Dedicated to the Proposition that the Future Ain't What It Used to Be... The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it. Vannevar Bush, 1945
One possibility that seems to be particularly advantageous is to build larger numbers of smaller units that have an easier time getting rid of excess heat, even when the power goes out. Any decision to slow down nuclear-energy development needs to be taken in full understanding that nuclear fis...
Before we can explore the galactography of war, we first must ask whether war is in any sense a "universal" phenomenon.* If the answer is clearly negative, our subject matter may be a null set. At least to the extent that competition and aggression are recognized solutions to ecological ...
But if you ever have the time or the inclination, somebody asked me a question I am not qualified to answer. --- question starts --- Do you know of any word that represents all life forms that originate from a single solar system? "Sol-system life" is all I've come up with to ...
It would be nice to choose it from the natural numbers (i.e., ℕ := {1,2,3,…}), and thereby get an increasing sequence of possible departure dates, starting from a value that is the earliest. Requiring that tW ≥ 0, some algebra shows that, if P0 > P1, then we must have ...
"The way the world works! Bloody scientists. You think the world is all numbers and machines and levers. You don't understand anything about the soul or spirit." "Of course I do," said James. "I've been happily married for 20 years. I have two children that I love. I play the ...
(the problem is in the real world the answer appears to be "Nothing") In terms of pure offensive firepower, there's very little you can do with a fighter that a cruise missile can't do better in a space game context. Of course, the best reason to have fighters is because they make...
we come to the realm of the comets. It is likely that the space around the solar system is populated by huge numbers of comets, small worlds a few miles in diameter, composed almost entirely of ice and other chemicals essential to life. We see one of these comets only when it happens ...
Pierre glanced at the flickering numbers on the right of his screen. "Fourteen minutes, and everything looks fine." Carole looked at a display across the room. The field of view of the monitor camera contained the glowing sphere of one of the larger condensed asteroids in the lower corner,...
It’s possible that I might tweak the numbers a bit over time after I’ve seen how they play out. I want to allow room for criminal activity in backwater systems, whilst having decent ranges at primary worlds. There are two main aspects to this – detecting jump activity, and tracking ...