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"The whole problem of energy sources is going to be solved by little solutions, not by some big new piece of technology that does everything. We got into this crisis by believing that we had one big piece of technology that would do everything (oil)."
- Gregory Benford
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| 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." |
| Technovelgy 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.
Compare to The Poison Belt (1913) by Arthur Conan Doyle.
[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
- Precursor To Life Found In Space Cloud
- Should SETI Talk To Molecular Cloud Barnard 68?
| JAXA Int Ball 2 Coming Right Along As Star Wars Remote |
| Space Traffic Management (STM) Needed Now |
| Denmark Joins The 'Zero Debris Charter' To Clean Up Space |
| Starship Special Edition For Lunar Shuttle |
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
