09-25-2019, 12:34 PM
Back in the '80s I worked on this monstrous kitchen-sink novel called The Fall of Deju Vu Castle. I completed it in the '90s while living in the wilderness up north for about 3 years. I doubt that 5 people ever read it (one of those long-suffering souls was DM).
Anyway, interspersed throughout the novel were little made-up encyclopedia entries. One of them follows:
Today, in the news, we have this article:
Scientists Are Starting to Take Warp Drives Seriously, Especially One Specific Concept
Here's an excerpt:
Inchworm Drive is a much better name, doncha think?
https://www.sciencealert.com/how-feasibl...he-science
Anyway, interspersed throughout the novel were little made-up encyclopedia entries. One of them follows:
Quote:INCHWORM DRIVE, a faster-than-light drive invented by William E. Jasper in 2092 at Rymar Institute of Organic Thought. This drive, and Jasper's Rhapsodian Theory upon which it was based, earned Jasper the 2094 Nobel Prize in Physics. Certainly one of the great engineering marvels of all time, the drive untangles the dimensions of matter and rotates them into a single vector. When this "stretched" matter is redimensionalized, it advances along the stretch vector. In this way, matter is made to stretch and pull itself along through space. While the displacement is not great (less than eight centimeters), through accelerated iterative methods the process can produce motion well in excess of the speed of light (universal constants are believed to impose a hard limit of 511.3911 c.). Collimation techniques permit concentrated monodimensionalization of masses up to 200 million metric tons, sufficient for a large transport vehicle, crew, and cargo.
When humans first inchwormed to the stars in 2093, the Consortium of Civilized Worlds welcomed them into its fold with a promptness belying the Drive’s importance. It far surpassed the capabilities of the Consortium’s own Identity-Exchange Drive. Exploration and settlement of the Galaxy by the Consortium proceeded quickly in the following years.
There is near-universal agreement that the Inchworm Drive stands as the greatest single invention in the history of Humanity, expanding our horizons far beyond what we had previously thought possible, as well as the horizons of the sentients it brought us in contact with.
--from Great Inventions in the History of Humanity
Today, in the news, we have this article:
Scientists Are Starting to Take Warp Drives Seriously, Especially One Specific Concept
Here's an excerpt:
Quote:In layman's terms, the Alcubierre Drive achieves FTL travel by stretching the fabric of space-time in a wave, causing the space ahead of it to contract while the space behind it expands.
In theory, a spacecraft inside this wave would be able to ride this "warp bubble" and achieve velocities beyond the speed of light.
Inchworm Drive is a much better name, doncha think?
https://www.sciencealert.com/how-feasibl...he-science
I'm nobody's pony.