bryan@druhi.UUCP (BryanJT) (11/24/86)
In article <1735@ncoast.UUCP>, allbery@ncoast.UUCP writes: > Then of course, there's the superconducting cloth. Room-temperature super- > conductors are barely plausible; but cloth??? Anything flexible enough to > qualify as a "cloth" would be too thin to handle the trick where they > use a strip of cloth, one end in a lake and the other hanging over the Slaver > sunflowers, to ``de-fang'' said sunflowers. Sorry, but it was superconducting *wire* that they used in this case, although the floating platform thingee was wrapped in superconducting cloth. That wire wouldn't have to be any stronger than a kite-string, really; the platform was set to hover at some altitude so the string was only to keep it from drifting away on the wind. What's wrong with the idea of making superconducting material in wires and then weaving the wires into cloth, anyway? -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- John T. Bryan USENET: ...!ihnp4!druhi!bryan AT&T Information Systems PHONE: (303) 538-5172 12110 N. Pecos, #8C350 QUOTE: I didn't mean what you thought I meant Denver, CO 80234 you said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a disclaimer: I don't speak for AT&T, and they don't speak for me. --------------------------------------------------------------------------
kaufman@nike.uucp (Bill Kaufman) (11/26/86)
***SPOILERS!!!*** (Nothing most of you ain't heard before, 'tho,...) In article <1735@ncoast.UUCP> allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) writes: >Then of course, there's the superconducting cloth. Room-temperature super- >conductors are barely plausible; but cloth??? Anything flexible enough to >qualify as a "cloth" would be too thin to handle the trick where they >use a strip of cloth, one end in a lake and the other hanging over the Slaver >sunflowers, to ``de-fang'' said sunflowers. Waitaminit. Wasn't that a molecule-chain they used, as in Ye Olde Sinclair Molecule Chain--the strongest (at least, as of Gil Hamilton's time) piece of thread known to man--not a superconuctor? As I remember it, the 'chain was what held the night-making plates together. (For a while.) >BTW -- as far as the protectors go, I lump them in with the "down in flames" >outline posted a few months ago; protectors, being in the center of the >galaxy, might well be a danger to the tnuctip plan to take over the galaxy. >(They would know the truth about the Core explosion.) As a result, they >may well be only half-true... If you mean "half-true" as "may not exist", I can tell you they *do* exist. (Just ask Jack Brannan (sp?).) If you mean "may not be our ancestors",... well, there's a lot of people fighting for that position: the Protectors, the Ptaavs (or Tnuctipin, whichever), etc. Kinda makes you wonder why they're all falling over each other to claim us as their decendants,...;-) "Down in flames" they almost certainly are,because of the aforementioned Core reaction (if you don't count the inhabitants of the Ringworld or Earth). (BTW, does anyone know more about this "tnuctip plan" than I do? I wasn't even sure these guys were still around,...) -Annoyingly, Bilbo. ___________________________________________________________________________ "Did I ask your love? Did I ask your dedication? I don't want your love. I don't want your affection. But I've got to have the car,..." -Lena Lovich. DISCLAIMER is a trademark of Kaufman Enterprises. I await my royalties. E-MAIL: seismo!nike!orion!kaufman (on alternate Thursdays) FLAMES: There are no flames. Re-check your opinions. (No more missing letters! I've got a _new_ _keyboard_! (Woah-oh-oh!) ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ccjcl@bu-cs.BU.EDU (John C. Lotz) (11/27/86)
In article <771@nike.UUCP>, kaufman@nike.uucp (Bill Kaufman) writes: > ***SPOILERS!!!*** (Nothing most of you ain't heard before, 'tho,...) > > In article <1735@ncoast.UUCP> allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) writes: > >Then of course, there's the superconducting cloth. Room-temperature super- > >conductors are barely plausible; but cloth??? Anything flexible enough to > >qualify as a "cloth" would be too thin to handle the trick where they > >use a strip of cloth, one end in a lake and the other hanging over the Slaver > >sunflowers, to ``de-fang'' said sunflowers. > > Waitaminit. Wasn't that a molecule-chain they used, as in Ye Olde Sinclair > Molecule Chain--the strongest (at least, as of Gil Hamilton's time) piece > of thread known to man--not a superconuctor? As I remember it, the 'chain > was what held the night-making plates together. (For a while.) > I looked this up. They used both superconductor wire, and molecule chain. The superconductor was needed to pass the heat. Louis Wu used the molecule chain to hold the plate once it reached altitude (he wasn't sure how strong the superconductor wire was). jcl