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Dan Alderson
Daniel John Alderson (October 31, 1941 – May 17, 1989) was a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, and a prominent participant in science fiction fandom. He came from a middle-class family and had diabetes. A high school science fair project on the gravitational fields of non-spherical bodies won him a college scholarship to Caltech and a job at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he wrote the software used to navigate ''Voyagers'' 1 and 2. A member of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, an Official Editor of the comic book APA CAPA-alpha, and an early member of gaming fandom, he came into contact with a number of science fiction writers, notably Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, who, in their books, credit Dan Alderson with ideas that inspired some of their science fiction, notably the Alderson drive and the Alderson disk. As "Dan Forrester" he is a prominent character in '' Lucifer's Hammer''. Alderson did not write science fiction himself, but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dan Alderson At LASFS
Dan or DAN may refer to: People * Dan (name), including a list of people with the name ** Dan (king), several kings of Denmark * Dan people, an ethnic group located in West Africa **Dan language, a Mande language spoken primarily in Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia * Dan (son of Jacob), one of the 12 sons of Jacob/Israel in the Bible **Tribe of Dan, one of the 12 tribes of Israel descended from Dan * Crown Prince Dan, prince of Yan in ancient China Places * Dan (ancient city), the biblical location also called Dan, and identified with Tel Dan * Dan, Israel, a kibbutz * Dan, subdistrict of Kap Choeng District, Thailand * Dan, West Virginia, an unincorporated community in the United States * Dan River (other) * Danzhou, formerly Dan County, China * Gush Dan, the metropolitan area of Tel Aviv in Israel Organizations *Dan-Air, a defunct airline in the United Kingdom *Dan Bus Company, a public transport company in Israel *Dan Hotels, a hotel chain in Israel *Dan the Tire Man, a t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Eugene Pournelle (; August 7, 1933 – September 8, 2017) was an American scientist in the area of operations research and human factors research, a science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers. In the 1960s and early 1970s, he worked in the aerospace industry, but eventually focused on his writing career. In an obituary in ''Gizmodo'', he is described as "a tireless ambassador for the future." Pournelle's hard science fiction writing received multiple awards. In addition to his solo writing, he wrote several novels with collaborators including Larry Niven. Pournelle served a term as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Pournelle's journalism focused primarily on the computer industry, astronomy, and space exploration. From the 1970s until the early 1990s, he contributed to the computer magazine ''Byte'', writing from the viewpoint of an intelligent user, with the oft-cited credo, "We do this stuff so you won't ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California Institute Of Technology Alumni
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territories of the United States by population, most populous U.S. state and the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated Administrative division, subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous Statistical area (United States), urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7million residents and the latter having over 9.6million. Sacramento, California, Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the List of largest California cities by population, most populous city in the state and the List of United States cities by population, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1989 Deaths
File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxon Valdez oil tanker runs aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, causing a large oil spill; The Fall of the Berlin Wall begins the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe, and heralds German reunification; The United States invades Panama to depose Manuel Noriega; The Singing Revolution led to the independence of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania from the Soviet Union; The stands of Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, Yorkshire, where the Hillsborough disaster occurred; Students demonstrate in Tiananmen Square, Beijing; many are killed by forces of the Chinese Communist Party., 300x300px, thumb rect 0 0 200 200 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake rect 200 0 400 200 World Wide Web rect 400 0 600 200 Exxon Valdez oil spill rect 0 200 300 400 1989 Tiananm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1941 Births
Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January–August – 10,072 men, women and children with mental and physical disabilities are asphyxiated with carbon monoxide in a gas chamber, at Hadamar Euthanasia Centre in Germany, in the first phase of mass killings under the Action T4 program here. * January 1 – Thailand's Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram decrees January 1 as the official start of the Thai solar calendar new year (thus the previous year that began April 1 had only 9 months). * January 3 – A decree (''Normalschrifterlass'') promulgated in Germany by Martin Bormann, on behalf of Adolf Hitler, requires replacement of blackletter typefaces by Antiqua (typeface class), Antiqua. * January 4 – The short subject ''Elmer's Pet Rabbit'' is released, marking the second appearance of Bugs Bunny, and also the first to have his name on a title card. * January 5 – WWII: Battle of Bardia in Libya: Australian an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Menace Of The LASFS
Menace may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Menace'' (1928 film), an Australian silent film * ''The Menace'' (1932 film), an American crime drama * ''The Menace'' (1961 film) * ''Menace'' (1934 American film) * ''Menace'' (1934 British film), directed by Adrian Brunel and starring Victor Varconi * ''La Menace'', a 1977 French-Canadian film * ''Menace'' (TV series), starring Michael Gothard * "Menace" (''Stargate SG-1''), a season-five episode of the television series ''Stargate SG-1'' * "Menace", a season-seven episode of the television series ''Law & Order'' Other * Menace (Marvel Comics), a foe of Spider-Man * ''Menace'' (Atlas Comics), a 1950s science-fiction/horror comic-book series * The Menace, the main villain of the first 12 books of the ''Goosebumps Horrorland'' children's novella series * ''Menace'' (video game), a 1988 horizontal scrolling shooter game * ''The Menace'' (album), by English alternative rock group Elastica * Schumacher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LASFS
The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, Inc., or LASFS, is a science fiction and fantasy fan society that meets in the Los Angeles area. The current meeting place can be found on thLASFS website LASFS is the oldest continuously operating science fiction club in the world, helped considerably in that record by being one of the few to have owned a clubhouse. The organization continues to hold regular weekly meetings on Thursdays. The club maintains a private lending library of books, videos, and other genre-related materials, for use by members. Members of the club have run the World Science Fiction Convention several times, initiated the regional science-fiction convention Westercon, and hosts a yearly science fiction convention called Loscon. It maintains a web site and discussion forum, publishes (at irregular intervals) an amateur magazine called ''Shangri L'Affaires'', and hosts the collations of a weekly amateur press association, APA-L. The LASFS monthly newsletter, ''De ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar System
The Solar System Capitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar System" and "solar system" structures in theinaming guidelines document. The name is commonly rendered in lower case ('solar system'), as, for example, in the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' an''Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary''. is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. It formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority (99.86%) of the system's mass is in the Sun, with most of the remaining mass contained in the planet Jupiter. The four inner system planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars—are terrestrial planets, being composed primarily of rock and metal. The four giant planets of the outer system a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucifer's Hammer
''Lucifer's Hammer'' is a science fiction post-apocalypse-survival novel by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle that was first published in 1977. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1978. Two issues of a planned six-part comic book adaptation were published by Innovation Comics in 1993. Plot summary When wealthy amateur astronomer Tim Hamner co-discovers a new comet, named Hamner-Brown for its discoverers, documentary producer Harvey Randall persuades Hamner to have his soap company sponsor a television documentary series on the comet. Political lobbying by California Senator Arthur Jellison eventually gets a joint Apollo-Soyuz (docking with Skylab B) mission approved to study the comet, dubbed "The Hammer" by the media, which is expected to pass close to the Earth. The scientific community assures the public that a collision with Earth is extremely unlikely, but the comet's nucleus breaks apart and the pieces strike parts of Europe, Africa, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alderson Disk
An Alderson disk (named after Dan Alderson, its originator) is a hypothetical artificial astronomical megastructure, like Larry Niven's Ringworld and the Dyson sphere. The disk is a giant platter with a thickness of several thousand miles. The Sun rests in the hole at the center of the disk. The outer perimeter of an Alderson disk would be roughly equivalent to the orbit of Mars or Jupiter. According to the proposal, a sufficiently large disk would have a larger mass than its Sun. The hole would be surrounded by a thousand-mile-high wall to prevent the atmosphere from drifting into the Sun. The outer rim would take care of itself. The mechanical stresses within the disc would be far beyond what any known material can stand, thus relegating such a structure to the realm of exploratory engineering until materials and construction science become sufficiently advanced. Building a megastructure of this magnitude would require an amount of material that far surpasses the amount of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alderson Drive
CoDominium is a series of future history novels written by American writer Jerry Pournelle, along with several co-authors, primarily Larry Niven. Series Setting Formation of the CoDominium The point of departure of Pournelle's history is the establishment of the ''CoDominium'' (CD), a political alliance and union between the United States of America and a revitalized Soviet Union. This union, achieved in the name of planetary stability, reigns over the Earth for over a hundred years. In that time, it achieves peace of a sort, as well as interstellar colonization, but at the price of a complete halt in both scientific and political evolution. The CoDominium (CD) is a supranational alliance of the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This alliance eventually becomes a '' de facto'' planetary government, and later, an interstellar empire. Despite this, no other nations on Earth are given representation or membership. Other major powers b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
