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"There's a tendency to think that maybe if we can just throw enough hardware at the AI problem, then evolution can take care of the rest. Certainly that's how God went about making us."
- Rudy Rucker
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| Electromagnetic Cannon | ||
| A set of devices on the Ringworld used to land spacecraft safely on the fast-moving rim. |
| The rim of the Ringworld grew from a dim line includinga a few stars, to a black wall. A wall a thousand miles high ... the wall sped past at a hellish 770 miles per second...
First, the ledge appeared; then, mounted on the ledge, a row of upright rings... they were no more than fifty miles across... "The cannon must have been intended for landing the ships. One can even surmise the method used. The ship must go into orbit alongside the rim wall. It will not attempt to match the ring's velocity, but will position itself twenty-five miles from the base of the rim wall. As the ring rotates, the coils of the electromagnetic cannon will scoop up the ship and accelerate it to match the velocity of the ring. |
| Technovelgy from Ringworld,
by Larry Niven. Published by Ballantine in 1970 Additional resources -
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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.'
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