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"The first thing that's wrong with being a science-fiction writer today is that the present has caught up with the future and surpassed it."
- Peter Watts
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| Langston Field | ||
| A protective energy shield. |
A great defensive weapon. It felt very cold if you encountered it with some part of your body, since the very motion of the molecules would be slowed.
| The Langston Field absorbed energy; that was its basic function. It absorbed even the kinetic energy of expanding gas or radiation particles, with an efficiency proportional to the cube of the incoming velocities. In battle, the hellish fury of hydrogen torpedoes, and the concentrated photon energies of lasers, would strike the Field and be dispersed, absorbed, contained. As the energy levels increased, the Field would begin to glow, its absolute black becoming red, orange, yellow, climbing up the spectrum toward the violet. |
| From The Mote in God's Eye,
by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle). Published by Simon & Schuster in 1974 Additional resources -
|
Since the energy field tended to form in a circle around the generator, cities that protected themselves with Langston Fields were circular.
The Langston field is based on energy fields in E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series from the 1940's.
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'A worker replaced by a nubot... had to be compensated.'
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to regrow his lost fingers.'
'The car surged and lifted, clearing its top by a negligible margin.'
Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too.
'I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.'
'Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? - any work a human being does around a house.'
SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century.
