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"I identify with the weak person; this is one reason why my fictional protagonists are essentially antiheroes."
- Philip K. Dick
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| Faster-Than-Light | ||
| Describes something that exceeds the usual speed limit on physical objects of 186,282 miles per second in vacuum. |
This is the first use of the phrase in science fiction; as far as I know, it is the first use of this phrase to describe the movement of a real object.
| As Earth's faster-than-light spaceship hung in the void between galaxies, Arcot, Wade, Morey and Fuller could see below them, like a vast shining horizon, the mass of stars that formed their own island universe. Morey worked a moment with his slide rule, then said, "We made good time! Twenty-nine light years in ten seconds! Yet you had it on at only half power...."
Arcot pushed the control lever all the way to full power. The ship filled with the strain of flowing energy, and sparks snapped in the air of the control room as they raced at an inconceivable speed through the darkness of intergalactic space. |
| Technovelgy from Islands of Space,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Amazing Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
In his 1928 novel Skylark of Space, 'Doc Smith describes a ship that exceeds the speed of light, but does not use the phrase "faster-than-light":
On the other hand, in his 1936 story Reverse Universe, Nat Schachner describes the scientific limits:
Compare to FTL from The Enchanted Forest (1950) by Fritz Leiber, which is the first use of the acronym.
For forty-eight hours the uncontrolled atomic motor dragged the masterless vessel with its four unconscious passengers through the illimitable reaches of empty space, with an awful and constantly increasing velocity. When only a few traces of copper remained in the power-plant, the acceleration began to decrease and the powerful springs began to restore the floor and the seats to their normal positions. The last particle of copper having been transformed into energy, the speed of the vessel became constant. Apparently motionless to those inside it, it was in reality traversing space with a velocity thousands of times greater than that of light.
THE VELOCIMETER moved slowly over the dial. One hundred and fifty-nine thousand, one sixty, one sixty-one, one hundred and sixty-two thousand miles per second. And there it held, in spite of the reckless pumping of fuel, in spite of Talbot’s utmost skill in navigation. Lorentz’s theorem held good ! At extremely high velocities the inertial mass approaches the infinite so rapidly that not all the thrusting power in the world can compensate for it. And Talbot knew it.
Somberly he turned to Apperson. “You see,” he said, “the thing is impossible. We cannot fight the laws of nature.”
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Islands of Space
More Ideas
and Technology by John W. Campbell
Tech news articles related to Islands of Space
Tech news articles related to works by John W. Campbell
Faster-Than-Light-related
news articles:
- NASA's Warp Speed Starship Design
| Will Space Stations Have Large Interior Spaces Again? |
| Reflect Orbital Offers 'Sunlight on Demand' And Light Pollution |
| Chrysalis Generation Ship to Alpha Centauri |
| The First Space Warship For Space Force |
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'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.'
'Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray...'
'The German chemists have discovered how to supply the needed elements in compact, undiluted form...'
'Compounds devised by the biochemists for the rapid building of bone...'
'The car faltered as the external command came to brake...'
'It is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized...'
