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"The SF approach: an awareness that things could have been different, that this is one of many possible worlds, that if you came to this world from some other planet, this would be a science fiction world."
- Neal Stephenson
 |
| Supralight Drive | ||
| A propulsion system that allows a spacecraft to travel faster than light. |
Also known as FTL (faster than light) travel.
| "I know, I know it looks like two, maybe three destroyers. Somebody certainly dislikes our passengers. Try to hold them off somehow until I can finish the programming for the supralight jump..." "How long before you can make the jump?" Kenobi inquired easily, apparently unconcerned that at any second they all might cease to exist. "We're still within the gravitational influence of Tattooine, came the cool response. "It will be a few minutes yet before the navigation computer can compensate and effect an accurate jump." |
| From Star Wars,
by George Lucas. Published by Del Rey in 1976 Additional resources -
|
I'm not sure who invented the idea of FTL travel; Arthur C. Clarke used the concept in 1932 in his first novel Against the Fall of Night. The idea was discussed by Albert Einstein in association with relativity theory; according to the general theory, FTL travel is not possible. No experiments have been done in which an object is shown to travel faster than light.
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'The car surged and lifted, clearing its top by a negligible margin.'
Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too.
'I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.'
'Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? - any work a human being does around a house.'
SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century.
There's a lesson in this for neural net AI engineers everywhere.
