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"We follow the scientists around and look over their shoulders. They're watching their feet: provable mistakes are bad for them. We're looking as far ahead as we can, and we don't get penalized for mistakes."
- Larry Niven
 |
| Collapsar Jump | ||
| Travel between collapsed stars in no time at all. |
| Twelve years before, when I was ten years old, they had discovered the collapsar jump. Just fling an object at a collapsar with sufficient speed, and it pops out in some other part of the galaxy. It didn't take long to figure out the formula that predicted where it would come out: it travels along the same "line" (actually an Einstein geodesic) it would have followed if the collapsar hadn't been in the way - until it reaches another collapsar field, whereupon it reappears, repelled with the same speed at which it approached the original collapsar. Travel time between the two collapsars ... exactly zero. |
| From The Forever War,
by Joe Haldeman. Published by Not Known in 1974 Additional resources -
|
Compare to jump point from Bill for Delivery (1964) by Christopher Anvil, hyperspace jump from Foundation(1951) by Isaac Asimov, Alderson point (Crazy Eddie) from The Mote in God's Eye (1974) by Niven and Pournelle, planoforming from The Game of Rat and Dragon (1953) by Cordwainer Smith, jumpdoor from Whipping Star (1969) by Frank Herbert.
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''... major cities of Earth have free electrical power conveniently processed from their own noise.'
'The appearance was enough like a giant witch's broom to justify the nickname.'
'A vast circle of scarlet stars came up into the greenish desert dusk.'
'He had constructed an organ, a brain, of metal, entirely inorganic and lifeless...'
'I shall never forget the sight... when the yellow gleam of the precious metal appeared under the star dust.'
Oh, and now I suppose someone will develop the robotic porch pirate.
'This thing will start at one end of ...a house and build it complete to the other end, following drawings only.'
