2061: Odyssey Three

He found it both sad and fascinating that only through an artificial universe of video images could she establish contact with the real world.

It is a good principle in science not to believe any 'fact'---however well attested---until it fits into some accepted frame of reference. Occasionally, of course, an observation can shatter the frame and force the construction of a new one, but that is extremely rare. Galileos and Einsteins seldom appear more than once per century, which is just as well for the equanimity of mankind.

Almost any seat was comfortable at one-sixth of a gravity.

An author should never turn down the opportunity for a new experience

A man who grows that much hair,' critics were fond of saying, 'must have a lot to hide.

The dismantling of the vast and wholly parasitic armaments industry had given an unprecedented—sometimes, indeed, unhealthy—boost to the world economy. No longer were vital raw materials and brilliant engineering talents swallowed up in a virtual black hole—or, even worse, turned to destruction. Instead, they could be used to repair the ravages and neglect of centuries, by rebuilding the world.

Only Time is universal; Night and Day are merely quaint local customs found on those planets that tidal forces have not yet robbed of their rotation.

The familiar can be as shocking as the strange—when it is in the wrong place.

History never repeats itself—but historical situations recur.” As

In particular, as was pointed out by Isaacs et al. almost a hundred years ago (see Science, Vol. 151, pp. 682–83, 1966), diamond is the only construction material which would make possible the so-called space elevator, allowing transportation away from Earth at negligible cost.

It seemed to him that his ship was rather like a stranded whale that had managed a difficult birth in an alien element. He hoped that the new calf would survive.

had often been said that the only thing that could unite Mankind was a threat from space.

The suggestion that the cores of the gas giants might consist of diamond was first made by Marvin Ross of the University of California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in a classic paper “The ice layer in Uranus and Neptune—diamonds in the sky?” (Nature, Vol. 292, No. 5822, pp. 435–36, July 30, 1981.) Surprisingly, Ross did not extend his calculations to Jupiter.

Because Nature always balances her books, the Sun lost some velocity in the transaction; but the effect would not be measurable for a few thousand years.

Afrikaans is one of the world’s best languages in which to curse; even when spoken politely, it can bruise innocent bystanders.

And just fifty years had separated the Wright Brothers from the first jet airliners.

Although Lucifer had accelerated the process, it has begun decades earlier, when the coming of the jet age had triggered and explosion of global tourism

It is not easy to run a shipping line between destinations that not only change their positions by millions of kilometers every few days, but also swing through a velocity range of tens of kilometers a second. Anything like a regular schedule is out of the question; there are times when one must forget the whole idea and stay in port—or at least in orbit—waiting for the Solar System to rearrange itself for the greater convenience of Mankind.

A man that hath no music in himself, Is fit for treasons, strategems and spoils.

Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

When I started writing 2001: A Space Odyssey (on a typewriter—have you seen one lately?), Neil Armstrong’s “One small step” was still five years in the future, and the moons of Jupiter were dimensionless points of light, their landscapes as unknown as America to the pre-Columbian mapmakers. Yet now, as I write these words,

One of the benefits of Dr. Kreuger’s eminence was an unlimited computer budget:

There was nothing wrong, he reminded himself, with healthy fear; only when it escalated into panic did it become a killer.

It’s not any kind of rock—it crumbles when I touch it—I feel as if I’m exploring a giant Gruyère cheese…

With no further clues, it might take the station Computer quite a while—perhaps as much as ten minutes—to locate the line in the whole body of English literature.

Rolf van der Berg was the right man, in the right place, at the right time; no other combination would have worked. Which, of course, is how much of history is made.

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

With the historic abolition of long-distance charges on 31 December 2000, every telephone call became a local one, and the human race greeted the new millennium by transforming itself into one huge, gossiping family. Like