The Xi Effect
short story by Robert S. Richardson
"The Xi Effect" is a science fiction short story by American astronomer and author Robert S. Richardson (as (Philip Latham).
It was published first in January 1950 in Astounding Science Fiction.
It has often been anthologised, appearing among the others in The Golden Age of Science Fiction, edited by Kingsley Amis (1981).
Plot summary
Two astrophysicists, Stoddard and Arnold, are having trouble with solar infra-red observations; they find that some wavelengths have simply disappeared. Many radio transmissions have also vanished from the airwaves.
After listening to a talk by a brilliant but eccentric cosmologist, Dr Karl Gustav Friedmann, they realise that his theory about the so-called Xi Effect may explain their observations. The Effect postulates a vastly higher order of space-time called Xi-space, which has altered, causing slowly increasing effects on the local universe. These effects will cause galaxies to collapse and shrink rather than recede as they normally do.
Eventually, the theory is proven as it becomes fact, and the shrinkage become measurable. Electromagnetic radiation is progressively eliminated and even colours begin to disappear.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Xi Effect” as short story by Robert S. Richardson. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 9, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q7776462. The first chronological checks are 1950 and 1981.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Xi Effect” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.