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"I operate by a code that makes me responsible for what I do, makes me definitely, directly, genuinely responsible. I am precisely the kind of person I made myself out to be."
- Harlan Ellison
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| Reflected Artificial Sun | ||
| Sending light to another planet via mirror. |
One of the earliest uses of this idea in science fiction - but not in science, see below.
| The artificial sun was reflected to Inferno by means of the huge parabolic mirrors of the super-power station in the Rockies. But the relative positions of the luminary, of Earth, and of Inferno had to be calculated to” a nicety.
And, according to Mackay, in spite of the most ingenious reflecting devices, there must be a period of one hour during which the intervention of Jupiter threw the artificial sun into eclipse. That period was now due, and Mackay had calculated it by means of a wrist-chronometer stolen from the station by a slave, who had later been expelled. The three were to approach as near as possible to the station, then to await the onset of the eclipse; in the darkness, to make an attempt to scale the fence. |
| Technovelgy from Revolt on Inferno,
by Victor Rousseau. Published by Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
In 1923, German physicist Hermann Oberth described space mirrors with a diameter of 100 to 300 km in his book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen, consisting of a grid network of individually adjustable mirrors. Space mirrors in orbit around the Earth are intended to focus sunlight on individual regions of the earth's surface.
Compare to the electrono-mirror from The Day We Celebrate (1941) by Nelson S. Bond.
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'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
'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.'
