chemistry

The Talking Stone

The Talking Stone is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Talking Stone rather than just read about it. In short: "The Talking Stone" is a science fiction mystery short story by American writer Isaac Asimov which first appeared in the October 1955 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and was reprinted in the 1968 collection Asimov's Mysteries. "The Talking Stone" was the second of Asimov's Wendell Urth stories. Plot summary Larry Verdansky, a repair technician assigned alone on Station Five, is interested in "si…

Key takeaways

The Talking Stone belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Talking Stone to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Talking Stone from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

"The Talking Stone" is a science fiction mystery short story by American writer Isaac Asimov which first appeared in the October 1955 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and was reprinted in the 1968 collection Asimov's Mysteries. "The Talking Stone" was the second of Asimov's Wendell Urth stories.

Plot summary Larry Verdansky, a repair technician assigned alone on Station Five, is interested in "siliconies", the silicon-based life forms found on some asteroids. The creatures typically grow to a maximum size of 2 inches (5 cm) by absorbing gamma rays from radioactive ores. Some are telepathic. When the space freighter Robert Q appears at the station with a giant of a "silicony" 1 foot (30 cm) in diameter, Verdansky deduces that the crew has found an incredibly rich source of uranium. Verdansky contacts the authorities, but before a patrol ship can reach her, the Robert Q is hit by a meteor, killing the three human crew members. The silicony itself is fatally injured from the explosive decompression. When questioned, the dying silicony states that the coordinates of its home are written on "the asteroid". Dr. Wendell Urth deduces that the silicony meant that the numbers were actually engraved on the hull of the Robert Q, disguised as serial and registration numbers, since the ship fit the definition of an asteroid (a small body orbiting the Sun) the ship's crew had read to it from an ancient astronomy book.

Reception Asimov received fan mail, some of which criticized him "for allowing it [the silicony] to die in so cold-blooded a fashion". He conceded, "I showed a lack of sensitivity to the silicony's rather pathetic death because I was concentrating on his mysterious last words."

References

External links The Talking Stone title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Talking Stone

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Talking Stone claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Talking Stone before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Talking Stone ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Talking Stone

In research: The Talking Stone appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Talking Stone in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Talking Stone is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1950s short story stubs, 1955 English-language short stories, 1955 short stories, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Talking Stone outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Talking Stone in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Talking Stone means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Talking Stone out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Talking Stone in simple terms?

Why does The Talking Stone matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Talking Stone?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Talking Stone.