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"In science fiction one can say a great many things that are unpalatable, … because it's expressed as science fiction you can slip it past their defenses."
- Frederik Pohl

Weightlessness (Kepler)  
  The notion that there could be a location with zero effective gravity.  

If Somnium is the first science fiction book (which many people argue is true), then this is probably the first reference to the idea of zero gravity, or weightlessness.

"...for, as magnetic forces of the earth and moon both attract the body and hold it suspended, the effect is as if neither of them were attracting it..."
Technovelgy from Somnium (The Dream), by Johannes Kepler.
Published by Not Known in 1634
Additional resources -

Note that the word "gravity" is not used to describe the attraction between masses; Isaac Newton did not describe universal gravitation until 1687.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Somnium (The Dream)
  More Ideas and Technology by Johannes Kepler
  Tech news articles related to Somnium (The Dream)
  Tech news articles related to works by Johannes Kepler

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