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"I think a lot of kids whose mental growth outruns their maturity gravitate to science fiction."
- Dan Simmons
 |
| Inter-Universal Messenger | ||
| A device intended to travel to another dimension. |
| As it eventually worked out, the inter-universal messenger had to be constructed from the sub-microscopic level on up out of fundamental nuclear particles which came as close to being nothing at all as either universe would ever be likely to provide: zero-spin particles with various charges and masses, and neutrino/anti-neutrino pairs. Even detecting that the object was present at all after it had been built was an almost impossible task, for neutrinos and anti-neutrinos have no mass and no charge, consisting instead partly of spin, partly of energy of translation; it did no good to try to visualize such particles since like all the fundamental particles they were entirely outside of experience in the macroscopic world. Matter was so completely transparent to them that stopping an average neutrino in flight would require a lead barrier fifty light years thick. |
| From Cities in Flight,
by James Blish. Published by Avon in 1957 Additional resources -
|
Cities in Flight is a set of novels; this item is taken from The Triumph of Time.
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news articles:
- AMANDA May Find Probes To Other Dimensions
| Negative Matter Fluid Theorized In New Paper |
| Grow Structures Upon Planetfall - Myco-Architecture |
| A Look Back At Apollo's Emergency Escape Vehicle |
| Amazing Kepler Space Telescope Decommissioned By NASA |
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'... the computing mechanisms that studied and restructured the incoming material.'
'... an instrument having relatively small bit pieces adapted to be gripped between the teeth.'
'A procession of automatic ore carts was racing over the bleak slag'
'The cab was an egg-shaped bubble of light metals and plastics...'
