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A Pail Of Air
"A Pail of Air" is a science fiction short story by American writer Fritz Leiber. It originally appeared in the December 1951 issue of ''Galaxy Magazine'' and was dramatized on the radio show ''X Minus One'' in March 1956. Plot The story is narrated by a ten-year-old boy living on Earth after it has become a rogue planet, having been torn away from the Sun by a passing " dark star". The loss of solar heating has caused the Earth's atmosphere to freeze into thick layers of "snow". The boy's father had worked with a group of other scientists to construct a large shelter, but the earthquakes accompanying the disaster had destroyed it and killed the others. He managed to construct a smaller, makeshift shelter called the "Nest" for his family, where they maintain a breathable atmosphere by periodically retrieving pails of frozen oxygen to thaw over a fire. They have survived in this way for a number of years. At the end, they are found by a search party from a large group of survivor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. ( ; December 24, 1910 – September 5, 1992) was an American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. Along with Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock, Leiber is one of the fathers of sword and sorcery. Life Fritz Leiber was born December 24, 1910, in Chicago, Illinois, to the actors Fritz Leiber (actor), Fritz Leiber and Virginia Bronson Leiber. For a time, he seemed inclined to follow in his parents' footsteps; the theater and actors feature in his fiction. He spent 1928 touring with his parents' Shakespeare company (Fritz Leiber & Co.) before entering the University of Chicago, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received an undergraduate Ph.B. degree in psychology and physiology or biology with honors in 1932. From 1932 to 1933, he worked as a lay reader and studied as a candidate for the ministry, without taking a degree, at the General Theological Seminary in Chelsea, Manhattan, an affiliate of the Episcopal Church (United States ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Power
Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear ''fission'' of uranium and plutonium in nuclear power plants. Nuclear ''decay'' processes are used in niche applications such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators in some space probes such as ''Voyager 2''. Reactors producing controlled fusion power, ''fusion'' power have been operated since 1958 but have yet to generate net power and are not expected to be commercially available in the near future. The first nuclear power plant was built in the 1950s. The global installed nuclear capacity grew to 100GW in the late 1970s, and then expanded during the 1980s, reaching 300GW by 1990. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union resulted in increased regulation and p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fiction About Black Holes
Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with fact, history, or plausibility. In a traditional narrow sense, fiction refers to written narratives in prose often specifically novels, novellas, and short stories. More broadly, however, fiction encompasses imaginary narratives expressed in any medium, including not just writings but also live theatrical performances, films, television programs, radio dramas, comics, role-playing games, and video games. Definition and theory Typically, the fictionality of a work is publicly expressed, so the audience expects a work of fiction to deviate to a greater or lesser degree from the real world, rather than presenting for instance only factually accurate portrayals or characters who are actual people. Because fiction is generally understood as not adhering to the real world, the them ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1951 Short Stories
Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the United Kingdom announces abandonment of the Tanganyika groundnut scheme for the cultivation of peanuts in the Tanganyika Territory, with the writing off of £36.5M debt. * January 11 – In the U.S., a top secret report is delivered to U.S. President Truman by his National Security Resources Board, urging Truman to expand the Korean War by launching "a global offensive against communism" with sustained bombing of Red China and diplomatic moves to establish "moral justification" for a U.S. nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. The report will not not be declassified until 1978. * January 15 – In a criminal court in West Germany, Ilse Koch, The "Witch of Buchenwald", wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of books or individual stories in the public domain. All files can be accessed for free under an open format layout, available on almost any computer. , Project Gutenberg had reached over 75,999 items in its collection of free eBooks. The releases are available in plain text as well as other formats, such as HTML, PDF, EPUB, MOBI, and Plucker wherever possible. Most releases are in the English language, but many non-English works are also available. There are multiple affiliated projects that provide additional content, including region- and language-specific works. Project Gutenberg is closely affiliated with Distributed Proofreaders, an Internet-based community for proofr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rogue Planet
A rogue planet, also termed a free-floating planet (FFP) or an isolated planetary-mass object (iPMO), is an interstellar object of planetary mass which is not gravitationally bound to any star or brown dwarf. Rogue planets may originate from planetary systems in which they are formed and later ejected, or they can also form on their own, outside a planetary system. The Milky Way alone may have billions to trillions of rogue planets, a range the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is expected to refine. Some planetary-mass objects may have formed in a similar way to stars, and the International Astronomical Union has proposed that such objects be called sub-brown dwarfs. A possible example is Cha 110913−773444, which may either have been ejected and become a rogue planet or formed on its own to become a sub-brown dwarf. Terminology The two first discovery papers use the names isolated planetary-mass objects (iPMO) and free-floating planets (FFP). Most astronomical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constellations (1980 Book)
''Constellations: Stories of the Future'' (1980) is a science fiction anthology of short stories edited by Malcolm Edwards and published by Gollancz. Contents * Introduction by Malcolm Edwards * "Light of Other Days" by Bob Shaw (1966) * "A Pail of Air" by Fritz Leiber (1951) * "Beyond Lies the Wub" by Philip K. Dick (1952) * " Let's Go to Golgotha!" by Garry Kilworth (1974) * "Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand" by Vonda N. McIntyre (1973) * "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1961) * "Rescue Operation" by Harry Harrison (1964) * " It's a ''Good'' Life" by Jerome Bixby (1953) * "Mister Da V." by Kit Reed (1962) * " Billennium" by J. G. Ballard (1961) * " The Store of the Worlds" by Robert Sheckley (1959) * "The Wind from the Sun" by Arthur C. Clarke Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (16 December 191719 March 2008) was an English science fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host. Clarke co-wrote the screenplay for the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Best Of Fritz Leiber
''The Best of Fritz Leiber'' is a collection of short stories by American writer Fritz Leiber. It was first published in the United Kingdom by Sphere Books in paperback in May 1974, and in the United States in hardcover by Doubleday in June 1974; a British hardcover and American paperback followed in November of the same year from Sidgwick & Jackson and Ballantine Books (as a volume in its Classic Library of Science Fiction), respectively. The Sphere edition was reprinted in June 1977, and the Ballantine edition in September 1979. Summary The collection contains twenty-two fantasy, science fiction and horror novelettes and short stories. The British and American editions differ slightly from each other. The former credits Angus Wells as editor; the latter neither lists an editor nor acknowledges the existence of the earlier edition. Both contain the same stories, but the British edition arranges these chronologically in the order of their original publication, while the American ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Congo Region
The Congo Basin () is the sedimentary basin of the Congo River. The Congo Basin is located in Central Africa, in a region known as west equatorial Africa. The Congo Basin region is sometimes known simply as the Congo. It contains some of the largest tropical rainforests in the world and is an important source of water used in agriculture and energy generation. The rainforest in the Congo Basin is the largest rainforest in Africa and second only to the Amazon rainforest in size, with 300 million hectares compared to the 800 million hectares in the Amazon. Because of its size and diversity the basin's forest is important for mitigating climate change in its role as a carbon sink. However, deforestation and degradation of the ecology by the impacts of climate change may increase stress on the forest ecosystem, in turn making the hydrology of the basin more variable. A 2012 study found that the variability in precipitation caused by climate change will negatively affect economic a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Slave Lake
Great Slave Lake is the second-largest lake in the Northwest Territories, Canada (after Great Bear Lake), List of lakes by depth, the deepest lake in North America at , and the List of lakes by area, tenth-largest lake in the world by area. It is long and wide. It covers an area of in the southern part of the territory. Its given volume ranges from to and up to making it the List of lakes by volume, 10th or 12th largest by volume. The lake shares its name with the First Nations in Canada, First Nations peoples of the Dene family called Slavey by their enemies the Cree. Towns situated on the lake include (clockwise from east) Łutselk'e, Fort Resolution, Hay River, Northwest Territories, Hay River, Hay River Reserve, Behchokǫ̀, Yellowknife, Ndilǫ, and Dettah. The only community in the East Arm is Łutselk'e, a hamlet of about 350 people, largely Chipewyan Indigenous peoples of the Dene Nation, and the abandoned winter camp and Hudson's Bay Company post Fort Reliance, No ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tannu Tuva
The Tuvan People's Republic (TPR), known simply as Tannu Tuva, was a partially recognized socialist republic that existed between 1921 and 1944 in North Asia. It was located in the same territory as the former Imperial Russian protectorate of Uriankhai Krai, northwest of Mongolia, and now corresponds to the Republic of Tuva, a republic of Russia. The Soviet Union and Mongolia were the only countries to formally recognize it during its existence, in 1924 and 1926 respectively. After a period of increased Soviet influence, in October 1944, the polity was absorbed into the Russian SFSR (the largest constituent republic of the Soviet Union) at the request of the Tuvan parliament, ending 23 years of independence. History Establishment Since 1759, Tuva (then called Tannu Uriankhai) had been part of Mongolia, which in turn was a part of the territory of the Manchu Qing dynasty. As the Qing dynasty fell in the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, revolutions in Mongolia were also occurr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atomic Energy Research Establishment
The Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE), also known as Harwell Laboratory, was the main Headquarters, centre for nuclear power, atomic energy research and development in the United Kingdom from 1946 to the 1990s. It was created, owned and funded by the British Government. A number of early research reactors were built here starting with GLEEP in 1947 to provide the underlying science and technology behind the design and building of Britain's nuclear reactors such as the Windscale Piles and Calder Hall nuclear power station. To support this an extensive array of research and design laboratories were built to enable research into all aspects of nuclear reactor and fuel design, and the development of pilot plants for fuel reprocessing. The site became a major employer in the Oxford area. In the 1990s demand for government-led research had significantly decreased and the site was subsequently gradually diversified to allow private investment, and was known from 2006 as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
