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"What has allowed so many Psychopathic Personalities to rise so high in corporations and government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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| Microwire | ||
| A very thin wire used for recording purposes. |
In the novel, a ring is used to conceal a short length of wire that has one-half of a message recorded on it. On it are recorded plans for force fields and space drives.
| Slowly, tenderly, the wire was cleaned and uncoiled. More than an hour later the tiny hands of the micromanipulator stretched out their prize - four feet of steel wire so gossamer fine that it could not be seen at all by naked eye, even by a dragon. [The two wires] were fed into two ordinary microwave speakers, rigged in parallel... The steel spider threads started very slowly through - and a high-pitched gabbling came out of the horn... "Not in synch," announced Mr. Costello. "Rewind." ...Shortly, a human voice came out of the loudspeaker horn... "Title," the voice said. "Some Practical Notes On The Horst-Milne Equations... |
| Technovelgy from Between Planets,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1951 Additional resources -
|
The recording also carried facsimile data to provide helpful diagrams. The novel does not detail how this is accomplished; however, one of the characters notes that it is theoretically possible for matter itself to carry information, one bit per molecule, making it possible to put the Encyclopedia Britannica on the head of a pin.
Read the discussion for Frank Herbert's shigawire to read a bit about real-life wire recorders, on which microwire is clearly based.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Between Planets
More Ideas
and Technology by Robert Heinlein
Tech news articles related to Between Planets
Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein
Microwire -related
news articles:
- Microwire Data Storage
| Project Silica Offers 'Long-Term' Digital Storage |
| Lonestar Offers Lunar Storage For Ultimate In Security |
| 100X Improvement In DNA Information Storage |
| Twist Bioscience High Density Digital Data On DNA |
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'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
