Vernor Vinge - Vernor Vinge Vernor Steffen Vinge (pronounced VIN-jee, rhyming with 'stingy') (born February 10, 1944) is a mathematician, computer scientist and science fiction author who is best known for his Hugo award-winning novel A Fire Upon the Deep, and for his 1993 essay "The Technological Singularity", in which he argues that exponential growth in technology will reach a point beyond which we cannot even speculate about the consequences. Vinge published his first short story, "Bookworm, Run!", in 1965 in Analog Science Fiction, then edited by John W. Campbell. He was then a moderately prolific contributor to SF magazines in the 1960s and early 1970s, including adapting two of his stories into a short novel, Grimm's World (1969), and publishing a second novel, The Witling (1975). Vinge came.
Hugo Award for Best Novel - 1972: To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip José Farmer 1973: The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov 1974: Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke 1975: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin 1976: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman 1977: Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm 1978: Gateway by Frederik Pohl 1979: Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre 1980: The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke Harpist in the Wind by Patrica A. McKillip Jem by Frederik Pohl On Wings of Song by Thomas M. Disch Titan by John Varley 1981: The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge Beyond the Blue Event Horizon by Frederik Pohl Lord Valentine's Castle by Robert Silverberg Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven Wizard by John Varley 1982: Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh.
Hugo Award for Best Novella - 1990: "The Mountains of Mourning" by Lois McMaster Bujold 1991: "The Hemingway Hoax" by Joe Halderman 1992: "Beggard in Spain" by Nancy Kress 1993: "Barnacle Bill the Spacer" by Lucius Shepard 1994: "Down in the Bottomland" by Harry Turtledove 1995: "Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge" by Mike Resnick 1996: "The Death of Captan Future" by Allen Steele 1997: "Blood of the Dragon" by George R.R. Martin 1998: "... Where Angels Fear To Tread" by Allen Steele 1999: "Oceanic" by Greg Egan 2000: "The Winds of Marble Arch" by Connie Willis 2001: "The Ultimate Earth" by [[Jack Williamson 2002: "Fast Times at Fairmont High" by Vernor Vinge 2003: "Coraline" by Neil Gaiman See also Hugo Award.
Unix epoch - times in the Unix epoch. This is because it is not possible to predict when a leap second will be required more than a few years in advance. In practice this has very rarely posed any significant problem. However, the exact time in civil time (UTC) when the rollover will occur cannot be determined beforehand because of leap seconds. The 03:14:07, January 19, 2038 time is the time of the rollover if leap seconds are ignored. Thus, the actual time of the rollover in the real world where leap seconds are observed would most probably be different from the Unix time. There is an accuracy dispute over the above paragraph. Please see the talk page for details. Trivia One thousand million seconds after the start of the Unix epoch was 01:46:40.
February 10 - law passed in 1997 becoming the first U.S. state to abandon such a law. 1999 - Avalanches in the French Alps near Geneva kill at least 10. Births 1890 - Boris Pasternak, poet, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1958 (+ 1960) 1893 - Jimmy Durante, actor, singer, comedian, vaudevillean (+ 1980) 1894 - Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (+ 1986) 1897 - John F. Enders, scientist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1954 (+ 1985) 1897 - Dame Judith Anderson, actress (+ 1992) 1898 - Bertolt Brecht, author (+ 1956) 1901 - Stella Adler, acting teacher (+ 1992) 1902 - Walter Houser Brattain, scientist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 1906 - Lon Chaney Jr, actor (+ 1973).
Futurism (philosophy) - call themselves "transhumanists." Futurists often confront traditional ethical systems based on religion. See also: Robert Anton Wilson Buckminster Fuller The Futurians Modernity Technological singularity Vernor Vinge.
1944 - United States Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council release posters featuring Smokey the Bear for the first time. September 2 - Holocaust: Diarist Anne Frank and her family are placed on the last transport train from Westerbork to Auschwitz. They arrive three days later. October 2 - Holocaust: Nazi troops end the Warsaw Uprising. October 8 - The radio show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet debuts. October 10 - Holocaust: 800 Gypsy children are systematically murdered at Auschwitz death camp. November 7 - U.S. presidential election, 1944: Franklin D. Roosevelt wins reelection over Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey to become the only U.S. president to be elected to a fourth term. November 22 - William Lyon Mackenzie King introduces conscription in Canada (see Conscription Crisis of 1944). December 3.
1944 in literature - Forbes Our Lady of the Flowers - Jean Genet Pippi Longstocking - Astrid Lindgren The Razor's Edge - W. Somerset Maugham The Tall Book of Nursery Tales - Feodor Rojankovsky Terras do sem fim (The Violent Land) - Jorge Amado Thou That Dwellest in the Gardens - Hayyim Hazaz Two Frontiers (poetry) - Edwin James Brady Births February 10 - Vernor Vinge (science fiction novelist) February 14 - Alan Parker, director, writer February 14 - Carl Bernstein, journalist February 16 - Richard Ford, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist December 17 - Jack L. Chalker science fiction novelist Deaths July 31 - Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French pilot and writer September 13 - Heath Robinson, British cartoonist and illustrator December 30 - Romain Rolland, Nobel Prize winning author Awards Newbery Medal for children's literature:.
A Fire Upon the Deep - Deep A Fire Upon the Deep (1992) is a novel written by Vernor Vinge. It combines superhuman intelligences, really alien aliens, spine-tingling space battles, love, loss, Usenet, and more into a galloping space opera. Vinge has been deeply concerned about the technological Singularity which makes writing comprehensible and realistic high-tech SF novels nearly impossible. To sidestep the issue, he postulates that the galaxy is divided up into "zones of thought", where near the center of the galaxy, only simple machines and animal-like intelligences are possible; ranging out to the outer edges of the galaxy, where superhuman intelligences, nanotechnology, and FTL travel are possible. A prequel to this book was subsequently written, A Deepness in the Sky, set twenty thousand years earlier in the "slow zone" near Earth..
Ansible - its users to receive answers to their messages in a reasonable amount of time, even over interstellar distances. The name and basic function of the device have since been borrowed by authors such as Orson Scott Card, Elizabeth Moon and Vernor Vinge. Faster-than-light communication is problematic because the theory of special relativity implies that such a device may allow communication from the future to the past, and would thus for instance allow the user to learn about tomorrow's lottery numbers today. See time travel for a discussion of the physics involved in building such systems. It is not clear that this is possible, or that the problems of causality could be resolved, but these questions are undergoing serious review by many reputable physicists. (The character in Le Guin's novel who invents.
Bobble - be a slightly whimsical nodding motion of the head. It could refer to a stasis field in a Vernor Vinge's Peace Authority science fiction series..
Campbell award (best novel) - 1985 - The Years of the City, Frederik Pohl 1986 - The Postman, David Brin 1987 - A Door into Ocean, Joan Slonczewski 1988 - Lincoln's Dreams, Connie Willis 1989 - Islands in the Net, Bruce Sterling 1990 - The Child Garden, Geoff Ryman 1991 - Pacific Edge, Kim Stanley Robinson 1992 - Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede, Bradley Denton 1993 - Brother to Dragons, Charles Sheffield 1994 - No award 1995 - Permutation City, Greg Egan 1996 - The Time Ships, Stephen Baxter 1997 - Fairyland, Paul McAuley 1998 - Forever Peace, Joe Haldeman 1999 - Brute Orbits, George Zebrowski 2000 - A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge 2001 - Genesis, Poul Anderson 2002 (tie) - Transforming Earth, Jack Williamson; The Chronoliths, Robert Charles Wilson.
Cyberpunk - in sharp contrast, shows the seamy underbelly of corporatocracy, and the Sisyphean battle against their power by disillusioned renegades. Cyberpunk stories are seen by social theorists as fictional forecasts of the evolution of the Internet. The virtual world of the Internet often appears in cyberpunk under various names, including "cyberspace," the "Metaverse" (as seen in Snow Crash), and the "Matrix" (from the film The Matrix). Notable precursors to the genre are Alfred Bester (The Stars My Destination (Tiger! Tiger!), 1956), Philip K. Dick, John Brunner (The Shockwave Rider, 1975), Vernor Vinge (True Names, 1981), and K. W. Jeter (Dr. Adder, published in the 1980s but written ealier.) William Gibson with his novel Neuromancer (1984) is seen as one of the first and greatest writers connected with the name Cyberpunk. He emphasized.
True Names - was the science fiction novella which brought Vernor Vinge to prominence in 1981. It was one of the earliest stories to present a fully fleshed-out concept of cyberspace, which would later be central to stories by William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Melissa Scott and others (and particularly to the cyberpunk genre). Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers. The story follows the progress of a group of disaffected computer wizards who are early adopters of a new full-immersive virtual reality technology. Forming a cabal in this other world, they must keep their true identities secret to avoid dire consequences. However a new "wizard" arrives and begins to obtain recruits for a scheme in which domination of cyberspace is used to obtain power in the real-world. The protagonist is one of the wizards who is forced.
Stasis field - of stasis fields in science fiction include: Larry Niven's Known Space, in which stasis fields are sometimes found containing artifacts from civilizations billions of years extinct Vernor Vinge's Peace Authority series in which stasis fields (called bobbles) are always perfectly spherical and exist for a fixed duration set at their time of creation - bobbles cannot be "burst" prematurely. There are real phenomena that cause time dilation similar to a stasis field's. Velocity near light speed or a powerful gravitational field will cause time to progress more slowly..
Relativistic kill vehicle - fire bullets at relativistic velocities. Man-portable weapons of this type would have extreme issues with recoil, however; accelerating a 1 gram projectile up to a mere 1% of light speed would produce enough force to send a 100kg (220 pound) man flying backward at 30 meters per second (98 feet per second). A further difficulty is reaching such high speeds over such a short distance; to reach 1% of light speed over the length of a one-meter accelerator would reqire 4.5×1012m/s² of acceleration. Space-based RKVs have the advantage of being able to accelerate over a vastly longer distance and period of time. The classic science fiction novels featuring RKVs are Charles R. Pellegrino's The Killing Star and Flying to Valhalla. W. Michael Gear's "Forbidden Borders" trilogy, Requiem for the Conqueror, Relic.
Prometheus Award - given 1981 - award not given 1982 - L. Neil Smith, The Probability Broach 1983 - James P. Hogan, Voyage from Yesteryear 1984 - J. Neil Schulman, The Rainbow Cadenza 1985 - No Winner ("None of the Above") 1986 - Victor Milan, Cybernetic Samurai 1987 - Vernor Vinge, Marooned in Realtime 1988 - Victor Koman, The Jehovah Contract 1989 - Brad Linaweaver, Moon of Ice 1990 - Victor Koman, Solomon's Knife 1991 - Michael Flynn, In the Country of the Blind 1992 - Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flynn, Fallen Angels 1993 - James P. Hogan, The Multiplex Man 1994 - L. Neil Smith, Pallas 1995 - Poul Anderson, The Stars are also Fire 1996 - Ken MacLeod, The Star Fraction 1997 - Victor Koman, Kings of the High Frontier.
Nebula Award for Best Novel - Bujold Crescent City Rhapsody by Kathleen Ann Goonan Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson Infinity Beach by Jack McDevitt Forests of the Heart by Charles de Lint 1999: Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler The Cassini Division by Ken MacLeod A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin Mission Child by Maureen F. McHugh Mockingbird by Sean Stewart A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge 1998: Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman The Last Hawk by Catherine Asaro Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman Moonfall by Jack McDevitt How Few Return by Harry Turtledove Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis 1997: The Moon and the Sun by Vonda McIntyre Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold King's Dragon by Kate Elliott A Game.
Meta-Golden Rule - golden rule, was attributed to English statistician and computer scientist I. J. Good in a 1993 essay by Vernor Vinge. Other sources attribute it to Seneca in the 1st century, in his moral epistle 47:11..
Moore's Law - or exceed any conceivable need for computation. This is only true for some problems - there are others where exponential increases in processing power are matched or exceeded by exponential increases in complexity as the problem size increases. See computational complexity theory and complexity classes P and NP for a (somewhat theoretical) discussion of such problems, which occur very commonly in applications such as scheduling. Although Moore's law has since the 1970s been defined in terms of the number of transistors on a chip, it is common to refer to Moore's law in reference to the rapid continuing advance in computing power per dollar cost. A similar progression has held for hard disk storage available per dollar cost - in fact, the rate of progression in disk storage over the past.
