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"Another reason why privacy could be just a passing fad, terrorism is going to get too good. [1997]"
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![]() Cities in Flight is a classic set of novels, collected into one book. In the first and second novel, two key technologies are developed - drug therapies that bestowed long life and the spindizzy, which would shield an indeterminately large mass against gravity. The spindizzy was described as the result of the "Blackett-Dirac" equations.
New York, NY and Scranton, PA - see them while you still can. Note: the spindizzy is also known as the "Dillon-Wagoner gravitron polarity generator."
![]() (From Bindlestiff cover of Analog, Dec. 1950) Paul Dirac was, of course, a real person; he made many contributions to the theory of quantum mechanics, and won the Nobel prize for physics in 1933. Blackett was a real person, a British astronomer who noticed a correlation between the following parameters of astronomical objects: the rotation rates, the gravitational fields, and the magnetic fields. He went on to describe this relationship in papers published in scientific journals like Nature. However, improved measurements of the magnetic fields of the planets in the solar system did not fit the equation. The equation also does not demonstrate how the magnetic field of the Earth undergoes periodic reversals. At present, the magnetic field of the Earth is attributed to the movement of the Earth's core. Blish did not originate the term "spindizzy", but cleverly appropriated it. In the 1930s, it was the slang term for the model racing cars tethered to a pole. See also the story Cities in the Air (1929) by Edmond Hamilton (Part two). The same issue has a picture on page 404 that was reprinted from a Hugo Gernsback magazine of 1922 showing cities held up by electromagnetic force to the cleaner, purer air high above the earth. Compare to this from And Then The Town Took Off by Richard Wilson. Comment/Join this discussion ( 3 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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Science Fiction
Timeline
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'...it was all composed of tiny, identical cubes, carefully laid to form a tilelike surface.'
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'...Anything was possible in my imaginary environment.'
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'Somewhere in space, a chrome and blue automobile raced the green light of Earth.'
Pivotal Blackfly Electric Aircraft Lifts And Hovers
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...'
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'We had discovered that metal was relatively impervious to the telepathic effect.'
Warp Drive Tech Back On The Menu
'Detailed plans for the construction of the Gundstetter-Halone warp drive were flowing.'
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