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"It was [H.G. Wells'] adolescent fiction, his imaginative stories, that live forever - and yet are not acknowledged in literature classes as being great literature. So to hell with the academics!"
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Jack Williamson doesn't actually use the phrase "black hole", but he does use all the words, as well as the concept. As far as I know, this is a first in science fiction (or anywhere else).
This is a part of the description of the geofractor, a teleportation device from this same story.
A firm mathematical model of a gravitationally collapsed object came about in the early 1920's through work by Einstein and Schwarzschild. A 1926 book by Arthur Eddington described how even light would be unable to escape from such an object.
Apparently, the phrase "black hole" seems to derive from the Black Hole of Calcutta (a famous prison), which Europeans encountered in the mid-1700's. The idea of a "dark star" was proposed in 1783 by an English country parson, John Michell. He wrote a letter to Henry Cavendish dated November 27, 1783, saying that such “dark stars” would be observable only by the impact they had on bodies revolving around them.
The modern use seems to derive from a shouted response from the audience during a lecture by John Wheeler, who wished for a more compact term than "gravitationally collapsed object".
Compare to the asymptotic drive from Imperial Earth (1976) by Arthur C. Clarke. Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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Science Fiction
Timeline
Robot Preachers Found To Undermine Religious Commitment
'Tell me your torments,' the Padre said, in an elderly voice marked with compassion.
SpaceHopper Microgravity Robot Lands On Its Feet
'...a slender-legged tripod surmounted by a spherical body no larger than a football.'
Brin's 1990 Novel Earth Still Full Of Predictions
'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
Gaia - Why Stop With Just The Earth?
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
Microsoft VASA-1 Creates Personal Video From A Photo
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'
Splendid View Of Eclipse From Orbit Visualized And Repurposed By Arthur C. Clarke
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'
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