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"One can see the free software movement as a precusor for a "free hardware" or "free wetware" movement--one that will provide free libraries of designs for biological or nanotechnological products that replicators can be programmed to churn out."
- Charles Stross
 |
| Normal Space | ||
| As opposed to hyperspace. |
As far as I know, this is the first use of this phrase, at least in science fiction.
| "You go into hyperspace and move at any speed you please. But how will you see where you're going?"
"We won't, as far as I know. I don't expect to see a thing while we're in that hyperspace. We'll simply aim the ship in the direction we want to go and then go into hyperspace. The only thing we have to avoid is stars; their gravitational fields would drain the energy out of the apparatus and we'd end up in the center of a white-hot star. Meteors and such, we don't have to worry about; their fields aren't strong enough to drain the coils, and since we won't be in normal space, we can't hit them. |
| From Islands of Space,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Amazing Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
In a way, this term is similar to phrases like groundcar or flat photo or static house or inert-wear. It comes back from science fiction to refer to something in our ordinary experience.
Compare to hyper-space from The Invisible Bubble (1928), by Kirk Mead.
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