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"Generally, the human race avoids doing anything radical until forced into it."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Color Generator | ||
| A variable spectrum light source |
Problems with metamerism provide clues during an investigation in this quote.
| '...There's been no mistake; I took great pains.' Gersen studied the tiles. '...what color light will bring the tiles to the same color as the sketch?'
...Mankinello put the tiles under a color generator. 'Presumably you're interested in standard incandesence?' 'Standard star-light. I presume that's close to the same thing.' 'Somewhat different due to the stellar atmospheres. But I can easily code for the stellar progression. Let's start with about 4,000 degrees.' He turned a wheel, flicked a switch, checked with a comparator. 'Close' He turned the wheel. 'There it is. 4,350 degrees.' He glanced through a port. 'See for yourself.' Gersen peered through the opening. The tiles were now identical to the colors of the sketch. 'Color temperature, 4,350 degrees: Class K?' 'I'll tell you exactly.' Mankinello consulted a reference. 'Class G8.' |
| Technovelgy from The Killing Machine,
by Jack Vance. Published by Fantastic Fiction (?) in 1964 Additional resources -
|
The letters refer to stellar spectral types - O B A F G K M R N S.
Thanks to R. Probert for contributing this item.
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'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.'
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
