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"The SF approach: an awareness that things could have been different, that this is one of many possible worlds, that if you came to this world from some other planet, this would be a science fiction world."
- Neal Stephenson
 |
| Extreme Black | ||
| A material so absolutely black that it absorbed all incident light. |
Here's the quote about the stuntship whose sole purpose was to fly into the sun to provide spectacular effects for a rock concert.
| "That," he said, "that... is really bad for the eyes."
It was a ship of classic, simple design, like a flattened salmon, twenty yards long, very clean, very sleek. There was just one remarkable thing about it. "It's so... black!" said Ford Prefect. "You can hardly make out its shape... light just seems to fall into it!" The blackness of it was so extreme that it was almost impossible to tell how close you were standing to it. "Your eyes just slide off it..." said Ford in wonder. |
| Technovelgy from Restaurant at the End of the Universe,
by Douglas Adams. Published by Not known in 1980 Additional resources -
|
The earliest reference to this idea (that I can find, anyway) is the absolute black from Jack London's 1903 short story The Shadow and the Flash.
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"The robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again...'
'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.'
'Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray...'
'The German chemists have discovered how to supply the needed elements in compact, undiluted form...'
'Compounds devised by the biochemists for the rapid building of bone...'
'The car faltered as the external command came to brake...'
'It is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized...'
