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The Man Who Evolved
"The Man Who Evolved" is a science fiction short story by American writer Edmond Hamilton, first published in the April 1931 issue of ''Wonder Stories''. In his comments on the story in ''Before the Golden Age'', Isaac Asimov called it the first science fiction short story (as opposed to novel) that impressed him so much it stayed in his mind permanently. In her introduction to '' The Best of Edmond Hamilton'', Leigh Brackett called the story "a fine example of Hamilton's skill in encapsulating an enormous theme into the neat and perfect compass of a short story". Plot summary The narrator, Arthur Wright, and his friend Hugh Dutton visit their former classmate, Dr. John Pollard at his combination house/laboratory. Pollard, a classic mad scientist, has been conducting research into the question of what causes the mutations that drive evolution. Pollard informs them that he has determined that cosmic rays are the source of the mutations, and that he has decided that bombarding ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmond Hamilton
Edmond Moore Hamilton (October 21, 1904 – February 1, 1977) was an American writer of science fiction during the mid-twentieth century. Early life Born in Youngstown, Ohio, he was raised there and in nearby New Castle, Pennsylvania. Something of a child prodigy, he graduated from high school and entered Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania at the age of 14, but washed out at 17. Writing career Edmond Hamilton's career as a science fiction writer began with the publication of "The Monster God of Mamurth", a short story, in the August 1926 issue of ''Weird Tales'', now a classic magazine of alternative fiction. Hamilton quickly became a central member of the remarkable group of ''Weird Tales'' writers assembled by editor Farnsworth Wright, that included H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. ''Weird Tales'' would publish 79 works of fiction by Hamilton from 1926 to 1948, making him one of the magazine's most prolific contributors. Hamilton became a frien ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mad Scientist
The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as " mad, bad and dangerous to know" or "insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly ambitious, taboo or hubristic nature of their experiments. As a motif in fiction, the mad scientist may be villainous (evil genius) or antagonistic, benign, or neutral; may be insane, eccentric, or clumsy; and often works with fictional technology or fails to recognise or value common human objections to attempting to play God. Some may have benevolent intentions, even if their actions are dangerous or questionable, which can make them accidental antagonists. History Prototypes The prototypical fictional mad scientist was Victor Frankenstein, creator of his eponymous monster, who made his first appearance in 1818, in the novel ''Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus'' by Mary Shelley. Though the novel's title character, Victor Frankenst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1931 Short Stories
Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir Isaac Isaacs is sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia. * January 25 – Mohandas Gandhi is again released from imprisonment in India. * January 27 – Pierre Laval forms a government in France. February * February 4 – Soviet leader Joseph Stalin gives a speech calling for rapid industrialization, arguing that only strong industrialized countries will win wars, while "weak" nations are "beaten". Stalin states: "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us." The first five-year plan in the Soviet Union is intensified, for the industrialization and collectivization of agriculture. * February 10 – Official ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction Short Stories
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for scientific reasoning is tens of thousands of years old. The earliest written records in the history of science come from Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3000 to 1200 BCE. Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages, but was preserved in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age and later by the efforts of Byzantine Greek scholars who brought Greek man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hector Hammond
Hector Hammond is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics who is primarily an enemy of Green Lantern. Peter Sarsgaard played the role of Hammond in the 2011 film ''Green Lantern''. Publication history Hector Hammond originally appeared in ''Green Lantern'' (vol. 2) #5 (March–April 1961) and was created by John Broome and Gil Kane. Fictional character biography The character Hammond is a petty criminal on the run from the law when he discovers the fragments of a strange meteor in the woods (later retconned as part of the same meteor that lands in Africa, super-evolving Gorilla Grodd and the other gorillas of Gorilla City). Observing that radiation from the meteor caused the nearby plants to evolve rapidly, Hammond kidnaps four scientists and exposes them to the meteor on a remote island. The radiation causes their intellects to evolve, but also has the side effect of sapping their wills. Hammond forces the scientists to use their heightened int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modok
MODOK (also written as M.O.D.O.K.; an acronym for Mental/Mobile/Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The first MODOK is George Tarleton, a former employee of Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.), an arms-dealing organization specializing in futuristic weaponry, who undergoes substantial mutagenic medical experimentation originally designed to increase his intelligence. While successful, the experiments result in him developing a freakishly overdeveloped head and a stunted body, causing the character's signature look and use of a hoverchair for mobility. After the experiments, he kills his creators and takes control of A.I.M. Following Tarleton being split from MODOK, the new independent being dubs himself MODOK Superior, becoming the archenemy of Gwen Poole. IGN's list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time ranked MODOK as #100. Debuting in the Silver Age of Comic Books, MODOK ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sixth Finger
"The Sixth Finger" is an episode of the original '' The Outer Limits'' television show. It first aired on 14 October 1963, during the first season. Plot Working in a remote Welsh mining town, a rogue scientist, Professor Mathers, discovers a process that affects the speed of evolutionary mutation. Mathers suffers guilt for his role in developing a super-destructive atomic bomb, and hopes his new discovery will better the human race. A disgruntled miner, Gwyllm Griffiths, volunteers for an experiment that will enable the professor to create a being with enhanced mental capabilities. As a man sent forward equal to 20,000 years of evolution, Gwyllm soon begins growing an overdeveloped cortex and a sixth finger on each hand. When the mutation process begins to operate independently of the professor's influence, Gwyllm takes control of the experiment. Now equal to 1 million years of evolution, and equipped with superior intelligence and powers of mind, such as telekinesis, that are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mighty Max (TV Series)
''Mighty Max'' is an American animated action/ horror television series that aired from 1 September 1993, to 2 December 1994, based upon the British Mighty Max toys, an outgrowth of the Polly Pocket line, created by Bluebird Toys in 1992. It ran for two seasons, with a total of 40 episodes airing during the show's run. Plot The series follows Max, an adventurous teenage boy who receives in the mail a small statue of a fowl, inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs whereof the translation states: "You have been chosen to be the cap-bearer. Go to the mini-mart and wait for a sign, Mighty Max". Shocked by the message, Max drops the statue, shattering it and revealing a red baseball cap emblazoned with a yellow "M", which he dons. The cap is capable of projecting wormhole-like "portals" through which Max can teleport across space and time. Upon arriving at the mini-mart, Max is chased by a lava-monster sent by antagonist ' Skullmaster'. As Max flees, the cap teleports them to the Mongo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Handwaving
Hand-waving (with various spellings) is a pejorative label for attempting to be seen as effective – in word, reasoning, or deed – while actually doing nothing effective or substantial. Cites the ''Random House Dictionary'' and ''The Dictionary of American Slang'' 4th ed. It is often applied to debating techniques that involve fallacies, misdirection and the glossing over of details. Online edition:Homepagementions a ver. 4.4.8, but the text of the work say It is also used academically to indicate unproven claims and skipped steps in proofs (sometimes intentionally, as in lectures and instructional materials), with some specific meanings in particular fields, including literary criticism, speculative fiction, mathematics, logic, science and engineering. The term can additionally be used in work situations, when attempts are made to display productivity or assure accountability without actually resulting in them. The term can also be used as a self-admission of, and suggestion ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Telepathic
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 – . 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cosmic Rays
Cosmic rays are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Solar System in our own galaxy, and from distant galaxies. Upon impact with Earth's atmosphere, cosmic rays produce showers of secondary particles, some of which reach the surface, although the bulk is deflected off into space by the magnetosphere or the heliosphere. Cosmic rays were discovered by Victor Hess in 1912 in balloon experiments, for which he was awarded the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics. Direct measurement of cosmic rays, especially at lower energies, has been possible since the launch of the first satellites in the late 1950s. Particle detectors similar to those used in nuclear and high-energy physics are used on satellites and space probes for research into cosmic rays. Data from the Fermi Space Telescope (2013) have been interpreted as evidence ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation tends to exist within any given population as a result of genetic mutation and recombination. Evolution occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection (including sexual selection) and genetic drift act on this variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more common or more rare within a population. The evolutionary pressures that determine whether a characteristic is common or rare within a population constantly change, resulting in a change in heritable characteristics arising over successive generations. It is this process of evolution that has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation, including the levels of species, individual organisms, and molecules. The theory of evolution by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
