Starman Jones: A Relativity Birthday Present

Many grown children, maybe most, can recall in great detail the goings-on and dialog in books read to them, or in bedtime stories told by parents. These memories enrich their own sense of self, and sometimes give guidance in understanding the events in their lives, and in making major decisions about their future.

Most childhood stories are fictional, and often are replete with amazing phenomena that don’t happen in real life. They are fun, to be sure, but not informative when it comes to what is possible. In these books, Dr. Williscroft attempts to enrich children through stories, fictional for now, but non-fiction some day, based on little-known wonders of the universe that ARE real and quite amazing.

Children, and most adults, are unaware of many phenomena of the universe that we don’t sense in every-day life, yet are more and more important to us. For example, there is light in “colors” that our eyes can’t see. Everything in the universe is made of tiny, tiny invisible particles that make possible television, computers, nuclear energy, the light of the sun and stars – and, indeed, sometimes can even be hazardous to us and make us sick.

Dr. Williscroft bases A Relativity Birthday Present on one of his son’s favorite stories when he was little, on an unseen yet major phenomenon – the Theory of Special Relativity. He hopes to plant the concepts of Special Relativity in your child’s mind, just like tales of fairies are planted by other children’s stories. He hopes that in the future, as your child encounters this and the other subjects of this series in school, the memory of these enchanting tales will bubble to the surface, and your child will readily understand and cherish concepts that otherwise would be perplexing.

This is an ingenious experiment that worked for Dr. Williscroft’s own son. I genuinely hope that it works for your child, too, and that each new story in this series will enrich your child as much as they did his son. In fact, I sincerely hope that this experiment will prove to be very successful for all children!

Foreword for Kids by Dr. Frank Drake, Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute, Mountain View, California

Growing up is a great adventure! You learn of new, marvelous, things in your world: Cars that can mysteriously take you long distances when your mother or father make them do it; Airplanes that can fly through the air, even though their wings don’t flap like bird’s; Real life pictures of football games happening far away that appear magically in your living room. Our world is full of mysterious and wonderful happenings!

You love to read books about fairies and ghosts and powerful wizards who make amazing things happen, but those things happen only in books, not in real life. This book may seem much like that – it tells the story of a mysterious, wonderful, and happy trip that sounds like a typical fairy tale. But this book is very different. Everything here CAN happen in real life! Remember the story of Starman Jones! By the time you grow up this story could be true, and you might be the Starman of this future real adventure!

Starman Jones: A Relativity Birthday Present

“The three of us sure can have a lot of fun together when you’re a bit older, Billy,” Starman Jones said as he looked at Baby Billy, gurgling in his crib.

Spacepup looked up from his nap at the word “Billy.” Ever since Baby Billy had joined the Jones household Spacepup had been excited. He could hardly wait for Baby Billy to grow big enough for them to be playmates. He wagged his tail lazily.

Then Spacepup got to his feet, went over to his toy box in the corner, and picked up his yellow tennis ball. He walked over to Starman Jones with the ball in his mouth.

“Woof!” he said as he pushed the yellow ball through the bars into Baby Billy’s crib. But Baby Billy was still too young to play ball with Spacepup. So Spacepup just sat there wagging his tail, wondering how long it would take for Baby Billy to grow big enough to play ball with him.

Starman Jones glanced down at the thump-thump-thumping by his feet. Spacepup was his constant companion during his trips from star to star. Spacepup’s short, yellow hair made it easy to keep him clean on those long, long voyages.

Starman Jones looked down at Baby Billy again, and then walked over to his desk.

“Wouldn’t it be fun,” he asked Spacepup, “if Baby Billy were about nine or so? Then he could go with us on our trips from star to star.”

Starman Jones turned on his computer and tapped a few keys. Then he looked up with a grin.

“There may be something we can do, Spacepup, old boy. Grab your space leash, and let’s hit the Milky Way.”

In the few minutes it took Spacepup to stretch and pull his space-leash from the hook in the hallway, Starman Jones had packed all his paperwork into an airtight case and placed it by the door. It was time for another adventure.