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"Poised between intransigent scepticism and uncritical credulity, it [science fiction] is par excellence the literature of the open mind."
- John Brunner
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| Black Coating | ||
| A material that absorbs practically all incident light. |
One good way to be invisible in space is to be non-reflective.
| “Well, we have a black coating now that’s ninety-nine percent absorptive, and I don’t need ports or windows. At that, though, one percent reflection would be enough to give me away at a critical time. How’d it be to put a couple of the boys on that job? Have them put a decimal point after the ninety nine and see how many nines they can tack on behind it?” |
| Technovelgy from Gray Lensman,
by E.E. 'Doc' Smith. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1942 Additional resources -
|
Compare to absolute black from The Shadow and the Flash (1903) by Jack London, absolute black from Douglas Adams' 1980 book Restaurant at the End of the Universe and fuligin from Gene Wolfe's 1980 novel The Shadow of the Torturer.
Thanks to Winchell Chung (@nyrath at Project Rho) for submitting this item.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Gray Lensman
More Ideas
and Technology by E.E. 'Doc' Smith
Tech news articles related to Gray Lensman
Tech news articles related to works by E.E. 'Doc' Smith
Black Coating-related
news articles:
- Femtosecond Laser Pulse Turns Metals Pitch Black
- Carbon Nanotube Blackness Blacker Than Black
- New Black From NASA Uses Nanotubes
- Blacker-Than-Black Corrugated Metamaterials
- NASA's Super-Black Now Even Blacker
- Army Wants Black Blacker Than Black
- Vantablack Is Blacker Than Your Black
- Blackest Black? New Disordered Nanostructured Material
| Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly |
| Nano-Chainmail 2D Mechanically Interlocked Polymer |
| Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick |
| FlexRAM Liquid Metal RAM And One Particular SF Movie Robot |
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'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.'
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
