![]() |
Science Fiction
Dictionary Latest By
"...the people dealing with these new technologies will still be derived from the human stock we're familiar with today."
|
![]() |
![]()
I'd also like to point out that the story makes use of the blink comparator, which uses two photographs of the same star field to let you quickly compare one to the other; the cover picture provides a glimpse of this device.
![]() (The Blink-Microscope used in 'Pi in the Sky')
A blink-mike provides accommodation for two photographic plates taken of the same section of sky, but at different times. These plates are carefully juxtaposed and the operator may alternately focus his vision, through the eyepiece, first upon one and then upon the other, by means of a shutter. If the plates are identical, the operation of the shutter reveals nothing, but if one of the dots on the second plate differs from the position it occupied on the first, it will call attention to itself by seeming to jump back and forth as the shutter is manipulated. Compare this to the actual device used to discover Pluto. It was invented in 1904 by physicist Carl Pulfrich at Carl Zeiss AG.
![]() (The Blink Comnparator used to find Pluto)
The photographic plates Tombaugh was comparing with this machine were 36 x 43 centimeters (14 x 17 inches), and were long exposures taken with a telescopic camera that sported a powerful 33-centimeter (13-inch) diameter lens. Tombaugh took exposures at night, covering areas of the sky where Percival Lowell had predicted years earlier that a planet must be lurking. He then developed those plates, and during the day compared them, spending weeks and months searching vast depths of space looking for something moving among the thousands of stars exposed on those plates. In February 1930, finally, he found something that he could not explain away as a nearby asteroid or some other form of space debris. It moved too slowly to be an asteroid. If it was a planet, it was farther than Neptune, just as Lowell predicted.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
resources:
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
|
![]() |
Science Fiction
Timeline
LLM 'Cognitive Core' Now Evolving
'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
Bacteria Turns Plastic Into Pain Relief? That Gives Me An Idea.
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
When Your Child's Best Friend Is An AI
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
China's Drone Mothership Can Carry 100 Drones
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
Drones Recharge In Mid-Air Like Jets Refuel!
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
Australian Authors Reject AI Training Of Llama
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
Is China Mining Helium-3 On The Moon's Farside?
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
Maybe It's Too Soon To Require Autonomous Mode
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness?
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
|
![]() |
![]() |
Home | Glossary
| Science Fiction Timeline | Category | New | Contact
Us | FAQ | Advertise | ![]() Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™ Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved. |
![]() |