Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"I share the view of Pythagoras that the world is number. The ultimate substrate of the universe is math. There's no way to test that - it's pure metaphysical speculation."
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Womb Room | ||
| The ultimate ship's bridge. |
What does the bridge, the room in a space ship where the captain, navigator and other officers command the ship, look like in the far future? You've seen many efforts to answer this question; everyone remembers the original Star Trek bridge. Larry Niven has his own answer; it looks like whatever you want.
| The control room was a hollow sphere with a remarkable chair in the exact center, surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped bank of controls, and approached via a catwalk of metal lace. The chair would assume a fantastic variety of positions, and it gave indecently good massages. The spherical wall could disappear to display the black sky as if Corbell and the control bank floated alone in space. It would display textbooks on astronomy or astrophysics or State history, or updated diagrams of the ship. Corbell called it the Womb Room. |
| From A World Out of Time,
by Larry Niven. Published by Random House in 1976 Additional resources -
|
The only problem with scrolling astronomical texts across your view screen is that you might inadvertently obscure something important. Imagine your embarassment if you were trying to read up on "meteors" - only to run into one!
Comment/Join this discussion ( 1 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from A World Out of Time
More Ideas
and Technology by Larry Niven
Tech news articles related to A World Out of Time
Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven
| Bosch Smartglasses Laser Paints AR Image On Your Retina |
| A New Way To Run Into Things |
| Unfurl The Future! Huawei Mate X versus Galaxy Fold |
| North Focals Smart Glasses Provide Augmented Reality In Style |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'Reading science fiction and fantasy can help readers make sense of the world.'
'Instantly there appeared standing upon the disk, the image of a man...'
'Your order said for him to be able to be able to work out twists on the gags in the file...'
'So we took pictures of Guzub making a Three Planets, and I could construct this one to do it exactly right down to the thousandth of a second.'
'On the screen they passed in an endless, boundaryless flood of green specks...'
'It drew its power from six square yards of sunpower screens on its low curved roof.'
'He adjusted the n, the r and b knobs, and hopefully anticipated a turn for the better...'
'... stewing warm on their cushion of peritoneum and gorged with blood-surrogate and hormones, the foetuses grew and grew...'
'INVESTIGATE MYSTERIOUS OBJECT ENTERING NEW CALEDONIA SYSTEM FROM NORMAL SPACE'
'The robot cab seemed to know where it was going and, no doubt, the master machine from which it received its signals knew.'
