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"We didn't have a telephone and our family until I was about 15, in high school."
- Ray Bradbury
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| Galactic Damping Field | ||
| A vast field of force emanating from the center of the galaxy. |
| "...we're pretty well agreed here at the Institute that Dr. Corinth's theory is the right one. This postulates a force-field of partly electromagnetic character, generated by gyromagnetic action within atomic nuclei near the center of the galaxy. It radiates outward in a cone which, by the time it has reached our section of space, is many lightyears across. Its effect has been to inhibit certain electromagnetic and electrochemical processes, among with the functioning of certain types of neurones is prominent. We suppose that the Solar System, in its orbit around the galactic center, entered this force-field many millions of years ago - hardly later than the Cretaceous. Doubtless many species of that time died out. However, life as a whole survived - adapted nervous systems compensated for the inhibiting force by becoming that much more efficient... The general effect of the world's coming out of the inhibitor field was, of course, a sudden zooming of intelligence in every life form possessing a brain. Suddenly the damping force to which every living organism was adjusted, was gone." |
| Technovelgy from Brain Wave,
by Poul Anderson. Published by Space Science Fiction in 1953 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the poison space cloud from The Poison Belt (1913) by Jules Verne and the more modestly-sized meteoric dust cloud from Secret of the Buried City (1939) by John Russell Fearn.
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Tech news articles related to Brain Wave
Tech news articles related to works by Poul Anderson
Galactic Damping Field-related
news articles:
- Speciation Driven By Cosmic Cycles?
- Vast Cosmic Structures And Spooky Alignments
- Space Weather To Universe Weather
| JWST Finds Bucking Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 |
| First Trips To Mars Announced By Elon Musk |
| Lava Tubes On Moon And Mars |
| SpaceX EVA Spacesuit Tested By Polaris Dawn Crew |
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'... the expressionless face before me was therefore that of the golem-wrestler, Rolem, a creature that could be set for five times the strength of a human being.'
'Waldo put his arms into the primary pair before him; all three pairs, including the secondary pair mounted before the machine, came to life.'
'... the glittering little rocket bolted to the black iron behind him.'
'The slender stalks of a sunshade-photocell collector...'
'The operation that had transformed half his body... had located the control switchboard in his teeth.'
