Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it."
- Robert Heinlein
 |
| Space Warp | ||
| The very fabric of space-time. |
This is probably the first use of the term, which will eventually bring phrases like "warp drive" into common usage.
| The oligarchs of Yorrick had builded well to protect themselves and their millions of subjects from outside attacks. Against the warped, folded space that inclosed the three levels of the city, powered as it was by the gravitation-flow machines, the most modern offense was impotent. No weapon conceived by man could break through.
...The space-warp made an impregnable defense against the assortment of city-states which dotted the American continent. |
| Technovelgy from Redmask of the Outlands,
by Nat Schachner. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1934 Additional resources -
|
This term is probably taken from weaving, referring to the "fabric" of spacetime. In weaving cloth, the warp is the set of lengthwise yarns held in tension on the loom. The yarn that is inserted over-and-under the warp threads is called the weft. Warp means "that which is thrown across" .
Jack Williamson was another early user of this phrase; this is from his 1936 classic The Cometeers:
I should probably mention an earlier use of "warp", although it doesn't appear to refer to the "fabric" of space-time, but rather to a distortion of some kind. This is from a footnote to a Schachner and Zagat story - In 20,000 A.D.!:
Through this warp he had been thrown clear out of our three dimensions into a fourth dimension. There he slid in time over the other side of the ridge or pucker, into the same spot in the three-dimensional world, but into a different era in time. Notice that he had not traveled an inch in space; all his journeying had been purely in time.
Compare to warp drive by Robert Williams in The Tides of Time.
Every atom of ship load and crew was deflected infinitesimally from the space-time continuum of four dimensions, and thus freed of the ordinary limitations of acceleration and velocity, was driven around space, rather than through it, by a direct reaction against the space warp itself.
Jenkins had evidently fallen into a warp in space. The Vanishing Wood was a pucker — a fault, we might say, borrowing a geologic term — in the curvature of space.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Redmask of the Outlands
More Ideas
and Technology by Nat Schachner
Tech news articles related to Redmask of the Outlands
Tech news articles related to works by Nat Schachner
Space Warp-related
news articles:
- What Price Warp Drive?
| Is China Mining Helium-3 On The Moon's Farside? |
| Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space |
| Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic |
| Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'...small electric motors at the principal joints worked the prosthetic framework by means of steel cables...'
'Living protoplasm incorporated into the Ampek F-a2 recording system...'
'Twoflower's Luggage, which was currently ambling along on its little legs...'
'He came to as the ship went into free flight, arching in a high parabola over the plains...'
'The peculiar quality of this light, which gave it its great preeminence over all other penetrating rays...'
'The overworked leg motor would have to cool down before he could work on it...'
‘Where to, sport?’ the starter at cab relay asked.
