Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The story was first published in Astounding Science Fiction magazine, with illustrations by Frank Kramer. In November 1940, Astounding editor John W. Campbell had suggested that Heinlein write a story about the use of radioactive dust as a weapon, proposing a detailed scenario. Heinlein discarded Campbell's scenario, and wrote a story he called ...
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a comic science fiction series created by Douglas Adams that has become popular among fans of the genre and members of the scientific community. Phrases from it are widely recognised and often used in reference to, but outside the context of, the source material.
Induced radioactivity, also called artificial radioactivity or man-made radioactivity, is the process of using radiation to make a previously stable material radioactive. [1] The husband-and-wife team of Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot-Curie discovered induced radioactivity in 1934, and they shared the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry ...
"Klaatu barada nikto" is a phrase that originated in the 1951 science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still. The humanoid alien protagonist of the film, Klaatu (Michael Rennie), instructs Helen Benson (Patricia Neal) that if any harm befalls him, she must say the phrase to the robot Gort (Lockard Martin).
Dilithium (Li 2) exists (two covalently bonded lithium atoms); but something else is referred to in fiction. In Star Trek, dilithium occurs in crystal form and serves as a controlling agent in the matter-antimatter reaction cores used to power the faster-than-light warp drive. In the original series, dilithium crystals are rare and cannot be ...
Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is considered radioactive. Three of the most common types of decay are alpha, beta, and gamma decay.
The cover of the September 1957 issue of Venture Science Fiction, in which Sturgeon first published "90% of everything is crud.". Sturgeon's law (or Sturgeon's revelation) is an adage stating "ninety percent of everything is crap".
Science-fiction works hand-in-glove with the universe. Fantasy cracks it down the middle, turns it wrong-side-out, dissolves it to invisibility, walks men through its walls, and fetches incredible circuses to town with sea-serpent, medusa, and chimera displacing zebra, ape, and armadillo. Science-fiction balances you on the cliff.