 he inspiration
for this puzzle was The
Strange Story of the SS Warrimoo, an
anecdote that took place on New Years Eve in 1899 during the voyage
of a passenger steamer across the Pacific Ocean from Vancouver to Australia. The captain of the SS Warrimoo intentionally diverted course toward the south-east and adjusted speed so as to reach the position depicted in the sketch precisely at midnight...  Quoting from the reference cited above... The consequences of this bizarre position were many. The forward part of the ship was in the Southern Hemisphere and the middle of summer. The stern was in the Northern Hemisphere and in the middle of winter. The date in the aft part of the ship was 31 December 1899. Forward it was 1 January 1900.  ith apologies to astrophysicists
of the world, we have appropriated in our title the
expression space-time
singularity for informal use in examining the
claims that appear in the anecdote's conclusion, as
summarized in this table...
Category 3 pertains only to time as measured by time pieces independent of their locations in space; presumably the chronometers on board Warrimoo were synchronized throughout the vessel, so they were also incapable of defining a singularity. Categories 4 through 8 all pertain to both time and space in compliance with the International Date Line; accordingly, their entries in the table, taken together, defined the singularity, which is described as "this bizarre position" in the anecdote.  xactly one century later,
there was an opportunity for a commemorative voyage to
create a new Space-Time
Singularity. Not aboard the Warrimoo,
however (she sank in 1918). Over-flight by jet
would have been most convenient, of course.
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