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"I was perfectly satisfied to write science fiction knowing that it would pay very little, that it would be seen by only a very few people."
- Isaac Asimov

Gravity Lens  
  An optical lens created using the lightbending properties of gravity.  

The classic experiment to demonstrate the lightbending properties of large masses was performed in 1919. And in 1936, Albert Einstein published a further prediction that immense gravitational fields would bend and focus light as an optical lens would.

Finally, you can get the same effect without a solar-sized mass.

"How do you like my telescope?"

Alice said "The whole sky?"

"It's a gravity lens ... You know that a gravity field bends light? Good. I can make a field that warps light into a focus. It's lenticular, shaped like a red blood platelet.

Technovelgy from Protector, by Larry Niven.
Published by Del Rey in 1973
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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Protector
  More Ideas and Technology by Larry Niven
  Tech news articles related to Protector
  Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven

Gravity Lens-related news articles:
  - A First: Planet Found With Gravitational Microlensing

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Science Fiction in the News

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'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.'

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'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain, through the mediation of the electronic brain in the leg.'

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'... every veephone on the continent would display, over and over, two propositions.'

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'...small investors profited, too.'

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Lawyer AIs Create Chaos In Our Legal System
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'He wore spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.'

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