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"The planet's immune system is doing everything it can. The planet's immune system is doing everything it can."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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| Magnus-Effect Ambulance | ||
| A vehicle that can hover and fly using the Magnus Effect. |
The Magnus Effect is a real phenomenon; as far as I know there are no real-world vehicles that actually use it.
| A bobbing magnus-effect ambulance hovered near one of the massive, blocky tourist hotels, where budget-conscious travelers rented tiny, slotlike units by the cubic meter. The vehicle's spherical gas bag rotated slowly around a horizontal pivot, using small momentum shifts to maneuver delicately near white-suited emergency workers. |
| Technovelgy from Earth,
by David Brin. Published by Bantam in 1990 Additional resources -
|
The Magnus Effect is the generation of a sidewise force on a spinning cylindrical or spherical solid immersed in a fluid (physicists count gas and liquid here) when there is relative motion between the spinning body and the fluid. It was named after the German physicist H.G. Magnus, who first experimentally investigated the effect in 1853. This is why a ping pong ball or tennis ball will curve when hit with "English."
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'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
'Then he became aware of a gentle pressure pushing him away from the ship.'
'And now they wre busily transforming all their companions, and so on, and so on...'
'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
