The great secret: programmable matter!
I can't stop smiling. I never thought OMAC would be this good! Years ago I realised that "unstable molecules" are the key to understanding all of Kirby's future technology. And here we have it, in OMAC 7, the penultimate book! Even better, it shows how all of Kirby's characters are linked: they are the same person, Kirby himself, under different circumstances: alternate futures. It's all the same story with the same technology and the same dangers, the same message: this is our future!!
The idea in OMAC 7, that an ocean might fit inside a room, is simply the fact that most of an atom is empty space. And of course its mass can be reduced by changing some of the mass into energy and broadcasting it to some holding place where, if desired, the process might be reversed.
But let's get to the point: how can atoms be manipulated like that? We are beginning to see. Today I learned about programmable matter, and in particular claytronics. This is clearly Dr Skuba's field. But he went further than the creator of OMAC (did Kirby know that skuba with a "k" is the Lithuanian word for "rushing"?)
The next stage of development would be to use this complete control of matter to force atoms into the state of degenerate matter. An enormous scientific challenge to be sure!!! Yet a realistic one, eventually. All of these fields of study are real.
Programmable matter was not even named in 1975 (let alone when Kirby coined "unstable molecules" in 1962).Kirby was simply deducing the future from what he knew. And that is why Kirby is my favourite writer.
I can't stop smiling. I never thought OMAC would be this good! Years ago I realised that "unstable molecules" are the key to understanding all of Kirby's future technology. And here we have it, in OMAC 7, the penultimate book! Even better, it shows how all of Kirby's characters are linked: they are the same person, Kirby himself, under different circumstances: alternate futures. It's all the same story with the same technology and the same dangers, the same message: this is our future!!
The idea in OMAC 7, that an ocean might fit inside a room, is simply the fact that most of an atom is empty space. And of course its mass can be reduced by changing some of the mass into energy and broadcasting it to some holding place where, if desired, the process might be reversed.
But let's get to the point: how can atoms be manipulated like that? We are beginning to see. Today I learned about programmable matter, and in particular claytronics. This is clearly Dr Skuba's field. But he went further than the creator of OMAC (did Kirby know that skuba with a "k" is the Lithuanian word for "rushing"?)
The next stage of development would be to use this complete control of matter to force atoms into the state of degenerate matter. An enormous scientific challenge to be sure!!! Yet a realistic one, eventually. All of these fields of study are real.
Programmable matter was not even named in 1975 (let alone when Kirby coined "unstable molecules" in 1962).Kirby was simply deducing the future from what he knew. And that is why Kirby is my favourite writer.
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