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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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| Reflected Artificial Sun | ||
| Sending light to another planet via mirror. |
One of the earliest uses of this idea in science fiction - but not in science, see below.
| The artificial sun was reflected to Inferno by means of the huge parabolic mirrors of the super-power station in the Rockies. But the relative positions of the luminary, of Earth, and of Inferno had to be calculated to” a nicety.
And, according to Mackay, in spite of the most ingenious reflecting devices, there must be a period of one hour during which the intervention of Jupiter threw the artificial sun into eclipse. That period was now due, and Mackay had calculated it by means of a wrist-chronometer stolen from the station by a slave, who had later been expelled. The three were to approach as near as possible to the station, then to await the onset of the eclipse; in the darkness, to make an attempt to scale the fence. |
| Technovelgy from Revolt on Inferno,
by Victor Rousseau. Published by Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
In 1923, German physicist Hermann Oberth described space mirrors with a diameter of 100 to 300 km in his book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen, consisting of a grid network of individually adjustable mirrors. Space mirrors in orbit around the Earth are intended to focus sunlight on individual regions of the earth's surface.
Compare to the electrono-mirror from The Day We Celebrate (1941) by Nelson S. Bond.
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Tech news articles related to Revolt on Inferno
Tech news articles related to works by Victor Rousseau
| Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars |
| Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris |
| Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand |
| Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space |
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'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
