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"…we store information differently, reading a science fiction story, to make it make sense."
- Samuel R. Delany
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| Cosmoquake | ||
| Gravity waves ripple across the solar system. |
This is similar to what are described as "gravity waves".
| The force of the cosmoquake was nowhere
overwhelming. Water in small shallow ponds
tended to overflow. Mostly, however, the two
impulses were so nearly equal in duration,
and so nearly opposite in sign that there was
no great damage.
Some chimneys fell. There were a great many traffic accidents. But the damage done by the cosmoquake itself was much less than that caused by violent local earthquakes which followed wherever geologic faults existed. The thing was inexplicable. It really appeared that not only the Earth but the whole cosmos had experienced something hitherto-unknown phenomenom. There was a monstrous increase in solar disturbances to lend color to the theory. But Braddick had used a new discovery in his own specialty—which was the study of research methods—and within three days had submitted a paper to the Philosophical Journal on the cosmoquake. In it, he pointed out that the observed effects on the Earth and sun could have been produced by a body of twelve sols mass passing through the solar system at a speed approaching that of light, along a line from Polaris toward the Southern Cross and at a distance of some six hundred million miles from Earth. |
| Technovelgy from Things Pass By,
by Murray Leinster. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1945 Additional resources -
|
Here's what a cosmoquake feels like to human observers:
It is not possible to describe them all.
There were areas where human beings found
themselves completely weightless, and were
made mad by the feeling that they fell upward into an empty, cloudflecked sky.
There were other areas in which people
felt themselves pressed to the earth as if by
an intolerable weight. Those sensations reversed themselves within the term of three
seconds to which cosmoquakes seemed to
be limited by the nature of things. But the
areas in such uncomplicated phenomena
showed were the lucky ones.
Compare to the gravity beam from Wandl, the Invader (1932) by Ray Cummings.
In the laboratory, an alarm bell rang
sharply. Braddick’s face grew dark. He put
his hand to the table to push back his chair.
And the earth groaned. Literally. There
are millions of people who will always swear
that they experienced the shocking vibration of the cry of a tortured earth. And then
horrible things happened. . . .
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Tech news articles related to works by Murray Leinster
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| Can A Human Land A SpaceX Rocket On Its Tail? |
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'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
'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?'
'...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.'
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
