Science can Wait

By Ray Cummings and Karl Wurf

Was Egbert Hale a nonentity—or a genius? Classic pulp science fiction!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Jul 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667640686

Ray Cummings

Ray Cummings (born Raymond King Cummings) (August 30, 1887 – January 23, 1957) was an American author of science fiction literature and comic books. Cummings is identified as one of the "founding fathers" of the science fiction genre. His most highly regarded fictional work was the novel The Girl in the Golden Atom published in 1922, which was a consolidation of a short story by the same name published in 1919 (where Cummings combined the idea of Fitz James O'Brien's The Diamond Lens with H. G. Wells's The Time Machine) and a sequel, The People of the Golden Atom, published in 1920. Before taking book form, several of Cummings's stories appeared serialized in pulp magazines. The first eight chapters of his The Girl in the Golden Atom appeared in All-Story Magazine on March 15, 1919. Ray Cummings wrote in "The Girl in the Golden Atom": "Time . . . is what keeps everything from happening at once", a sentence repeated by scientists such as C. J. Overbeck, and John Archibald Wheeler, and often misattributed to the likes of Einstein or Feynman. Cummings repeated this sentence in several of his novellas. Sources focus on his earlier work, The Time Professor, published in 1921, as its earliest documented usage.

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Table of Contents

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

INTRODUCTION, by Karl Wurf

SCIENCE CAN WAIT, by Ray Cummings

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2023 by Wildside Press LLC.

Originally published in Fantastic Story Magazine, Fall, 1952.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

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INTRODUCTION,

by Karl Wurf

Ray Cummings was a prolific science fiction writer whose career spanned more than four decades, from the early 1900s to the late 1950s. He was born on August 30, 1887, in New York City and died on January 23, 1957, in Mount Vernon, New York.

During his long and prolific career, Cummings wrote hundreds of short stories and novels, many of which were published in pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories, Astounding Science Fiction, and Weird Tales. He was also a prolific writer for the fledgling comic book industry.

Cummings was a master of pulp science fiction, a genre characterized by fast-paced action, exciting plots, and imaginative ideas. He was particularly adept at creating vivid and colorful descriptions of futuristic technology, exotic settings, and bizarre creatures. His stories often explored themes such as time travel, parallel universes, alien invasions, and artificial intelligence.

One of Cummings’ most famous works is the novel The Girl in the Golden Atom, first published in 1922. The story revolves around a scientist named Victor who discovers a method for shrinking matter down to the atomic level. In the course of his experiments, he discovers a tiny world inside an atom inhabited by miniature humans. Victor becomes involved in the struggles of these tiny people and falls in love with a woman