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"Cyberspace is a metaphor that allows us to grasp this place where since about the time of the second world war we've increasingly done so many of the things that we think of as civilization."
- William Gibson
 |
| Jump | ||
| Instantaneous movement over vast distances, points many light-years apart. |
As far as I know, the first use of this expression.
| "Then it will take us only a little over one thousand seconds to travel the hundred and fifty million light years, at 110,000 light years per second - that's about the radius of our galaxy, isn't it!" exclaimed Wade.
They started on now, and one thousand and ten seconds, or a little more than eighteen minutes later, they stopped again. So far behind them now as to be almost lost in the far scattered universes, lay their own Island, and carefully they photographed the Universe that now lay less than twenty million light years ahead. Still, it was further, even after crossing this enormous gulf, than are many of those nebulae we see from Earth, many of which lie within that distance. They must proceed cautiously now, for they did not know the exact distance to the Nebula. Carefully, running forward in jumps of five million light years, forty-five second drives, they worked nearer. |
| Technovelgy from Invaders From The Infinite,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Experimental Publishing Co. in 1932 Additional resources -
|
Isaac Asimov gives a fairly detailed explanation of calculating a Jump in his 1951 story Tyrann. The story mentions a computer just once; the artwork seems to show a slide rule being used!
"They had all these books here?"
"You bet. They couldn't pilot a ship without them."
"And you understand all that?"
"Not all that. I wish I did. I hope I understand enough. We'll have to Jump to Lingane, you know."
"Is that hard to do?"
"No, not if you know the figures, which are all here, and have the controls which are all there, and if you have experience, which I haven't. For instance, it should be done in several Jumps, but I'm going to try it in one because there'll be less chance of trouble, even though it means a waste of energy."
Compare to jump point from Bill for Delivery (1964) by Christopher Anvil,
collapsar jump from The Forever War (1974) by Joe Haldeman,
hyperspace jump from Foundation(1951) by Isaac Asimov,
Alderson point (Crazy Eddie) from The Mote in God's Eye (1974) by Niven and Pournelle,
planoforming from The Game of Rat and Dragon (1953) by Cordwainer Smith,
jumpdoor from Whipping Star (1969) by Frank Herbert. Also, see jumpship from The Lady Was A Tramp (1957) by Rose Sharon.
She knelt down on the floor beside him, and looked at the thick volumes opened before him and at the sheets of calculations.
(Calculating a Jump from 'Tyrann' by Isaac Asimov)
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'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
