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"We were essentially being shell-shocked by rapid change. That was one of the things you needed science-fiction writers for back in the Sixties, because we could cope with the future."
- Peter Watts
 |
| Pseudogravity | ||
| Gravity produced by artifice, rather than by a suitably large mass. |
This term was typically used to describe the "gravity" created in a spinning orbital habitat; later, it was extended to other types of artificial gravity.
| Bobo trotted away in the long loping strides permitted by the low pseudogravity near the axis of rotation of the Ship. |
| From Common Sense,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1941 Additional resources -
|
Heinlein uses this idea again in his description of Wheelchair, the orbital home of Waldo F. Jones in the 1942 novella Waldo:
Waldo F. Jones seemed to be floating in thin air at the center of a spherical room. The appearance was caused by the fact that he was indeed floating in air. His house lay in a free orbit, with a period of just over twenty-four hours. No spin had been impressed on his home; the pseudo gravity of centrifugal force was the thing he wanted least. He had left Earth to get away from its gravitational field; he had not been down to the surface once in the seventeen years since his house was built and towed into her orbit; he never intended to do so for any purpose whatsoever.
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'Merton... placed the electrodes of the sleep-inducer on his forehead.'
'... we can descend and live down there at one of those year-round aquatic resorts.'
'...she would have to be coaxed by another series of pats into a circular orbit.'
'The sleek, tapered space shuttle lay immobile upon the private landing field...'
Yes, people of the future, robots will dress you.
