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"[Science fiction is ] That branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance upon human beings."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Faster-Than-Light | ||
| Describes something that exceeds the usual speed limit on physical objects of 186,282 miles per second in vacuum. |
This is the first use of the phrase in science fiction; as far as I know, it is the first use of this phrase to describe the movement of a real object.
| As Earth's faster-than-light spaceship hung in the void between galaxies, Arcot, Wade, Morey and Fuller could see below them, like a vast shining horizon, the mass of stars that formed their own island universe. Morey worked a moment with his slide rule, then said, "We made good time! Twenty-nine light years in ten seconds! Yet you had it on at only half power...."
Arcot pushed the control lever all the way to full power. The ship filled with the strain of flowing energy, and sparks snapped in the air of the control room as they raced at an inconceivable speed through the darkness of intergalactic space. |
| Technovelgy from Islands of Space,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Amazing Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
In his 1928 novel Skylark of Space, 'Doc Smith describes a ship that exceeds the speed of light, but does not use the phrase "faster-than-light":
On the other hand, in his 1936 story Reverse Universe, Nat Schachner describes the scientific limits:
Compare to FTL from The Enchanted Forest (1950) by Fritz Leiber, which is the first use of the acronym.
For forty-eight hours the uncontrolled atomic motor dragged the masterless vessel with its four unconscious passengers through the illimitable reaches of empty space, with an awful and constantly increasing velocity. When only a few traces of copper remained in the power-plant, the acceleration began to decrease and the powerful springs began to restore the floor and the seats to their normal positions. The last particle of copper having been transformed into energy, the speed of the vessel became constant. Apparently motionless to those inside it, it was in reality traversing space with a velocity thousands of times greater than that of light.
THE VELOCIMETER moved slowly over the dial. One hundred and fifty-nine thousand, one sixty, one sixty-one, one hundred and sixty-two thousand miles per second. And there it held, in spite of the reckless pumping of fuel, in spite of Talbot’s utmost skill in navigation. Lorentz’s theorem held good ! At extremely high velocities the inertial mass approaches the infinite so rapidly that not all the thrusting power in the world can compensate for it. And Talbot knew it.
Somberly he turned to Apperson. “You see,” he said, “the thing is impossible. We cannot fight the laws of nature.”
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Islands of Space
More Ideas
and Technology by John W. Campbell
Tech news articles related to Islands of Space
Tech news articles related to works by John W. Campbell
Faster-Than-Light-related
news articles:
- NASA's Warp Speed Starship Design
| Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space |
| Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic |
| Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station |
| SpaceX's Starman Tesla Roadster In Space |
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'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
