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Skolian Empire
The Saga of the Skolian Empire, informally called the Skolian Saga or Tales of the Ruby Dynasty, is a series of science fiction novels, novellas and novelettes by Catherine Asaro, revolving around characters from an interstellar empire known as the Skolian Empire and their power struggle with the rival Eubian Concord. The plot of the book unfolds over several generations of characters and revolves around political intrigues, but also contains subplots regarding physics, bio-enhancements, virtual computer networks, romance, mathematics, and military conflict as it is affected by superluminal space travel. Skolian Empire The Skolian Empire, or Skolian Imperialate, is one of the major empires in the science fiction novel series called the Saga of the Skolian Empire by Catherine Asaro. The stories of Asaro mostly revolve around the Skolian Empire. She also has written several novellas and novelettes on the world of the Skolian Empire. Political situation Skolians are in a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts. Definition The Italian term is a feminine of ''novello'', which means ''new'', similarly to the English word ''news''. Merriam-Webster defines a novella as "a work of fiction intermediate in length and complexity between a short story and a novel". No official definition exists regarding the number of pages or words necessary for a story to be considered a novella, a short story or a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association defines a novella's word count to be between 17,500 and 40,000 words. History The novella as a literary genre began developing in the Italian literature of the early Renaissance, principally Giovanni Boccaccio, author of ''The Decameron'' (1353). ''The Decameron'' featured 100 tales (named n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Telepathy
Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), and has remained more popular than the earlier expression ''thought-transference''.Glossary of Parapsychological terms – Telepathy – Parapsychological Association. Retrieved December 19, 2006. Telepathy experiments have historically been criticized for a lack of proper controls and repeatability. There is no good evidence that telepathy exists, and the topic is genera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Analog Science Fiction And Fact
''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled ''Astounding Stories of Super-Science'', the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William Clayton, and edited by Harry Bates. Clayton went bankrupt in 1933 and the magazine was sold to Street & Smith. The new editor was F. Orlin Tremaine, who soon made ''Astounding'' the leading magazine in the nascent pulp science fiction field, publishing well-regarded stories such as Jack Williamson's '' Legion of Space'' and John W. Campbell's "Twilight". At the end of 1937, Campbell took over editorial duties under Tremaine's supervision, and the following year Tremaine was let go, giving Campbell more independence. Over the next few years Campbell published many stories that became classics in the field, including Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation'' series, A. E. van Vogt's '' Slan'', and several novels and stories by Robert A. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stanley Schmidt
Stanley Albert Schmidt (born March 7, 1944) is an American science fiction author and editor. Between 1978 and 2012 he served as editor of ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' magazine. Biography Schmidt was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1966. He then attended Case Western Reserve University, where he completed his PhD in physics in 1969. After receiving his degree, he became a professor at Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio, teaching physics, astronomy, and science fiction. Schmidt was editor of ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' magazine from 1978 to his retirement on 29 August 2012. Additionally, he has served as a member of the Board of Advisers for the National Space Society and the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame and was Guest of Honor at BucConeer, the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore, Maryland. Fiction His first publication was "A Flash of Darkness" (''Analog'', September 1968); his first novel was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Klein Bottles
In topology, a branch of mathematics, the Klein bottle () is an example of a non-orientable surface; it is a two-dimensional manifold against which a system for determining a normal vector cannot be consistently defined. Informally, it is a one-sided surface which, if traveled upon, could be followed back to the point of origin while flipping the traveler upside down. Other related non-orientable objects include the Möbius strip and the real projective plane. While a Möbius strip is a surface with boundary, a Klein bottle has no boundary. For comparison, a sphere is an orientable surface with no boundary. The concept of a Klein bottle was first described in 1882 by the German mathematician Felix Klein. Construction The following square is a fundamental polygon of the Klein bottle. The idea is to 'glue' together the corresponding red and blue edges with the arrows matching, as in the diagrams below. Note that this is an "abstract" gluing in the sense that trying to reali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wave Functions
A wave function in quantum physics is a mathematical description of the quantum state of an isolated quantum system. The wave function is a complex-valued probability amplitude, and the probabilities for the possible results of measurements made on the system can be derived from it. The most common symbols for a wave function are the Greek letters and (lower-case and capital psi, respectively). The wave function is a function of the degrees of freedom corresponding to some maximal set of commuting observables. Once such a representation is chosen, the wave function can be derived from the quantum state. For a given system, the choice of which commuting degrees of freedom to use is not unique, and correspondingly the domain of the wave function is also not unique. For instance, it may be taken to be a function of all the position coordinates of the particles over position space, or the momenta of all the particles over momentum space; the two are related by a Fourier t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantum Mechanical
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science. Classical physics, the collection of theories that existed before the advent of quantum mechanics, describes many aspects of nature at an ordinary ( macroscopic) scale, but is not sufficient for describing them at small (atomic and subatomic) scales. Most theories in classical physics can be derived from quantum mechanics as an approximation valid at large (macroscopic) scale. Quantum mechanics differs from classical physics in that energy, momentum, angular momentum, and other quantities of a bound system are restricted to discrete values ( quantization); objects have characteristics of both particles and waves (wave–particle duality); and there are limits to ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spherical Harmonic
In mathematics and physical science, spherical harmonics are special functions defined on the surface of a sphere. They are often employed in solving partial differential equations in many scientific fields. Since the spherical harmonics form a complete set of orthogonal functions and thus an orthonormal basis, each function defined on the surface of a sphere can be written as a sum of these spherical harmonics. This is similar to periodic functions defined on a circle that can be expressed as a sum of circular functions (sines and cosines) via Fourier series. Like the sines and cosines in Fourier series, the spherical harmonics may be organized by (spatial) angular frequency, as seen in the rows of functions in the illustration on the right. Further, spherical harmonics are basis functions for irreducible representations of SO(3), the group of rotations in three dimensions, and thus play a central role in the group theoretic discussion of SO(3). Spherical harmonics or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Radiant Seas
''The Radiant Seas'' is a novel from the Saga of the Skolian Empire series of books by Catherine Asaro. The book continues where Primary Inversion ended and centers on the story of the devastating interstellar Radiance War. It won the HOMer Award for Best Novel of 2000 from the SF and Fantasy forum on CompuServe. Radiant Seas follows the lives of several Ruby Dynasty members (especially Sauscony (Soz), Kurj and Althor) and also of main political figures from the Eubian Concord (emperor Ur Qox and his wife Viquara) during a period of nearly 18 years. Plot Kurj has to deal not only with the shocking sudden death of Soz, whom he imagined as his successor, but also with the political intrigues of the Eubian emperor Ur Qox, who draws the Allieds on his side, using lies and dirty tricks. When Ur tries to take Kurj prisoner, this leads to the destruction of a part of his fleet and to the death of both Ur and Kurj, leaving their two empires presumably heirless. Soz's brother Althor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Primary Inversion
''Primary Inversion'' is a science fiction novel in the Saga of the Skolian Empire by Catherine Asaro. As Asaro's debut novel, it first appeared as a hardcover in 1995. It was nominated for the 1996 Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Memorial Award and placed tenth on the list for the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Synopsis ''Primary Inversion'' is set in a future where three star-faring civilizations vie for control of human-settled space. Fighter pilot Sauscony (Soz) Valdoria commands a squadron of four Jagernaut pilots, neurologically enhanced empaths who have been bio-engineered as weapons. Jagernauts have extensive biomech throughout their bodies, allowing for enhanced speed and reaction, and an embedded artificial intelligence (AI) in their spinal cords. They are pitted against the legions of the Trader empire, in particular the Aristo ruling class, a race that derives pleasure from the amplified pain and anguish of empaths—especially Jagernauts, as Soz knows from pers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hard Science Fiction
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell's ''Islands of Space'' in the November issue of ''Astounding Science Fiction''. The complementary term soft science fiction, formed by analogy to hard science fiction,) first appeared in the late 1970s. The term is formed by analogy to the popular distinction between the "hard" (natural science, natural) and "soft" (social science, social) sciences, although there are examples generally considered as "hard" SF, such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, ''Foundation'' series, built on mathematical sociology. Science fiction critic Gary Westfahl argues that neither term is part of a rigorous Taxonomy (general), taxonomy; instead they are approximate ways of characterizing stories that reviewers and commentators have found useful. History Stories revolving around scientific a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lyshriol
The Saga of the Skolian Empire, informally called the Skolian Saga or Tales of the Ruby Dynasty, is a series of science fiction novels, novellas and novelettes by Catherine Asaro, revolving around characters from an interstellar empire known as the Skolian Empire and their power struggle with the rival Eubian Concord. The plot of the book unfolds over several generations of characters and revolves around political intrigues, but also contains subplots regarding physics, bio-enhancements, virtual computer networks, romance, mathematics, and military conflict as it is affected by superluminal space travel. Skolian Empire The Skolian Empire, or Skolian Imperialate, is one of the major empires in the science fiction novel series called the Saga of the Skolian Empire by Catherine Asaro. The stories of Asaro mostly revolve around the Skolian Empire. She also has written several novellas and novelettes on the world of the Skolian Empire. Political situation Skolians are in a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
