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Technical Error
"Technical Error" is a science fiction short story by English writer Arthur C. Clarke. It was published in 1950 under the title "The Reversed Man" and appeared again in Clarke's collection of short stories ''Reach for Tomorrow'', in 1956. Plot summary The first power plant to exploit superconductivity has been built, and worker Richard Nelson is "laterally inverted" following an accidental short-circuit in the facility. Nelson finds himself wearing his wedding ring on the wrong hand. Written texts appear mirror-inverted, and coins and his technical diary have been affected. Nelson begins to starve; normal food does not nourish him because most biological molecules are chiral. A chemist, Prof. Vandenburg, develops mirror-inverted parallels of nutrients required by Nelson. Ralph Hughes, the station's chief physicist, investigates the incident. He discovers that Nelson has traveled through a fourth spatial dimension. He dismisses the arguments of his curious secretary McPherson, ...
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WikiProject Novels
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is a Wikimedia movement affinity group for contributors with shared goals. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by '' Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Wikipedia from around 1,600 to over 5,000". On Wikipedia Some Wikipedia WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outside organizations relevant to the field at issue. For e ...
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Enantiomer
In chemistry, an enantiomer ( /ɪˈnænti.əmər, ɛ-, -oʊ-/ ''ih-NAN-tee-ə-mər''; from Ancient Greek ἐνάντιος ''(enántios)'' 'opposite', and μέρος ''(méros)'' 'part') – also called optical isomer, antipode, or optical antipode – is one of two stereoisomers that are non-superposable onto their own mirror image. Enantiomers are much like one's right and left hands, when looking at the same face, they cannot be superposed onto each other. No amount of reorientation will allow the four unique groups on the chiral carbon (see Chirality (chemistry)) to line up exactly. The number of stereoisomers a molecule has can be determined by the number of chiral carbons it has. Stereoisomers include both enantiomers and diastereomers. Diastereomers, like enantiomers, share the same molecular formula and are non-superposable onto each other however, they are not mirror images of each other. A molecule with chirality rotates plane-polarized light. A mixture of equals a ...
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Short Stories By Arthur C
Short may refer to: Places * Short (crater), a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon * Short, Mississippi, an unincorporated community * Short, Oklahoma, a census-designated place People * Short (surname) * List of people known as the Short Arts, entertainment, and media * Short film, a cinema format (also called film short or short subject) * Short story, prose generally readable in one sitting * ''The Short-Timers'', a 1979 semi-autobiographical novel by Gustav Hasford, about military short-timers in Vietnam Brands and enterprises * Short Brothers, a British aerospace company * Short Brothers of Sunderland, former English shipbuilder Computing and technology * Short circuit, an accidental connection between two nodes of an electrical circuit * Short integer, a computer datatype Finance * Short (finance), stock-trading position * Short snorter, a banknote signed by fellow travelers, common during World War II Foodstuffs * Short pastry, one which is rich in butt ...
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Spock Must Die!
''Spock Must Die!'' is an American science fiction novel written by James Blish, published February 1970 by Bantam Books. It was the first original novel based on the ''Star Trek'' television series intended for adult readers. It was preceded by a tie-in comic book line published by Gold Key and the novel '' Mission to Horatius'' by Mack Reynolds, all intended for younger readers. Blish aimed to kill off a popular character as a way to surprise readers, and during the novel's production chose Spock, with the aid of his wife, J.A. Lawrence. Reviews of the novel have been mixed. Some reviewers have directed criticism at the structure or tone of the novel, while others have expressed no enthusiasm for the work, overall. ''Spock Must Die!'' was reprinted numerous times with different cover art, including a cover by Kazuhiko Sano. The novel was collected in an omnibus for the Science Fiction Book Club in 1978. Prior to the release of ''Spock Must Die!'', Blish had written three ...
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Isaac Asimov
yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (1922–1928)American (1928–1992) , occupation = Writer, professor of biochemistry , years_active = 1939–1992 , genre = Science fiction (hard SF, social SF), mystery, popular science , subject = Popular science, science textbooks, essays, history, literary criticism , education = Columbia University ( BA, MA, PhD) , movement = Golden Age of Science Fiction , module = , signature = Isaac Asimov signature.svg Isaac Asimov ( ; 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books ...
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Left To Right
A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable form of information storage and transfer. Writing systems require shared understanding between writers and readers of the meaning behind the sets of characters that make up a script. Writing is usually recorded onto a durable medium, such as paper or electronic storage, although non-durable methods may also be used, such as writing on a computer display, on a blackboard, in sand, or by skywriting. Reading a text can be accomplished purely in the mind as an internal process, or expressed orally. Writing systems can be placed into broad categories such as alphabets, syllabaries, or logographies, although any particular system may have attributes of more than one category. In the alphabetic category, a standard set of letters represent speech ...
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Fourth Dimension In Literature
The idea of a fourth dimension has been a factor in the evolution of modern art, but use of concepts relating to higher dimensions has been little discussed by academics in the literary world. From the late 19th century onwards, many writers began to make use of possibilities opened up by the exploration of such concepts as hypercube geometry. While many writers took the fourth dimension to be one of time (as it is commonly considered today), others preferred to think of it in spatial terms, and some associated the new mathematics with wider changes in modern culture. In science fiction, a higher "dimension" often refers to parallel or alternate universes or other imagined planes of existence. This usage is derived from the idea that to travel to parallel/alternate universes/planes of existence one must travel in a direction/dimension besides the standard ones. In effect, the other universes/planes are just a small distance away from our own, but the distance is in a fourth (or hig ...
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Chiral Life Concept
Mirror life (also called mirror-image life) is a hypothetical form of life with mirror-reflected molecular building blocks. The possibility of mirror life was first discussed by Louis Pasteur. Although this alternative life form has not been discovered in nature, efforts to build a mirror-image version of biology's molecular machinery are already underway. Homochirality Many of the essential molecules for life on Earth can exist in two mirror-image forms, referred to as "left-handed" and "right-handed", but living organisms do not use both. Proteins are exclusively composed of left-handed amino acids; RNA and DNA contain only right-handed sugars. This phenomenon is known as homochirality. It is not known whether homochirality emerged before or after life, whether the building blocks of life must have this particular chirality, or indeed whether life needs to be homochiral. Protein chains built from amino acids of mixed chirality tend not to fold or function as catalysts, but mir ...
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Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory of relativity, but he also made important contributions to the development of the theory of quantum mechanics. Relativity and quantum mechanics are the two pillars of modern physics. His mass–energy equivalence formula , which arises from relativity theory, has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation". His work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect", a pivotal step in the development of quantum theory. His intellectual achievements and originality resulted in "Einstein" becoming synonymous with "genius". In 1905, a year sometimes described as his ' ...
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Four-dimensional Space
A four-dimensional space (4D) is a mathematical extension of the concept of three-dimensional or 3D space. Three-dimensional space is the simplest possible abstraction of the observation that one only needs three numbers, called ''dimensions'', to describe the sizes or locations of objects in the everyday world. For example, the volume of a rectangular box is found by measuring and multiplying its length, width, and height (often labeled ''x'', ''y'', and ''z''). The idea of adding a fourth dimension began with Jean le Rond d'Alembert's "Dimensions" being published in 1754, was followed by Joseph-Louis Lagrange in the mid-1700s, and culminated in a precise formalization of the concept in 1854 by Bernhard Riemann. In 1880, Charles Howard Hinton popularized these insights in an essay titled "What is the Fourth Dimension?", which explained the concept of a " four-dimensional cube" with a step-by-step generalization of the properties of lines, squares, and cubes. The simplest form ...
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Chirality (chemistry)
In chemistry, a molecule or ion is called chiral () if it cannot be superposed on its mirror image by any combination of rotation (geometry), rotations, translation (geometry), translations, and some Conformational isomerism, conformational changes. This geometric property is called chirality (). The terms are derived from Ancient Greek χείρ (''cheir'') 'hand'; which is the canonical example of an object with this property. A chiral molecule or ion exists in two stereoisomers that are mirror images of each other, called enantiomers; they are often distinguished as either "right-handed" or "left-handed" by their absolute configuration or some other criterion. The two enantiomers have the same chemical properties, except when reacting with other chiral compounds. They also have the same physics, physical properties, except that they often have opposite optical activity, optical activities. A homogeneous mixture of the two enantiomers in equal parts is said to be racemic mixtu ...
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WikiProject Books
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is a Wikimedia movement affinity group for contributors with shared goals. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by '' Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Wikipedia from around 1,600 to over 5,000". On Wikipedia Some Wikipedia WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outside organizations relevant to the field at issue. For e ...
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