novel new idea is artfully rendered.

I was delighted to see the author invoking J.R.R. Tolkien in the video (though not in the paper), for he begins the Cool Worlds episode with some musings on interstellar flight and why it has come to engage so many of us. Tolkien devotees will already know the lovely term he used to explain our yearnings for something beyond ourselves: ‘sea-longing.’ It’s a kenning, to use the scholarly jargon, a metaphorical double construction that links two ideas. Anglo-Saxon poetry, about which Tolkien was a master, is rife with such turns of phrase.

Tolkien’s work on Beowulf was hugely significant to scholarship on that great poem, and The Lord of the Rings is peppered with linguistic echoes of the language. Here’s the relevant quote from The Two Towers, in which the elf Legolas invokes the things that drive his race:

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