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"I'm very taken by mythology. I read it at a very early age and kept on reading it. Before I discovered science fiction I was reading mythology."
- Roger Zelazny
 |
| Magnetic Control of Nebulae | ||
| Controlling the structure and shape of nebulae using magnetic fields. |
This is one of those big picture concepts; in the novel, an enormous space cloud - a nebula - is seen coming toward the solar system.
| "I imagine that the beast orders the material of the cloud magnetically, that by means of magnetic fields he can move materials wherever he wants inside the cloud." |
| From The Black Cloud,
by Fred Hoyle. Published by Harper and Row in 1957 Additional resources -
|
Here's a quote from the cloud:
[Y]our very largest animals have been mostly bone and muscle with very little brain... By and large, one only expects intelligent life to exist in a diffuse gaseous medium... The second unfavourable factor is your extreme lack of basic chemical foods. For the building of chemical foods on a large scale starlight is necessary. Your planet, however, absorbs only a very minute fraction of the light from the Sun. At the moment, I myself am building basic chemicals at about 10,000,000,000 times the rate at which building is occurring on the whole ... surface of your planet.
Be sure to read about the recent discovery of magnetic fields in planetary nebulae.
[I]t is most unusual to find animals with technical skills inhabiting planets, which are in the nature of extreme outposts of life... Living on the surface of a solid body, you are exposed to a strong gravitational force. This greatly limits the size to which your animals can grow and hence limits the scope of your neurological activity. It forces you to possess muscular structures to promote movements, and ... to carry protective armour ...
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Black Cloud
More Ideas
and Technology by Fred Hoyle
Tech news articles related to The Black Cloud
Tech news articles related to works by Fred Hoyle
Magnetic Control of Nebulae-related
news articles:
- Magnetic Fields Found To Shape Planetary Nebulae
- We Live In A Space Cloud
- Precursor To Life Found In Space Cloud
- Should SETI Talk To Molecular Cloud Barnard 68?
| Comercial Airlock 'Bishop' Now On ISS |
| Space Station Could Use Some Martian Sawgrass |
| Arches Of Chaos: Jovian Space Manifolds Create A Celestial Autobahn |
| ESA Space Claw To Grab Space Junk |
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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.
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Okay, sf fans. If you could have some art created from a science fiction sentence, what sentence would you pick?
'There were the cleaners, with large padded feet, who were apparently polishing their way the whole length...'
It's fascinating to me how the Apollo program forced people to think outside their usual boxes.
'Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures, like excavators or centipedes.'
'the hair-fine wire going deep into Owen's brain, down into the pleasure center.'
'There was a dim whirring, and the spheres tipped and began to rotate...'
'The houses are prefabricated units... and they sell at the flat rate of five hundred dollars a room — set up.'
