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" I sometimes suspect that we're seeing something in the Internet as significant as the birth of cities. It's really something new, it's a new kind of civilization."
- William Gibson
 |
| Message Tree | ||
| A tree growing out of a huge cliff of crystal provides communication for a world. |
The message tree is a remarkable and creative idea, particularly in the context of the novel. The planet Lithia has virtually no naturally occurring metals on the surface and electrical power is extremely difficult to generate; how can you recreate electronic communications equipment? The answer lies in the piezoelectric effect.
| If the night were to turn out to be especially windy, there would doubtless be many voices coming and going to the Message Tree. It loomed ahead of him now, a Sequoialike giant... As the winds came and went... the tree nodded and swayed. With every movement, the tree's root system ... tugged and distorted the buried crystalline cliff upon which the city had been founded. At every such pressure, the buried cliff responded with a vast heart-pulse of radio waves - a pulse detectable not only all over Lithia, but far out into space as well. |
| From A Case of Conscience,
by James Blish. Published by If in 1953 Additional resources -
|
This sort of message device also lent itself well to the story; the world of Lithia was one in which the biosphere was seen as important by the indigenous sapient life.
The piezoelectric effect was discovered by one of more of the Curies around 1880; it is the voltage produced between surfaces of a solid nonconducting substance (dielectric) when mechanical stress is applied.
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More Ideas
and Technology from A Case of Conscience
More Ideas
and Technology by James Blish
Tech news articles related to A Case of Conscience
Tech news articles related to works by James Blish
Message Tree-related
news articles:
- Tweeting Tree Like Blish's Message Tree
| 'A Sign in Space' Gives Practice In Decoding ET Messages |
| MyManu Titan 'Screenless Smartphone' |
| 'Courier Commons' By Tomorrow Lab, From Karl Schroeder (and Bruce Sterling?) |
| Mouth Haptics Invented By Frederik Pohl In 1965, CMU Now Has Prototype |
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'I filled your bullet hole with flesh putty and the lattice.'
'... it will be easy to form an alphabet which shall enable us to converse with the inhabitants of the moon.'
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'The Law Society has strict rules on the use of pseudo-intelligent software...'
