and the implausible, less possible, or improbable.
Let’s look again at how much of Frank Herbert’s Duniverse is realistically possible based on known science, and how much is highly unlikely (in terrestrial science).
1. Arrakis and indigenous life.
When Herbert wrote Dune, we did not yet have the ability to see or find other planets. We assumed they existed—after all, if our sun has a bunch of planets, why wouldn’t other stars have them also? But we had no observed data of other planetary systems. Now we’ve observed over 100 planets and are actively searching for more.
Herbert places Arrakis around Canopus, a yellowish-white supergiant star. Kevin Grazier, on pages 96 – 98 in the Science of Dune, puts the lifetime of supergiants at only a few hundred million years. He concludes that life (as we know it) couldn’t have evolved on Arrakis (life on Earth took 800 my) and that Arrakis would have been terraformed!
Plate tectonics: Heat from the Earth’s interior drives plate tectonics. Credit: World Book illustration by Raymond Perlman and Steven Brayfield, Artisan-Chicago
In 1999, I attended the Second International Convention of the Mars Society (see my article) and interviewed Chris McKay, of NASA’s Ames Research Center as to whether life existed on Mars.
Early Mars, when some scientists think it could have had life, was warmer and had liquid water on its surface. The planet lost its atmosphere and became much colder. One hypothesis is that carbon dioxide (CO2) is unstable and forms calcium carbonate (CaCO3). On Earth, the subduction plates (plate tectonics) take CaCO3 into the interior where the core’s heat releases the CO2 - a “greenhouse” gas that helps retain heat - back into the atmosphere.
Mars has no plate tectonics and no CO2 recycling occurs. The binding of atmospheric CO2 into CaCO3 may have led to the loss of Mars’ atmosphere and its consequent transformation into a cold, dry, dead planet. When I interviewed McKay he did not think that planets without plate tectonics would long sustain life. Astrobiology Magazine discusses the role of plate tectonics in maintaining Earth’s climate and the nature and distribution of habitable environments in the Universe.
If Dune has no plate tectonics, this could make the persistence of (terrestrial-type) life less likely.
Diana Valencia of Harvard University said, “Plate tectonics are essential to life as we know it.”
One my main problems with the book is the level of Dune scholarship displayed: Frank Herbert makes it clear in Children of Dune that the sandworms are not indigenous to Arrakis. Probably just a lucky coincidence, but it’s one thing he got right.
Comment by SandChigger — January 23, 2008 @ 8:38 pm
You undoubtedly know the Dune lore better than I do. I own the first four Dune books—Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, and God Emperor of Dune and I read them all years ago. Prior to writing my essay I re-read the first two, taking careful notes throughout the books, but unfortunately did not re-read the other volumes carefully enough.
Perhaps if in time there’s a second edition, I can get the rest of it right next time, with the help of you and your friends! I will try to address the science of all points that you bring up which you feel need further explanation.
I gave my mss. to a physicist, two chemists, and a biologist to check the science. My physicist friend was a big Dune fan who’d read all of the Dune books, but obviously was not sufficiently familiar with Dune lore either.
My goal wasn’t to merely enumerate why the sandworms, as Herbert described them, could not exist, which would have been easy. Instead, I wanted to ask, could such an organism exist, and what would be the requirements that would make this possible.
Comment by sibylle — January 23, 2008 @ 9:12 pm
Are the sand worms any relation to the Tremors monster “worms”?
Comment by linda covert — January 23, 2008 @ 9:30 pm
Hi, Sibylle. Sorry it has taken me so long to reply.
Like you, I originally read only the first four books and didn’t get to the last two until several years after Frank Herbert passed on and I was over here in Japan. (There is some additional information given about the sandtrout and worms in the last two books.) I only became involved in the online world of Dune fandom about a year and a half ago, when I crossed swords with a loony fan of the new books on Wikipedia. Since that time I’ve also gotten into it with Kevin J. Anderson (and got myself kicked off the official forums on the Dune Novels website).
That interaction was what spurred the comment in my reply to your latest comment on my blog, about it being a pleasure to communicate with an author who doesn’t go ballistic at the smallest criticism. I would consider it an honor to be able to assist in any way in a future revision (Not looking for a credit or anything, ha ha!), and I’m sure everyone else would feel the same.
Comment by SandChigger — January 27, 2008 @ 9:19 am
Hi SC,
Thanks for the offer to help with any potential future editions! I don’t really expect one, but who knows? I would certainly have taken your comments into consideration if I’d had the opportunity before.
I’ll try to write more about skeletons, water, and oxygen in the coming weeks.
Comment by sibylle — February 12, 2008 @ 10:45 pm