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Rama Series
''Rendezvous with Rama'' is a 1973 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. Set in the 2130s, the story involves a McKendree cylinder, cylindrical alien starship that enters the Solar System. The story is told from the point of view of a group of human explorers who intercept the ship in an attempt to unlock its mysteries. The novel won both the Hugo Award, Hugo and Nebula Award, Nebula awards upon its release, and is regarded as one of the cornerstones in Clarke's bibliography. The concept was later extended with several sequels, written by Clarke and Gentry Lee. Plot An asteroid strikes Italy in 2077, prompting the creation of the Spaceguard system to track potentially hazardous objects in space. In 2131, Spaceguard detects an interstellar object entering the Solar System, designating it "31/439" before naming it Rama after the Hindu god. A space probe reveals that Rama is a perfectly smooth cylinder long and in diameter, indicating that it was constructed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur C
Arthur is a masculine given name of uncertain etymology. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. A common spelling variant used in many Slavic, Romance, and Germanic languages is Artur. In Spanish and Italian it is Arturo. Etymology The earliest attestation of the name Arthur is in the early 9th century Welsh-Latin text '' Historia Brittonum'', where it refers to a circa 5th century Romano-British general who fought against the invading Saxons, and who later gave rise to the famous King Arthur of medieval legend and literature. A possible earlier mention of the same man is to be found in the epic Welsh poem '' Y Gododdin'' by Aneirin, which some scholars assign to the late 6th century, though this is still a matter of debate and the poem only survives in a late 13th century manuscript entitled the Book of Aneirin. A 9th-century Breton landowner named Arthur witnessed several charters collected in the '' Cartulary of Redon''. The Irish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Potentially Hazardous Object
A potentially hazardous object (PHO) is a near-Earth object – either an asteroid or a comet – with an orbit that can make close approaches to the Earth and which is large enough to cause significant regional damage in the event of impact. They are conventionally defined as having a minimum orbit intersection distance with Earth of less than and an absolute magnitude of 22 or brighter, the latter of which roughly corresponds to a size larger than 140 meters. More than 99% of the known potentially hazardous objects are no impact threat over the next 100 years. , just 21 of the known potentially hazardous objects listed on the Sentry Risk Table could not be excluded as potential threats over the next hundred years. Over hundreds if not thousands of years though, the orbits of some "potentially hazardous" asteroids can evolve to live up to their namesake. Most of these objects are potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs), and a few are comets. there are 2,304 known PHAs (about ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Science Fiction Association Award
The BSFA Awards are literary awards presented annually since 1970 by the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) to honour works in the genre of science fiction. Nominees and winners are chosen based on a vote of BSFA members. More recently, members of the Eastercon convention have also been eligible to vote. BSFA Award categories The award originally included only a category for novels. A category for artists was added in 1979 and for short works in 1980. A category for younger readers was added in 2021. The artists category became artwork in 1986, and a category for related non-fiction was added in 2002. A number of new awards were created in 2023. A media category was awarded for 1978 to 1991. The ceremonies are named after the year that the eligible works were published, despite the awards being given out in the next year. The current standard award categories are: * BSFA Award for Best Novel (from 1969) * BSFA Award for Best Shorter Fiction (from 2023) * BSFA Award fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of the longest-running newspapers in the United States, the ''Times'' serves as one of the country's Newspaper of record, newspapers of record. , ''The New York Times'' had 9.13 million total and 8.83 million online subscribers, both by significant margins the List of newspapers in the United States, highest numbers for any newspaper in the United States; the total also included 296,330 print subscribers, making the ''Times'' the second-largest newspaper by print circulation in the United States, following ''The Wall Street Journal'', also based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' is published by the New York Times Company; since 1896, the company has been chaired by the Ochs-Sulzberger family, whose current chairman and the paper's publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Leonard (critic)
John Leonard (February 25, 1939 – November 5, 2008) was an American literary, television, film, and cultural critic. For ''Life'' and ''The New York Times'' he wrote under the pen name of Cyclops. Biography John Leonard grew up in Washington, D.C., Jackson Heights, Queens, and Long Beach, California, where he graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School. Raised by a single mother, Ruth Smith, he made his way to Harvard University, where he immersed himself in the college newspaper, ''The Harvard Crimson'', only to drop out in the spring of his second year. He then attended the University of California at Berkeley. A political leftist, Leonard had an unlikely early patron in conservative leader William F. Buckley, who gave him his first job in journalism at ''National Review'' magazine in 1959. There, he worked alongside such young talents as Joan Didion, Garry Wills, Renata Adler and Arlene Croce. Leonard went on to be Drama and Literature Director for Pacifica Radio flagship ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Large Magellanic Cloud
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a dwarf galaxy and satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. At a distance of around , the LMC is the second- or third-closest galaxy to the Milky Way, after the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy, Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal ( away) and the possible dwarf irregular galaxy called the Canis Major Overdensity. Based on the D25 isophote at the B-band (445 nm wavelength of light), the Large Magellanic Cloud is about across. It is roughly one-hundredth the mass of the Milky Way and is the fourth-largest galaxy in the Local Group, after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), the Milky Way, and the Triangulum Galaxy (M33). The LMC is classified as a Magellanic spiral. It contains a stellar bar that is geometrically off-center, suggesting that it was once a barred dwarf spiral galaxy before its spiral arms were disrupted, likely by tidal interactions from the nearby Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and the Milky Way's gravity. The LMC is predicted to merge with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reactionless Drive
A reactionless drive is a hypothetical device producing motion without the exhaust of a propellant. A propellantless drive is not necessarily reactionless when it constitutes an open system interacting with external fields; but a reactionless drive is a particular case of a propellantless drive that is a closed system, presumably in contradiction with the law of conservation of momentum. Reactionless drives are often considered similar to a perpetual motion machine. The name comes from Newton's third law, often expressed as: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Many infeasible reactionless drives are a staple of science fiction for space propulsion. Closed systems Through the years there have been numerous claims for functional reactionless drive designs using ordinary mechanics (i.e., devices not said to be based on quantum mechanics, relativity or atomic forces or effects). Two of these represent their general classes: the Dean drive is perhaps th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mercury (planet)
Mercury is the first planet from the Sun. It is a rocky planet with a trace atmosphere. While it is the List of Solar System objects by size, smallest and least massive planet of the Solar System, its surface gravity is slightly higher than that of Mars. The surface of Mercury is similar to Earth's Moon, heavily Impact crater, cratered, with expansive rupes system, generated from thrust faults, and bright ray systems, formed by ejecta. Its largest crater, Caloris Planitia, has a diameter of , which is about one-third the diameter of the planet (). Being the most inferior planet, inferior orbiting planet it appears in Earth's sky, always close to the Sun, either as a "morning star" or an "evening star". It stays most of the time the closest to all other planets and is the planet with the highest delta-v needed to travel to from all other planets of the Solar System. Mercury's sidereal year (88.0 Earth days) and sidereal day (58.65 Earth days) are in a 3:2 ratio. This relation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biorobot
Biorobotics is an interdisciplinary science that combines the fields of biomedical engineering, cybernetics, and robotics to develop new technologies that integrate biology with mechanical systems to develop more efficient communication, alter genetic information, and create machines that imitate biological systems. Cybernetics Cybernetics focuses on the communication and system of living organisms and machines that can be applied and combined with multiple fields of study such as biology, mathematics, computer science, engineering, and much more. This discipline falls under the branch of biorobotics because of its combined field of study between biological bodies and mechanical systems. Studying these two systems allow for advanced analysis on the functions and processes of each system as well as the interactions between them. History Cybernetic theory is a concept that has existed for centuries, dating back to the era of Plato where he applied the term to refer to the " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human-powered Aircraft
A human-powered aircraft (HPA) is an aircraft belonging to the class of vehicles known as human-powered transport. As its name suggests, HPAs have the pilot not only steer, but power the aircraft (usually propeller-driven) by means of a system similar to a bicycle or tricycle: a pair of pedals, moved by the pilot's feet that turns a gear, which then moves a bicycle chain, which then rotates a smaller gear, which turns a vertical shaft that either turns a set of bevel gears, which turns another, horizontal shaft that ultimately turns a propeller, or in the case of earlier prototypes, an ornithopter mechanism. Often, a hybrid system is used; where during a certain amount of time pedaling, it would charge a battery, which would, at the push of a button, power an electric motor that is connected to the same horizontal shaft as the propeller. Human-powered aircraft have been successfully flown over considerable distances. However, they are still primarily constructed as engineer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Airlock
An airlock is a room or compartment which permits passage between environments of differing atmospheric pressure or composition, while minimizing the changing of pressure or composition between the differing environments. An airlock consists of a chamber with two Hermetic seal, airtight doors or openings, usually arranged in series, which do not open simultaneously. Airlocks can be small-scale mechanisms, such as Fermentation lock, those used in fermenting, or larger mechanisms, which often take the form of an antechamber. An airlock may also be used underwater to allow passage between the air environment in a pressure vessel, such as a submarine, and the water environment outside. In such cases the airlock can contain either Atmosphere of Earth, air or water. This is called a floodable airlock or underwater airlock, and is used to prevent water from entering a submersible vessel or underwater habitat. Operation The procedure of entering an airlock from the external or am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
