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Close To Critical
''Close to Critical'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Hal Clement. The novel was first serialized in three parts and published in ''Astounding Science Fiction'' magazine in 1958. Its first hardcover book publication was in July 1964. Setting Revolving on an orbit about the star Altair, Tenebra is an example of one of Hal Clement's "hellworlds". 27 times the mass of Earth, Tenebra is three times Earth's diameter (38,226 kilometers; 23,746 miles) and has three times Earth's gravity at its surface (29.43 meters per second per second; 96.6 feet per second per second), which gives Tenebra an escape velocity of 33.558 kilometers per second (nearly 21 miles per second). Clement also describes the planet as rotating on its axis in a little less than four Earth days. Tenebra has an atmosphere "consisting of water heavily laced with oxygen and oxides of sulphur". At the surface the temperature comes close enough to the critical point of water (temperature = 374 Celsius; 70 ...
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WikiProject Novels
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is a Wikimedia movement affinity group for contributors with shared goals. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by ''Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Wikipedia from around 1,600 to over 5,000". On Wikipedia Some Wikipedia WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outside organizations relevant t ...
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Hydrothermal Vents
A hydrothermal vent is a fissure on the seabed from which geothermally heated water discharges. They are commonly found near volcanically active places, areas where tectonic plates are moving apart at mid-ocean ridges, ocean basins, and hotspots. Hydrothermal deposits are rocks and mineral ore deposits formed by the action of hydrothermal vents. Hydrothermal vents exist because the earth is both geologically active and has large amounts of water on its surface and within its crust. Under the sea, they may form features called black smokers or white smokers. Relative to the majority of the deep sea, the areas around hydrothermal vents are biologically more productive, often hosting complex communities fueled by the chemicals dissolved in the vent fluids. Chemosynthetic bacteria and Archaea form the base of the food chain, supporting diverse organisms, including giant tube worms, clams, limpets and shrimp. Active hydrothermal vents are thought to exist on Jupiter's moon Euro ...
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American Science Fiction Novels
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the " United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soc ...
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Altair In Fiction
The planetary systems of stars other than the Sun and the Solar System are a staple element in many works of the science fiction genre. Overview The notion that there might be inhabited extrasolar planets can be traced at least as far back as Giordano Bruno who, in his '' De l'infinito, universo e mondi'' (''On the Infinite, Universe and Worlds'', 1584), declared that "There are then innumerable suns, and an infinite number of earths revolve around those suns, hese worlds are inhabitedif not exactly as our own, and if not more nobly, at least no less inhabited and no less nobly." Allusions to inhabitants of other stars' planetary systems remained rare in literature for some centuries thereafter. One of these is found in Voltaire's ''Micromégas'' (1752), which features a traveller from Sirius. As science fiction became established in the early 20th century, destinations such as the Moon, Mars, Venus, and other bodies within the Solar System began to seem stale. Authors invoked ...
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1958 Science Fiction Novels
Events January * January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. * January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. * January 4 ** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third overland journey to the South Pole, the first to use powered vehicles. ** Sputnik 1 (launched on October 4, 1957) falls to Earth from its orbit, and burns up. * January 13 – Battle of Edchera: The Moroccan Army of Liberation ambushes a Spanish patrol. * January 27 – A Soviet-American executive agreement on cultural, educational and scientific exchanges, also known as the " Lacy–Zarubin Agreement", is signed in Washington, D.C. * January 31 – The first successful American satellite, Explorer 1, is launched into orbit. February * February 1 – Egypt and Syria unite, to form the United Arab Republic. * February 6 – Seven Manchester United footballers are among the 21 people killed in the Munich air disaster in West Ge ...
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1958 American Novels
Events January * January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. * January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. * January 4 ** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third overland journey to the South Pole, the first to use powered vehicles. ** Sputnik 1 (launched on October 4, 1957) falls to Earth from its orbit, and burns up. * January 13 – Battle of Edchera: The Moroccan Army of Liberation ambushes a Spanish patrol. * January 27 – A Soviet-American executive agreement on cultural, educational and scientific exchanges, also known as the " Lacy–Zarubin Agreement", is signed in Washington, D.C. * January 31 – The first successful American satellite, Explorer 1, is launched into orbit. February * February 1 – Egypt and Syria unite, to form the United Arab Republic. * February 6 – Seven Manchester United footballers are among the 21 people killed in the Munich air disaster in West Germany, on ...
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James Nicoll
James Davis Nicoll (born March 18, 1961) is a Canadian freelance game and speculative fiction reviewer, former security guard and role-playing game store owner, and also works as a first reader for the Science Fiction Book Club. As a Usenet personality, Nicoll is known for writing a widely quoted epigram on the English language, as well as for his accounts of suffering a high number of accidents, which he has narrated over the years in Usenet groups like rec.arts.sf.written and rec.arts.sf.fandom. He is now a blogger on Dreamwidth and Facebook, and an occasional columnist on Tor.com. In 2014, he started his website, jamesdavisnicoll.com, dedicated to his book reviews of works old and new; and later added ''Young People Read Old SFF'', where his panel of younger readers read pre-1980 science fiction and fantasy, and Nicoll and his collaborators report on the younger readers' reactions. Background Nicoll was born March 18, 1961 and grew up in rural Ontario. He wrote on Use ...
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Science Fantasy (magazine)
''Science Fantasy'', which also appeared under the titles ''Impulse'' and ''SF Impulse'', was a British fantasy and science fiction magazine, launched in 1950 by Nova Publications as a companion to Nova's ''New Worlds''. Walter Gillings was editor for the first two issues, and was then replaced by John Carnell, the editor of ''New Worlds'', as a cost-saving measure. Carnell edited both magazines until Nova went out of business in early 1964. The titles were acquired by Roberts & Vinter, who hired Kyril Bonfiglioli to edit ''Science Fantasy''; Bonfiglioli changed the title to ''Impulse'' in early 1966, but the new title led to confusion with the distributors and sales fell, though the magazine remained profitable. The title was changed again to ''SF Impulse'' for the last few issues. ''Science Fantasy'' ceased publication the following year, when Roberts & Vinter came under financial pressure after their printer went bankrupt. Gillings had an inventory of material that he had ac ...
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Bathyscaphe
A bathyscaphe ( or ) is a free-diving self-propelled deep-sea submersible, consisting of a crew cabin similar to a bathysphere, but suspended below a float rather than from a surface cable, as in the classic bathysphere design. The float is filled with gasoline because it is readily available, buoyant, and, for all practical purposes, incompressible. The incompressibility of the gasoline means the tanks can be very lightly constructed, since the pressure inside and outside the tanks equalises, eliminating any differential. By contrast, the crew cabin must withstand a huge pressure differential and is massively built. Buoyancy at the surface can be trimmed easily by replacing gasoline with water, which is denser. Auguste Piccard, inventor of the first bathyscaphe, composed the name ''bathyscaphe'' using the Ancient Greek words βαθύς ''bathys'' ("deep") and σκάφος ''skaphos'' ("vessel"/"ship"). Mode of operation To descend, a bathyscaphe floods air tanks with ...
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Eta Cassiopeiae
Eta Cassiopeiae (η Cassiopeiae, abbreviated Eta Cas, η Cas) is a binary star system in the northern constellation of Cassiopeia. Its binary nature was first discovered by William Herschel in August 1779. Based upon parallax measurements, the distance to this system is from the Sun. The two components are designated Eta Cassiopeiae A (officially named Achird , the traditional name for the system) and B. Nomenclature ''η Cassiopeiae'' ( Latinised to ''Eta Cassiopeiae'') is the system's Bayer designation. The designations of the two constituents as ''Eta Cassiopeiae A'' and ''B'' derive from the convention used by the Washington Multiplicity Catalog (WMC) for star systems, and adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The proper name ''Achird'' was apparently first applied to Eta Cassiopeiae in the Skalnate Pleso Atlas of the Heavens published in 1950, but is not known prior to that. Richard Hinckley Allen gives no historical names for the star i ...
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Oliver Twist
''Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress'', Charles Dickens's second novel, was published as a serial from 1837 to 1839, and as a three-volume book in 1838. Born in a workhouse, the orphan Oliver Twist is bound into apprenticeship with an undertaker. After escaping, Oliver travels to London, where he meets the " Artful Dodger", a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal Fagin. ''Oliver Twist'' unromantically portrays the sordid lives of criminals, and exposes the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London in the mid-19th century. The alternative title, ''The Parish Boy's Progress'', alludes to Bunyan's ''The Pilgrim's Progress'', as well as the 18th-century caricature series by painter William Hogarth, '' A Rake's Progress'' and '' A Harlot's Progress''. In an early example of the social novel, Dickens satirises child labour, domestic violence, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street children. The novel ma ...
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Fagin
Fagin is a fictional character and the secondary antagonist in Charles Dickens's 1838 novel ''Oliver Twist''. In the preface to the novel, he is described as a "receiver of stolen goods". He is the leader of a group of children (the Artful Dodger and Charley Bates among them) whom he teaches to make their livings by pickpocketing and other criminal activities, in exchange for shelter. A distinguishing trait is his constant and insincere use of the phrase "my dear" when addressing others. At the time of the novel, he is said by another character, Monks, to have already made criminals out of "scores" of children. Nancy, who is the lover of Bill Sikes (the novel's lead villain), is confirmed to be Fagin's former pupil. Fagin is a confessed miser who, despite the wealth that he has acquired, does very little to improve the squalid lives of the children he guards, or his own. In the second chapter of his appearance, it is shown (when talking to himself) that he cares less for ...
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