|
Dear Pen Pal
"Dear Pen Pal" is a humorous, epistolary 1949 science-fiction story by Canadian-American writer A. E. van Vogt. Plot summary The one-sided dialogue takes the form of correspondence from Skander, an alien, to an unnamed human whose replies are not presented. In his initial letters, Skander spends some time describing himself and his home planet of Aurigae II, a world circling a star in the constellation Auriga whose intelligent lifeforms are chromium-based, highly radioactive, and very long-lived, thriving at a temperature of around 900 degrees Kelvin. Skander admits that he intercepted the human's pen pal program application, but explains that he is lonely and in need of conversation, as he is serving a lengthy prison sentence for conducting an illegal scientific experiment which is implied to have harmed many of his fellow Aurigans. Oddly anxious to see his pen pal, he sends the human several photographic plates that can be exposed by simply thinking a mental command at them. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine United States Minor Outlying Islands, Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in Compact of Free Association, free association with three Oceania, Pacific Island Sovereign state, sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Palau, Republic of Palau. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders Canada–United States border, with Canada to its north and Mexico–United States border, with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the List of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Degrees Kelvin
The kelvin, symbol K, is the primary unit of temperature in the International System of Units (SI), used alongside its prefixed forms and the degree Celsius. It is named after the Belfast-born and University of Glasgow-based engineer and physicist William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (1824–1907). The Kelvin scale is an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale, meaning it uses absolute zero as its null (zero) point. Historically, the Kelvin scale was developed by shifting the starting point of the much-older Celsius scale down from the melting point of water to absolute zero, and its increments still closely approximate the historic definition of a degree Celsius, but since 2019 the scale has been defined by fixing the Boltzmann constant to be exactly . Hence, one kelvin is equal to a change in the thermodynamic temperature that results in a change of thermal energy by . The temperature in degree Celsius is now defined as the temperature in kelvins minus 273.15, meaning ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short Stories By A
Short may refer to: Places * Short (crater), a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon * Short, Mississippi, an unincorporated community * Short, Oklahoma, a census-designated place People * Short (surname) * List of people known as the Short Arts, entertainment, and media * Short film, a cinema format (also called film short or short subject) * Short story, prose generally readable in one sitting * ''The Short-Timers'', a 1979 semi-autobiographical novel by Gustav Hasford, about military short-timers in Vietnam Brands and enterprises * Short Brothers, a British aerospace company * Short Brothers of Sunderland, former English shipbuilder Computing and technology * Short circuit, an accidental connection between two nodes of an electrical circuit * Short integer, a computer datatype Finance * Short (finance), stock-trading position * Short snorter, a banknote signed by fellow travelers, common during World War II Foodstuffs * Short pastry, one which is rich in butte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction Short Stories
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for scientific reasoning is tens of thousands of years old. The earliest written records in the history of science come from Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3000 to 1200 BCE. Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages, but was preserved in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age and later by the efforts of Byzantine Greek scholars who brought Greek m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1949 Short Stories
Events January * January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The war results in a stalemate and the division of Kashmir, which still continues as of 2022. * January 2 – Luis Muñoz Marín becomes the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico. * January 11 – The first "networked" television broadcasts take place, as KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania goes on the air, connecting east coast and mid-west programming in the United States. * January 16 – Şemsettin Günaltay forms the new government of Turkey. It is the 18th government, last single party government of the Republican People's Party. * January 17 – The first VW Type 1 to arrive in the United States, a 1948 model, is brought to New York by Dutch businessman Ben Pon. Unable to interest dealers or importers in the Volkswagen, Pon sells the sample car to pay his travel expenses. Only two 1949 models are sold in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Ace Double Titles
American company Ace Books began publishing genre fiction starting in 1952. Initially these were mostly in tête-bêche format with the ends of the two parts meeting in the middle and with a divider between them which functioned as the rear cover of both (the two parts were oriented upside-down with respect to each other in order to effect this), but the company also published some single volumes during the early years. The proportion of singles increased until they stopped producing doubles about 1978. The tête-bêche format was discarded in 1973, but future double novels were continued for a while with both parts oriented the same way, so that the first page of one part followed soon after the last page of the other part. Between 1952 and 1968, the books had a letter-series identifier; after that date they were given five-digit numeric serial numbers. The list given here includes every Ace Double Book published between 1952 and 1978, for all genres. It gives a date of publica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Out Of This World Adventures
''Out of This World Adventures'' was an American pulp magazine which published two issues, in July and December 1950. It included several pages of comics as well as science fiction stories. It was edited by Donald A. Wollheim and published by Avon. Sales were weak, and after two issues Avon decided to cancel it. Publication history The early 1950s saw dramatic changes in the world of U.S. science fiction publishing. At the start of 1949, all but one of the major magazines in the field were in pulp format; by the end of 1955, almost all had either ceased publication or switched to digest format.Ashley (1976), p. 106. Despite the rapid decline of the pulp market, several new science fiction magazines were launched in pulp format during these years; ''Out of This World Adventures'' was one of these. In 1947 Avon Books launched the '' Avon Fantasy Reader'', a series of fantasy anthologies in digest format, edited by Donald A. Wollheim. Two years later, Joseph Meyers, Avo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Far Boundaries
''Far Boundaries'' is an anthology of science fiction stories edited by American writer and anthologist August Derleth. It was first published by Pellegrini & Cudahy in 1951. Many of the stories had originally appeared in the magazines ''Variety'', ''Dublin Literary Magazine'', ''Knight’s Quarterly Magazine'', ''Scribner's'', ''Astounding Stories'', ''The Arkham Sampler'', ''Planet Stories'', ''Super Science Stories'', ''Thrilling Wonder Stories'', ''Startling Stories'', ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'', ''Blue Book'' and ''Galaxy''. Contents * "From a Private Mad-House", by Humphrey Repton * "Missing One’s Coach: An Anachronism", Anon. * "Tale of a Chemist", Anon. * "The Last American", by J. A. Mitchell * "Infinity Zero", by Donald Wandrei * "Frankenstein—Unlimited", by H. A. Highstone * "Open, Sesame!", by Stephen Grendon * "Tepondicon", by Carl Jacobi * "The Fear Planet", by Robert Bloch * "De Profundis", by Murray Leinster * "Invasion", by Frank Belkn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Universe!
Albert Monteys i Homar (Barcelona, 15 September 1971) is a Spanish comic writer and illustrator, mostly known for his work in the satirical weekly magazine ''El Jueves'' of which he was the director from 2006 until January 2011. Early life Albert Monteys started reading comics in Catalan bought by his parents such as ''Cavall Fort'' or ''Tretzevents'' until he discovered the ones of Bruguera, especially ''Mort and Phil'' and ''Superlópez''.Monteys, Albert in an interview with Pedro Toro (07/2006). Entrevista a Albert Monteys'', ''Un día de texas''/''Guía del Cómic''. He is also a fan of Asterix.Monteys, Albert in an interview with Santiago García (07/1997). Interview with Albert Monteys», ''U, el hijo de Urich #5'' (Camaleón Ediciones). For two or three years he read many superhero comics and when he was twelve and fifteen, Franco-Belgian, he even bought '' Spirou'' in French. He also published in the school magazine. He studied one year at the comics specialized school ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chromium
Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hardness. A major development in steel production was the discovery that steel could be made highly resistant to corrosion and discoloration by adding metallic chromium to form stainless steel. Stainless steel and chrome plating (electroplating with chromium) together comprise 85% of the commercial use. Chromium is also greatly valued as a metal that is able to be highly polished while resisting tarnishing. Polished chromium reflects almost 70% of the visible spectrum, and almost 90% of infrared light. The name of the element is derived from the Greek word χρῶμα, ''chrōma'', meaning color, because many chromium compounds are intensely colored. Industrial production of chromium proceeds from chromite ore (mostly FeCr2O4) to pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic ( Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
