pre 1978, High gravity world, beings have short life cycle,..?

[chipcity]

Can't remember title. Space ship goes to another planet, stays in orbit. Planet has very high gravity. Life on planet is very small due to H gravity, and has very short (by human perspective) life span, so many generations happen over the human time of just hours or days. Aliens advance from "primitive" to "beyond human intelegence" in the short time the humans are in orbit. Communications from the space ship to the planet seem to take many generations to arrive from alien's perspective, which is only minutes or hours in human time. Alien communication comes in ultra high frequency compressed super short burst, which humans must figure out and respond in kind.
Read this back in about 1978. Anyone know a title?

 

[iansales]

Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement.

 

[chrispenycate]

Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement.

Except that the Mesklinites were not short lived; Barlennan went on another voyage of discovery in "Starlight". It would obviously have been Robert L. Forward's "Dragon's egg/Starquake" duology, as the Cheela live at nuclear interaction speeds, and go throug a generation in minutes; but the first one only came out in 1980.

 

[Pyan]

Or if you could be a couple of years out in your remembrance, it sounds very like Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward, first published in 1980.

(Edit: Must learn to type faster! What Chrispenycate said...)

 

[iansales]

I thought it might be Dragon's Egg, but discounted it because of the year.

 

[chipcity]

Hey, Thanks for all the speedy replies!

Yes, I must have been off a couple years. I'm sure it was Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward. Thanks again everyone. Read it so long ago, but remembered it as an oustandingly interesting Sci-Fi book.