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"The trouble with too much genre SF is that it's so obviously the product of the conscious mind."
- William Gibson
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| Straightening the Earth's Poles | ||
| By means of a suitable force, push the Earth until the planet's axis of rotation is perpendicular to the ecliptic. |
The climate of the Earth would be much more regular, without seasons, if only the planet's axis of rotation was not angled at 23.4 degrees to the plane of the planet's orbit around the sun (Earth's axial tilt). As far as I know, this is the earliest use of this idea in science fiction.
| The operation which is being tried by President Barbicane and Capt. Nicholl is as follows:
The production of a recoil, on the 22d of September, at midnight, by means of a cannon a million times larger in volume than the cannon of twenty-seven centimetres, throwing a projectile of 180,000 tons, with a powder giving it a velocity of 2,800 kilometres. Now, if this shooting takes place below the equatorial line, nearly on the thirty-fourth degree of latitude west of the meridian of Paris, at the foot of Kilimanjaro, and if it is directed towards the south, these are the mechanical effects which it will have on the earth’s sphere: Instantly, in consequence of the shock acting with the daily movement a new axis will be formed and, as the old axis will be displaced to the amount of twenty-three degrees and twenty-eight minutes, according to the figures obtained by J.T. Maston, the new axis will be perpendicular to the direction of the ecliptic. |
| Technovelgy from The Purchase of the North Pole (Topsy Turvy),
by Jules Verne. Published by Pierre-Jules Hetzel in 1889 Additional resources -
|
Thanks to Yossi Preminger for pointing this out.
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Straightening the Earth's Poles-related
news articles:
- Arctic Resource Jackpot An Old Wish
| 'Whisper Mode' ala Blue Thunder Researched At Bristol |
| Moonwalkers AI-Controlled Electric Shoes |
| Electric Catamaran 'Explorer Eco 40m' Has 'Solar Skin' |
| Harvest Power From Tears And Blinking With Smart Contact Lens |
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'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
