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"If you don't care about science enough to be interested in it on its own, you shouldn't try to write hard science fiction."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Magnus-Effect Ambulance | ||
| A vehicle that can hover and fly using the Magnus Effect. |
The Magnus Effect is a real phenomenon; as far as I know there are no real-world vehicles that actually use it.
| A bobbing magnus-effect ambulance hovered near one of the massive, blocky tourist hotels, where budget-conscious travelers rented tiny, slotlike units by the cubic meter. The vehicle's spherical gas bag rotated slowly around a horizontal pivot, using small momentum shifts to maneuver delicately near white-suited emergency workers. |
| Technovelgy from Earth,
by David Brin. Published by Bantam in 1990 Additional resources -
|
The Magnus Effect is the generation of a sidewise force on a spinning cylindrical or spherical solid immersed in a fluid (physicists count gas and liquid here) when there is relative motion between the spinning body and the fluid. It was named after the German physicist H.G. Magnus, who first experimentally investigated the effect in 1853. This is why a ping pong ball or tennis ball will curve when hit with "English."
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| Maybe It's Too Soon To Require Autonomous Mode |
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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.'
