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"I don't know why I write science fiction. The voices in my head told me to!"
- Charles Stross
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| Kemplerer (Klemperer) Rosette | ||
| Planets without a sun; they orbit a central point. |
The Pierson's Puppeteers are sentient herd animals. They find that, as their numbers approach one trillion individuals, that their societ produces too much heat. What to do, what to do?
| "I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat. Total conversion of energy had rid us of all waste products of civilisation, save that one. We had no choice but to move our world outward from its primary."
"Was that not dangerous?" "Very. There was much madness that year. For that reason it is famous in our history. But we had purchased a reactionless, inertialess drive from the Outsiders. You may have guessed their price. We are still paying in installments. We had moved two agricultural worlds; we had experimented with other, useless worlds of our system using the Outsider drive. In any case, we did it. We moved our world." "In short, we found that a sun was a liability rather than an asset. We moved our world to a tenth of a light year's distance, keeping the primary only as an anchor. We needed the farming worlds and it would have been dangerous to let our world wander randomly through space. Otherwise we would not have needed a sun at all." "We had brought suitable worlds from nearby systems, increasing our agricultural worlds to four, and setting them in a Kemplerer Rosette." |
| Technovelgy from Ringworld,
by Larry Niven. Published by Ballantine in 1970 Additional resources -
|
A Kemplerer Rosette (misspelled by Niven) was first described by W.B. Klemperer in 1962, in an article in The Astronomical Journal. See some very cool java applets that let you envision Kemplerer rosettes more easily.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Ringworld
More Ideas
and Technology by Larry Niven
Tech news articles related to Ringworld
Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven
Kemplerer (Klemperer) Rosette-related
news articles:
- NASA Strategy For Urban Heat island NYC
- Choking On Our Own Waste Heat
- Converting Low Temp Waste Heat To Electricity
- Has Climate Change Already Been Solved By Aliens?
| SpaceX's Starman Tesla Roadster In Space |
| Warp Drive Tech Back On The Menu |
| JAXA Int Ball 2 Coming Right Along As Star Wars Remote |
| Space Traffic Management (STM) Needed Now |
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'...Anything was possible in my imaginary environment.'
'Somewhere in space, a chrome and blue automobile raced the green light of Earth.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...'
'We had discovered that metal was relatively impervious to the telepathic effect.'
'Detailed plans for the construction of the Gundstetter-Halone warp drive were flowing.'
'Do not waste your priceless company on the unappreciative folds of a sleep pod...'
'...so we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
