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"...a market economy is essentially a genetic algorithm for solving resource allocation problems..."
- Charles Stross
 |
| Space-Strain Battery | ||
| Storing energy in space itself. |
More of Campbell's ingenuity.
| “Morey has a new system, and he applied it with amazing results. We have discovered a means for giving any one of the twenty coefficients of space any value we want.
“To do this, we are straining space out of its normal condition, and the usual condition of such strain creeps up. We have to use energy to do it, and in thus straining space, we are storing energy in it. Of course, we have stored energy as space strain for hundreds of years, the induction coil, the condenser and gravity all represent energy stored in space as a strain. The more we follow this mathematical discussion, the more it seems that all energy in the universe is but strain in space: that is, there is no matter, merely energy strain, in space: that there is energy only because space is strained there. “But, be that as it may, we have a new means of storing energy, and that is more to our point, the means so affects space, that it changes the speed of light, changes the limiting speed of the universe. We can go as fast as we want, for the limit, about us, is changed, by our curving space in a new way. “The system is fairly obvious. Remember a torusshaped induction coil encloses all its magnetic field within it, the torus, or ‘doughnut’ coil, has a perfectly enclosed magnetic field. |
| Technovelgy from Islands of Space,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Amazing Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the solid power from Revolt on the Tenth World (1940) by Edmond Hamilton, the shipstone from Robert Heinlein's 1982 novel Friday, and the kink springs from The Calorie Man (2005), by Paolo Bacigalupi.
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More Ideas
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Tech news articles related to works by John W. Campbell
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'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...'
'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
'From a distance it could resolve the cosmic rays reflected from various substances.'
'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
