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"To get anywhere, or even live a long time, a man has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer."
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![]() Michel Arden, fearless French adventurer, appears before the Baltimore Gun Club to address them on various matters. Among them, the idea that the projectile shot from the great Columbiad may be just the beginning of fast spacecraft.
The existence of light pressure was demonstrated as theoretically possible by James Clerk Maxwell in 1873. Confirming laboratory experiments waited until the turn of the century. Walter James Miller, the translator of the 1978 edition, notes that, "Verne is right on top of new developments in physics . . . . James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) has recently discovered that light exerts a pressure on surfaces."
Golden age sf great Edmond Hamilton uses this idea explicitly in his 1929 short story The Comet Doom; see the entry for ship propelled by light pressure. Comment/Join this discussion ( 3 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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