Talk:The First Men in the Moon

Original research
I hate to say this, since it's quite well done, but it seems to me that the section on Cavor's motives is almost entirely original research. Nareek 05:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Indeed.


 * While we're at it:

Why did Cavor, in all the considerable time that he was free to make broadcasts to Earth, fail to provide fellow-humans with the formula of making cavorite? And why did he tell the Grand Lunar in such great detail about humanity's warlike proclivities?


 * Actually, there are several allusions in Cavor's transmissions that not everything is as grandiose as he is at first led to believe. (The "kids" of the Selenites in their infant stages, the doped working hands amidst the fungus fields.) My impression was that Cavor was at first truely naive enough to assume the Selenite society to be better than the one on Earth, hence he wanted man to stay off the moon and had no motivation to share the Cavorite formula. He also told of man's belligerent nature by accident. Later it did occur to him that the Selenites were neither better nor worse than humans, and he wanted to share his Cavorite secret to get a chance to get back to Earth, or because (okay, wildly speculative now:) because the Selenites had "learned" to wage war, and Cavor wanted to save Earth from their impending invasion. (Which would also explain why now the Selenites cut him off from Earth, whereas before they'd been quite indifferent to his radio activities.) So, all in all it'd be a kind of prequel to "War of the Worlds".


 * But all this is of course original research, and mere speculation, and I just felt in the mood for a rant. --Syzygy 15:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Technology?
Is it worth mentioning that the technology used in the book wouldn't work as speculated (Air made weightless would only get you into orbit, not to the moon)? --Irrevenant [ talk ] 00:59, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Arthur C. Clarke made this point in his introduction to the Everyman edition of The First Men in the Moon, but with all due deference from a layman to Clarke (a trained engineer), I'm not entirely convinced. Granted, the initial impetus given to Cavor's sphere by the air would cease outside the Earth's atmosphere, but how could an object screened from the Earth's gravity - by the hypothetical substance cavorite - be kept in orbit? The sphere, still possessing mass and momentum, would carry on at a tangent until the cavorite-coated blinds on the side facing the moon were opened, allowing the Moons gravity to exert a pull on it. Of course, much of this is pseudo-science, a plot device to get Wells's humans to the Moon, where the sociological aspects of the story could be developed. Wells had enough scientific background to know how far he could bend the Laws of Science, as understood at the beginning of the twentieth century, to produce a thought-provoking work of fiction.--Mabzilla (talk) 11:35, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

"Cavor's motivation": Apparent OR
Moving this to Talk for now, until third-party cites provided:

The question of Cavor's motivation
One of the most intriguing elements of the book is Cavor's motivation. Superficially, he can be seen as an extremely naïve and impractical man in anything but pure science where he is a near-genius. That is certainly how Bedford sees him, and it is Bedford who tells the story, but Bedford's point of view is not necessarily Wells', and in fact there is more than a hint that Cavor is more perceptive than Bedford is willing to credit.

Quite early in the story, Cavor is talking with apprehension of the possible results of their returning to Earth and making the possibility of travelling to the Moon widely known, and predicting that then the Moon, down to its deepest tunnel, would soon be filled with dead men. That seems to be a reference to the rivalry between colonial powers over the division of territory (the Fashoda Incident) that, shortly before the book was published, nearly brought about a war between Britain and France.

From the story, it is clear enough that Cavor was not happy with Bedford's escape from the Selenites, especially not with the exuberant violence with which Bedford killed many of them, taking full the advantage of his coming from a world with a higher gravity.

Once back on the Lunar surface, Cavor offers that they split up in order to search better for their spaceship. However, the description of his farewell suggests that he did not expect to see Bedford again, and that he, at least half-consciously, hoped to be recaptured by the Selenites and to make contact with their Higher Intelligences which he surmised (correctly, as it turned out) to be dwelling deeper under the surface.

The later part of the book raises two related questions: Why did Cavor, in all the considerable time that he was free to make broadcasts to Earth, fail to provide fellow-humans with the formula of making cavorite? And why did he tell the Grand Lunar in such great detail about humanity's warlike proclivities?

Under Bedford's view, this can be explained simply by Cavor's being so extremely naïve, impractical and unworldly. This is supported by Cavor's fragmentary last message which begins with "I was mad to let the Grand Lunar know...".

Still, what has gone before gives ground also to the other interpretation; namely, that Cavor did not broadcast the formula of making cavorite until it was too late, because he did not want other humans to come to the Moon, make of it a colony, trample its natives who would be helpless against them, and fight wars with each other over its natural wealth such as the abundant gold which had already attracted Bedford.

By the same logic, Cavor's revelations to the Grand Lunar might be far from a naïve mistake, but rather an at least half-conscious desire to warn his Selenite hosts about the grave danger which predatory humanity poses to them.

This reading of Cavor's motives fits with the famous preface to The War of the Worlds in which Wells (and there, it is clearly his own voice) compares the Martians' invasion of Earth to the infamous colonial invasions of the 19th century, and specifically to the genocide of the original inhabitants of Tasmania by British settlers.

I agree with Nareek above that this is well-done, however without a good third-party cite it is original research and not allowable on Wikipedia. If desired to return to article, please provide a good third-party cite. Thanks. -- 201.17.36.246 (talk) 13:25, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Space technology, real-world and magic
"both Wells and Lewis, like virtually all SF writers until the 1950s, grossly underestimated the resources needed for even the smallest jaunt outside Earth's gravitational field)." -- With our currently understood technology, sure. However, both The First Men in the Moon and Out of the Silent Planet use "magic" (per Clarke's Third Law) propulsion systems. Assuming that one actually had such technology available, one could say "engineers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries grossly overestimated the resources needed for space travel." :-) (Compare, say, a 1955 video camera with a 2005 one.) ( http://www.pharis-video.com/electr~1.jpg, http://encarta.msn.com/media_461525050_761559903_-1_1/early_television_camera.html , http://www.pharis-video.com/1951co~1.jpg vs http://gadgets.in/images/listings/product/large/cameras/hp/hp_vga_webcam_with_versatile_clip.jpg )-- 201.17.36.246 (talk) 13:48, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The phrasing of this passage is REALLY problematic as well: " It may be noted that both Wells and Lewis, like virtually all science fiction writers until the 1950s, grossly underestimated the resources needed for even the smallest jaunt outside Earth's gravitational field." Anyone traveling to the moon is not traveling outside the Earth's gravitational field, since the moon is orbiting the earth. This sort of poor phrasing perpetuates the common misconception that gravitational fields end at some particular altitude. Henebry (talk) 13:02, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

New Reference?
Is the use of the name 'cavorite' in the online series FreeRIDErs series in referring to a meta-material which this story universe's inhabitants have discovered is capable of manipulating gravity when an electric current is passed through it notable enough to be mentioned in this article's 'Other influences, references, and adaptations' section or not?

—&thinsp;RandomDSdevel (talk) 17:48, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Cavorite
Would there be support for a separate article on Cavorite as a generic concept of fictional anti-gravity materials? Power~enwiki (talk) 01:10, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

First hardcover edition at Wikisource
Because this novel is now in PD in its country of origin (as of Jan 2017), the English Wikisource is putting the first hardcover edition up. The illustrations by Claude Allin Shepperson already are available from Commons at Category:The First Men in the Moon (1901), and the full proofread text of the 1901 hardcover edition should be up soon at The First Men in the Moon. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:58, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

"In that opera the word "selenites" is used for the first time for moon inhabitants." - Not true
"Le voyage dans la lune" opera was in 1875.

"From the Earth to the Moon" by Jules Verne 1865

Chapter 2: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/83/83-h/83-h.htm

"Les Sélénites" in French

" The Selenites, do they exist, will respond by a similar figure;" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Exoir (talk • contribs) 10:47, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

লেখক:এইচ.জি.ওয়েল
Writer:H.G.Well. Book name The first men in the moon. 103.111.225.11 (talk) 13:39, 31 October 2023 (UTC)