Earth is Room Enough

Neutrinos and the end of Privacy

Isaac Asimov was there.


See also

With Folded Hands

Rhodomagnetism and Cold Fusion.

Science fiction.

"So?" Underhill was staring again, somehow fascinated by those gnarled and scarred and strangely able hands. "What, exactly, is rhodomagnetics?"
He listened to the old man's careful, deliberate answer, and started his little game again. Most of Aurora's tenants had told some pretty wild tales, but he had never heard anything to top this.
"A universal force," the weary, stooped old vagabond said solemnly. "As fundamental as ferromagnetism or grav-itation, though the effects are less obvious. It is keyed to the second triad of the periodic table, rhodium and ru-thenium and palladium, in very much the same way that ferromagnetism is keyed to the first triad, iron and nickel and cobalt."

[skip]

"A rhodomagnetic component was proved essential to maintain the delicate equilibrium of the nuclear forces. Consequently, rhodomagnetic waves tuned to atomic frequencies may be used to upset that equilibrium and produce nuclear instability.

Unreproduceable alleged science

Cold fusion refers to a proposed nuclear fusion process offered to explain a group of disputed experimental results first reported by electrochemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons. [skip] The small tabletop experiment involved electrolysis of heavy water on the surface of a palladium (Pd) electrode.

Paladium is the secret.

(OK so "With Folded Hands" was written in 1947 so the idea was that Palladium had something to do with fission not fusion, but that's only off by 2 letters). I had more typos working from memory.


I'm not suggesting that either Asimov or Williamson sold his soul to the devil in order to forecast the news decades later. It's just that many strange things appear in the news (which is massive) and in science fiction. Also, I wish I had had a blog in 1989.