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"The answer to the problem of information overload on the Net is reputations… engineer a system called a reputation server."
- Neal Stephenson
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| Gravity Well | ||
| If you visualize spacetime as a flat, elastic plane, a planet will deform it, and it sits at the bottom of its own hole. |
| He was the pilot and engineer, the only other Terrestrial on Mercury. When you dove this far down into the sun's monstrous gravitational well, you couldn't take a big crew along. |
| Technovelgy from Life Cycle,
by Poul Anderson. Published by Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1957 Additional resources -
|
This expression quickly became a favorite of veteran sf writers; Heinlein, Clarke and Niven used it within a few years. Here's Niven using it as the subject of a short story, At the Bottom of a Hole (1966):
"The hole." Garner knew enough Belters to have learned a little of their
slang.
"The very one. His first instinct must have been to change course.
Belters learn to avoid gravity wells. A man can get killed half a dozen
ways coming too close to a hole. A good autopilot will get him safely
around it, or program an in-and-out spin, or even land him at the bottom,
God forbid. But miners don't carry good autopilots. They carry cheap
autopilots, and they stay clear of holes."
More recently, Charles Stross uses it in Accelerando (2005):
"He must have been on course for Luna when we found him. Ceres was behind
him with the radar. Our ships were ahead of him, matching course at two
gee. His mining ship wouldn't throw more than point five gee, so
eventually they'd pull alongside him no matter what he did. Then he
noticed Mars was just ahead of him."
“Mars is just dumb mass at the bottom of a gravity well; there isn't even a biosphere there.”
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| Can A Human Land A SpaceX Rocket On Its Tail? |
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'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
'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...'
