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"People ask me how I do research for my science fiction. The answer is, I never do any research. I just enjoy reading the stuff, and some of it sticks in my mind and fits into the stories."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Pocket Universe | ||
| A created, separate space within the normal space of the universe. |
A unique, early use of this term and idea.
| He'd evidently put aside the small contrivance I'd last seen him working on, and he'd made a gadget—a diamagnet or whatever it ought to be called—a thing that closed space around itself in a pocket universe when it was turned on—that was extendible. |
| Technovelgy from Pocket Universes,
by Murray Leinster. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1946 Additional resources -
|
A bit of pseudoscience:
I slipped the paper-clip on it and stretched
it between the thumb and forefinger of my
hand. Then — feeling very foolish— I made
two ink-spots on the rubber. They were a
couple of inches from each other, with the
paper-clip in between.
The paper-clip represented the copper-glass-wire contrivance, and the ink-spots
two arbitrary places on the table. Then I
twisted the paper-clip so that it wound up
the rubber band about itself. It stretched.
The ink-spots approached each other. Presently they touched. Then I let go the paperclip and everything slipped back. They were
far apart again, with the clip in between.
That was it, exactly. Einstein has proved
that space is elastic. The rubber band was
also elastic. When the paper-clip — representing the weird object on the work-table —
wrapped the rubber band which represented
space about itself, why, presently there
wasn’t any rubber band or space between
the two dots. But when I released it, everything went back to normal and there was
space and a metal object between them.
The diamagnet wrapped space about it-
self. It absorbed space. The reason one’s
eyes hurt when looking at the place where
space had been absorbed was that they tried
to focus impossibly. Objects behind the vanished gadget were nearer than objects which
weren’t behind it. They hadn’t moved, of
course. But a certain amount of space — of distance — had been removed.
Compare to the worldcraft bubbles from Philip K Dick's The Trouble With Bubbles (1953).
So I went over to the table where Santos
wrote up his notes and picked up a rubber
band and a paper-clip. It was a red rubber
band, I remember.
This term was used in a spiritual sense in the late nineteenth century.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Pocket Universes
More Ideas
and Technology by Murray Leinster
Tech news articles related to Pocket Universes
Tech news articles related to works by Murray Leinster
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| Is China Mining Helium-3 On The Moon's Farside? |
| Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space |
| Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic |
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'...war-balloons, or, as it would be more correct to call them, navigable aerostats.'
'This robot is a creature... It is a manlike being. Therefore, like any other talking, thinking man, he is entitled to a court trial!'
'...small electric motors at the principal joints worked the prosthetic framework by means of steel cables...'
