Word: sunlight
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Such a mirror, said Oberth. would have many useful properties. Floating most of the time outside the earth's shadow, it would shorten the earth's night by lighting its dark side. It would bathe cold countries in reflected sunlight, making them productive and habitable. If war should start on the earth below, the "aggressor" (the party not in control of space) could be handily incinerated by making the mirror concave to concentrate its beam...
...future, to the number of humans that the earth can support, but many bugbears dear to the neo-Mathusians he dismisses as of little moment. Industrial man will need, and can get, ever-increasing supplies of energy. Coal and oil may burn out in a relatively short time, but sunlight and atomic energy can take their place. He points out that one ton of ordinary granite, from which the continents are largely made, contains as much energy in the form of uranium and thorium as 50 tons of coal. He thinks this energy can be drawn on when needed...
...large amounts, and it would be advantageous not to have to bring it from the earth. If the moon has rocks containing the equivalent of lime and clay, cement might conceivably be made from them. There is a chance. Sowerby thinks, that the fierce heat of the unshielded sunlight may have disintegrated lunar rocks into ready-powdered oxides. This should simplify concrete-making in one small detail...
Volcanos, enthusiastically cited by more imaginative geologists as the cause of glaciers, can actually produce enough dust to blot out much of the sun's radiant heat. Krakatoa's ash, sent sky high in 1833, cut 10 percent of France's sunlight for three years. But reductions in radiant energy cool the equator more than the poles, cutting temperature differences which create storms. Only an increase of the sun's general heating power will yield more snow, the sole food of glaciers. Yet if the sun's heat increases too much, the glaciers will melt...
From sailboats the Advocate shifts to speedways with Erik Amfitheatrof's "The Day of Giants." Expect for a few reflective paragraphs which seem superfluous and some strained metaphors like "The flat, heavy sunlight squirmed inside his head," the writing is fast-moving and clear. The author is stronger near the end where he flavors the story with much of the vigour of a motor marathon...