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"You have to budget the number of fuzzy rules you use to control a system. It turns out, you can state the optimality principle in three words: 'patch the bumps.'"
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Straightening the Earth's Poles | ||
| By means of a suitable force, push the Earth until the planet's axis of rotation is perpendicular to the ecliptic. |
The climate of the Earth would be much more regular, without seasons, if only the planet's axis of rotation was not angled at 23.4 degrees to the plane of the planet's orbit around the sun (Earth's axial tilt). As far as I know, this is the earliest use of this idea in science fiction.
| The operation which is being tried by President Barbicane and Capt. Nicholl is as follows:
The production of a recoil, on the 22d of September, at midnight, by means of a cannon a million times larger in volume than the cannon of twenty-seven centimetres, throwing a projectile of 180,000 tons, with a powder giving it a velocity of 2,800 kilometres. Now, if this shooting takes place below the equatorial line, nearly on the thirty-fourth degree of latitude west of the meridian of Paris, at the foot of Kilimanjaro, and if it is directed towards the south, these are the mechanical effects which it will have on the earth’s sphere: Instantly, in consequence of the shock acting with the daily movement a new axis will be formed and, as the old axis will be displaced to the amount of twenty-three degrees and twenty-eight minutes, according to the figures obtained by J.T. Maston, the new axis will be perpendicular to the direction of the ecliptic. |
| Technovelgy from The Purchase of the North Pole (Topsy Turvy),
by Jules Verne. Published by Pierre-Jules Hetzel in 1889 Additional resources -
|
Thanks to Yossi Preminger for pointing this out.
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and Technology from The Purchase of the North Pole (Topsy Turvy)
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Tech news articles related to The Purchase of the North Pole (Topsy Turvy)
Tech news articles related to works by Jules Verne
Straightening the Earth's Poles-related
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| Tornyol Microdrone Kills Mosquitoes |
| PLATO Spacecraft, Hunter Of Habitable Planets, Now Ready |
| Did The Yautja Have These First? |
| Jetson ONE Air Races Begin, Can Air Polo Be Far Behind? |
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'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
'... oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.'
