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"Science and science fiction, how do you even distinguish the two?"
- Jerry Pournelle
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| Lux | ||
| A bar of solidified light. |
| “Either that,” returned Arcot, “or proof of an amazing degree of technological advancement. It's only a guess, of course—but I have an idea where this kind of matter exists in the solar system. I think you have already seen it—in the gaseous state. You remember, of course, that the Kaxorians had great reservoirs for storing light-energy in a bound state in their giant planes. They had bound light, light held by the gravitational attraction for itself, after condensing it in their apparatus, but they had what amounted to a gas—gaseous light. Now suppose that someone makes a light condenser even more powerful than the one the Kaxorians used, a condenser that forces the light so close to itself, increases its density, till the photons hold each other permanently, and the substance becomes solid. It will be matter, matter made of light—light matter—and let us call it a metal. You know that ordinary matter is electricity matter, and electricity matter metals conduct electricity readily. Now why shouldn't our 'light matter' metal conduct light? It would be a wonderful substance for windows.” |
| Technovelgy from The Black Star Passes,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Amazing Stories in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Thanks to Winchell Chung for contributing this item.
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Black Star Passes
More Ideas
and Technology by John W. Campbell
Tech news articles related to The Black Star Passes
Tech news articles related to works by John W. Campbell
Lux-related
news articles:
- 'Super Photons' Blob State Matter
- Crystalized Light Created At Princeton
- Light Molecules (And Maybe Light Sabers, Someday)
- Physicists Try To Turn Light Into Matter
| Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly |
| Nano-Chainmail 2D Mechanically Interlocked Polymer |
| Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick |
| GNoME AI From DeepMind Invents Millions Of New Materials |
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'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
