Return to Answer

It's most likely Ross Rocklynne's "The Men and the Mirror", a classic problem story. One reviewer says

Colbie and Deverel land on a planet whose entire top has been scooped out and polished into a mirror, hundreds of miles across, and somehow fall into it.... The problem here is how to get out again, given that they are on an almost frictionless concave surface.

(longer summary here).

If the book was a hardcover, you read it in Isaac Asimov's Before the Golden Age (US, UK). If it was a paperback, probably Before the Golden Age, book 3 (UK: volume 4 at first, volume 3 in later printings ). Or in Rocklynne's collection, The Men and the Mirror. Do these covers look familiar?

It's most likely Ross Rocklynne's "The Men and the Mirror", a classic problem story. One reviewer says

Colbie and Deverel land on a planet whose entire top has been scooped out and polished into a mirror, hundreds of miles across, and somehow fall into it.... The problem here is how to get out again, given that they are on an almost frictionless concave surface.

(longer summary here).

If the book was a hardcover, you read it in Isaac Asimov's Before the Golden Age (US, UK). If it was a paperback, probably Before the Golden Age, book 3 (UK: volume 4 at first, volume 3 in later printings ). Or in Rocklynne's collection, The Men and the Mirror. Do these covers look familiar?

It's most likely Ross Rocklynne's "The Men and the Mirror", a classic problem story. One reviewer says

Colbie and Deverel land on a planet whose entire top has been scooped out and polished into a mirror, hundreds of miles across, and somehow fall into it.... The problem here is how to get out again, given that they are on an almost frictionless concave surface.

(longer summary here).

If the book was a hardcover, you read it in Isaac Asimov's Before the Golden Age (US, UK). If it was a paperback, probably Before the Golden Age, book 3 (UK: book 4). Or in Rocklynne's collection, The Men and the Mirror. Do these covers look familiar?

It's most likely Ross Rocklynne's "The Men and the Mirror", a classic problem story. One reviewer says

Colbie and Deverel land on a planet whose entire top has been scooped out and polished into a mirror, hundreds of miles across, and somehow fall into it.... The problem here is how to get out again, given that they are on an almost frictionless concave surface.

(longer summary here).

If the book was a hardcover, you read it in Isaac Asimov's Before the Golden Age (US, UK). If it was a paperback, probably Before the Golden Age, book 3 (UK: volume 4 at first, volume 3 in later printings ). Or in Rocklynne's collection, The Men and the Mirror. Do these covers look familiar?

It's most likely Ross Rocklynne's "The Men and the Mirror", a classic problem story. One reviewer says

Colbie and Deverel land on a planet whose entire top has been scooped out and polished into a mirror, hundreds of miles across, and somehow fall into it.... The problem here is how to get out again, given that they are on an almost frictionless concave surface.

If the book was a hardcover, you read it in Isaac Asimov's Before the Golden Age (US, (UK). If it was a paperback, probably Before the Golden Age, book 3 (UK: book 4). Or in Rocklynne's collection, The Men and the Mirror. Do these covers look familiar?

It's most likely Ross Rocklynne's "The Men and the Mirror", a classic problem story. One reviewer says

Colbie and Deverel land on a planet whose entire top has been scooped out and polished into a mirror, hundreds of miles across, and somehow fall into it.... The problem here is how to get out again, given that they are on an almost frictionless concave surface.

(longer summary here).

If the book was a hardcover, you read it in Isaac Asimov's Before the Golden Age (US, UK). If it was a paperback, probably Before the Golden Age, book 3 (UK: book 4). Or in Rocklynne's collection, The Men and the Mirror. Do these covers look familiar?