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"I love that computer science has made mathematics into something like an experimental science. I was never all that good at proving things, but I love doing computer experiments."
- Rudy Rucker
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| Weightlessness in Space | ||
| This appears to be the first description of the idea of weightlessness in space. |
In 1638, Bishop Francis Godwin published a story in which strange birds called Gansas migrated annually to the moon. In this passage, his protagonist hitches a ride.
| It was now the season that these Birds were wont to take their flight away, as our Cuckoes and swallowes doe in Spaine towards the Autumne. They (as after I perceived) mindfull of their usuall voyage, even as I began to settle my selfe for the taking of them in, as it were with one consent, rose up, and having no other place higher to make toward, to my unspeakeable feare and amazement strooke bolt upright, and never did linne towring upward, and still upward, for the space, as I might guesse, of one whole hower, toward the end of which time, mee thought I might perceive them to labour lesse and lesse; till at length, O incredible thing, they forbare moving any thing at all and yet remained unmoveable, as steadfastly, as if they had beene upon so many perches; the Lines slacked; neither I, nor the Engine moved at all, but abode still as having no manner of weight.
I found then by this Experience that which no Philosopher ever dreamed of, to wit, that those things which wee call heavie, do not sinke toward the Center of the Earth, as their naturall place, but as drawen by a secret property of the Globe of the Earth, or rather some thing within the same, in like sort as the Loadstone draweth Iron, being within the compass of the beames attractive. |
| Technovelgy from The Man in the Moone,
by Francis Godwin. Published by Unknown in 1638 Additional resources -
|
Here is a brief description of part of the trip made with Gansas:
During the 19th century, Jules Verne probably influenced more people with his description of weightlessness, in his novel From The Earth To The Moon.
Not many howers after the departure of that divelish company from me, my
Gansa's began to bestir themselves, still directing their course toward the
Globe or body of the Moone: And they made their way with that incredible
swiftnesse, as I thinke they gained not so little as Fifty Leagues in every
hower. In that passage I noted three things very remarkeable: one that the further we
went, the lesser the Globe of the Earth appeared unto us; whereas still on the contrary
side the MOONE shewed her selfe more and more monstrously huge.
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'BY PUSHING AGAINST THE LITTLE MARTIAN MOON WITH OUR ROCKET SHIP, WE HAD LESSENED THE CENTRIFUGAL SPEED THAT HELD IT BALANCED IN THE SKY.'
'... he had tightened the chest to gain maximum pumping action from the motion of breathing.'
'...a prayer wheel swung into view and began spinning at a furious pace.'
'And are all the people willing to be governed by a machine?'
