|
The Dying Night
"The Dying Night" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. The story first appeared in the July 1956 issue of ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'', and was reprinted in the collections ''Nine Tomorrows'' (1959), ''Asimov's Mysteries'' (1968), and ''The Best of Isaac Asimov'' (1973). "The Dying Night" is Asimov's third Wendell Urth story. Plot summary Three astronomers, who have been working on the Moon, Mercury and the asteroid Ceres, meet for the first time in ten years at a convention on Earth. They also meet a former colleague of theirs, Romero Villiers, who had to stay on Earth because of illness. Villiers claims to have invented a mass-transference/teleportation device, but dies under suspicious circumstances before he can demonstrate the device to his friends. Another scientist who has seen the device demonstrated suspects that Villiers has been murdered by one of his classmates, and he questions them. In the course of his investigation, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Best Of Isaac Asimov
''The Best of Isaac Asimov'' is a collection of twelve science fiction short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov, published by Sphere in 1973. It begins with a short introduction (six pages in the Doubleday hardcover edition) giving various details on the stories, such as how they came to be written, or what significance merits their inclusion in a "best of" collection, as well as some of Dr. Asimov's thoughts on a best of collection itself. The stories included are two of his early works, two of his late works (post-1960), and eight from the 1950s, which he refers to as his "golden decade" in the introduction. Except for the last story in the book, "Mirror Image", none of the stories are related to his ''Robot'' and ''Foundation'' series, while a few ("The Last Question", "The Dead Past", and "Anniversary") mention the Multivac computer. Contents *Introduction *"Marooned off Vesta" (1939) *" Nightfall" (1941), novelette *"C-Chute" (1951), novelette *"The Martian Way" (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-Reliance
"Self-Reliance" is an 1841 essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes: the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations: : ''"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."'' This essay is an analysis into the nature of the ''"aboriginal self on which a universal reliance may be grounded."'' Emerson emphasizes the importance of individualism and its effect on an individual's satisfaction in life. In his essay, he focuses on seemingly insignificant details, explaining how life is ''"learning and forgetting and learning again."'' History The first hint of the philosophy that would become "Self-Reliance" was presented by Ralph Waldo Emerson as part of a sermon in September 1830 a mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and his ideology was disseminated through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States. Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism in his 1836 essay "Nature". Following this work, he gave a speech entitled "The American Scholar" in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered to be America's "intellectual Declaration of Independence."Richardson, p. 263. Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first and then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays, '' Essays: Firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Singing Bell
"The Singing Bell" is a science fiction mystery short story by American writer Isaac Asimov, which first appeared in the January 1955 issue of ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'' and was reprinted in the 1968 collection ''Asimov's Mysteries''. "The Singing Bell" was the first of Asimov's Wendell Urth stories. Plot summary Louis Peyton is a master criminal who spent decades challenging the law, with the police having never managed to gather any direct evidence against him. One August, Albert Cornwell takes him to the Moon to retrieve a cache of extremely valuable "Singing Bells". The Bells are lunar rocks which, when struck by the correct stroker, make an incredibly beautiful sound. Not a dozen people on Earth own a flawless Bell, while the cache contains two dozen, and each can be sold for a hundred thousand dollars minimum (assuming 1955 prices, over a million each in 2022). Cornwell had obtained the map to the cache by killing their discoverer. Once the retrieval i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar Day
A synodic day (or synodic rotation period or solar day) is the period for a celestial object to rotate once in relation to the star it is orbiting, and is the basis of solar time. The synodic day is distinguished from the sidereal day, which is one complete rotation in relation to distant stars, which is the basis of sidereal time. This is different from the duration of a synodic day because the revolution of the body around its parent star would cause a single "day" to pass relative to a star, even if the body did not rotate itself. Earth's synodic day Earth's synodic day is the time it takes for the Sun to pass over the same meridian (a line of longitude) on consecutive days, whereas a sidereal day is the time it takes for a given distant star to pass over a meridian on consecutive days. For example, in the Northern Hemisphere, a synodic day could be measured as the time taken for the Sun to move from exactly true south (i.e. its highest declination) on one day to exactly s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sidereal Day
Sidereal time (as a unit also sidereal day or sidereal rotation period) (sidereal ) is a timekeeping system that astronomers use to locate celestial objects. Using sidereal time, it is possible to easily point a telescope to the proper coordinates in the night sky. In short, sidereal time is a "time scale that is based on Earth's rate of rotation measured relative to the fixed stars", or more correctly, relative to the March equinox. Viewed from the same location, a star seen at one position in the sky will be seen at the same position on another night at the same sidereal time. This is similar to how the time kept by a sundial (Solar time) can be used to find the location of the Sun. Just as the Sun and Moon appear to rise in the east and set in the west due to the rotation of Earth, so do the stars. Both Solar time and sidereal time make use of the regularity of Earth's rotation about its polar axis: solar time following the Sun while, roughly speaking, sidereal time follo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tidally Locked
Tidal locking between a pair of co-orbiting astronomical body, astronomical bodies occurs when one of the objects reaches a state where there is no longer any net change in its rotation rate over the course of a complete orbit. In the case where a tidally locked body possesses synchronous rotation, the object takes just as long to Rotation around a fixed axis, rotate around its own axis as it does to revolve around its partner. For example, the same side of the Moon always faces the Earth, although there is some libration, variability because the Moon's orbit is not perfectly circular. Usually, only the natural satellite, satellite is tidally locked to the larger body. However, if both the difference in mass between the two bodies and the distance between them are relatively small, each may be tidally locked to the other; this is the case for Pluto and Charon (moon), Charon. Alternative names for the tidal locking process are gravitational locking, captured rotation, and spin–orb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teleportation
Teleportation is the hypothetical transfer of matter or energy from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them. It is a common subject in science fiction literature and in other popular culture. Teleportation is often paired with time travel, being that the travelling between the two points takes an unknown period of time, sometimes being immediate. An apport is a similar phenomenon featured in parapsychology and spiritualism. There is no known physical mechanism that would allow for teleportation. Frequently appearing scientific papers and media articles with the term ''teleportation'' typically report on so-called " quantum teleportation", a scheme for information transfer which, due to the no-communication theorem, still would not allow for faster-than-light communication. Etymology The use of the term ''teleport'' to describe the hypothetical movement of material objects between one place and another without physically traversing the distance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surface is made up of the ocean, dwarfing Earth's polar ice, lakes, and rivers. The remaining 29% of Earth's surface is land, consisting of continents and islands. Earth's surface layer is formed of several slowly moving tectonic plates, which interact to produce mountain ranges, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Earth's liquid outer core generates the magnetic field that shapes the magnetosphere of the Earth, deflecting destructive solar winds. The atmosphere of the Earth consists mostly of nitrogen and oxygen. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere like carbon dioxide (CO2) trap a part of the energy from the Sun close to the surface. Water vapor is widely present in the atmosphere and forms clouds that cover most of the planet. More solar e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ceres (asteroid)
Ceres (; minor-planet designation: 1 Ceres) is a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It was the first asteroid discovered, on 1 January 1801, by Giuseppe Piazzi at Palermo Astronomical Observatory in Sicily and announced as a new planet. Ceres was later classified as an asteroid and then a dwarf planetthe only one always inside Neptune's orbit. Ceres's small size means that even at its brightest, it is too dim to be seen by the naked eye, except under extremely dark skies. Its apparent magnitude ranges from 6.7 to 9.3, peaking at opposition (when it is closest to Earth) once every 15- to 16-month synodic period. As a result, its surface features are barely visible even with the most powerful telescopes, and little was known about it until the robotic NASA spacecraft ''Dawn'' approached Ceres for its orbital mission in 2015. ''Dawn'' found Ceres's surface to be a mixture of water ice, and hydrated minerals such as carbonates and clay. Gra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asteroid
An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. Of the roughly one million known asteroids the greatest number are located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, approximately 2 to 4 AU from the Sun, in the main asteroid belt. Asteroids are generally classified to be of three types: C-type, M-type, and S-type. These were named after and are generally identified with carbonaceous, metallic, and silicaceous compositions, respectively. The size of asteroids varies greatly; the largest, Ceres, is almost across and qualifies as a dwarf planet. The total mass of all the asteroids combined is only 3% that of Earth's Moon. The majority of main belt asteroids follow slightly elliptical, stable orbits, revolving in the same direction as the Earth and taking from three to six years to comple ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.svg "Click for more on -> Earth")
.svg "Click for more on -> Ceres (asteroid)")
