[ExI] lee corbin letter
spike
spike66 at att.net
Thu Jun 8 15:47:11 UTC 2017
Someone on the Lee Corbin Yahoo group found a letter from Lee written to
Asimov's magazine 30 years ago and posted it. He was thinking Dyson shells
thiry years ago. As I recall our own Lee Corbin was one of the quiet
participants in the spinoff M-brain group in about late 1990s, when ExI was
spawning spinoff groups for everything.
This letter was to Asimov's Fact and Science Fiction magazine, June 1987:
https://archive.org/details/Asimovs_v11n06_1987-06
Cool!
spike
Dear Dr. Asimov,
It seems funny writing to a sci-
ence fiction magazine, but I don't
know where else to turn. Perhaps
with your broad and extensive
knowledge about almost every-
thing, you can make some sense of
a puzzle we have here at work.
As you know, the three degree
blackbody cosmic background ra-
diation is a standing wave having
to do with the Big Bang, but parts
of it are maybe being used for
something else. We've got hold of
some very recent Bell Labs moni-
toring data, and thought that just
for fun we'd run the sidebands
through Stanford University's new
"Semantic-Linguistic Cryptana-
lysis" (SLICK) programs. Amaz-
ingly, here's part of what came out:
$ . . . IT'S THOSE WORLDS
THAT REVOLVE ON THEIR
AXES THAT YOU HAVE
TO WATCH. A UNIFORM
HEAT DIFFERENTIAL EX-
ISTS BETWEEN ENERGY
RECEIVED FROM THE
PLANET'S PRIMARY AND
THE ENERGY RADIATED
INTO SPACE AS THE
PLANET TURNS.
UNDER THESE CONDI-
TIONS, SELF REPLICAT-
ING MOLECULAR
ACTIVITY CAN GET
GOING ON THE PLANET'S
SURFACE. SOMETIMES IT
EVEN ACQUIRES THE
ABILITY TO LAUNCH IT-
SELF INTO SPACE. UN-
LESS STOPPED, IT CAN
INFECT AN ENTIRE GAL-
AXY IN A FRACTION OF
A GALACTIC REVOLU-
TION.
RIGHT AWAY YOU CAN
SEE CHANGES IN A DIS-
EASED GALAXY. IT AC-
QUIRES A PINK TINGE AS
THE VIRUS ENCLOSES
STARS IN THIN SHELLS.
FINALLY THE WHOLE
GALAXY TURNS DEEP
RED AS THE PESTILENCE
SOAKS UP EVERY BIT OF
ENERGY FOR ITS OWN
USE.
AS YOU'VE PROBABLY
HEARD, IT IS A TEDIOUS
JOB TO GO AROUND TO
EVERY STAR IN A GAL-
AXY AND STERILIZE IT.
ESPECIALLY IF IT'S THAT
NASTY CARBON BASED
ACTIVITY. SOMETIMES
YOU'D BE AMAZED WITH
WHAT TENACITY IT TRIES
TO HANG ON.
THAT'S WHY YOU
SHOULD TRY TO SPOT
ANY INFECTION BEFORE
IT GETS OFF ITS HOME
WORLD.
FORTUNATELY, FOR
SOME REASON, JUST BE-
FORE IT JUMPS OFF INTO
SPACE, IT EMITS THE
STRANGEST LONG WAVE
RADIATION. FOR EXAM-
PLE, NOT LONG AGO WE
PICKED UP THIS ODD
ITEM:
"HEY, ROCHESTER,
COME IN HERE!"
OBVIOUSLY, SELF REP-
LICATING MOLECULES
ARE SOMEWHERE IN THE
VICINITY AND NEED TO
BE ERADICATED.
OTHER THAN THAT,
EVERYTHING HAS BEEN
QUIET AROUND HERE.
HOW ABOUT YOU?
GALAXY 8462-6433 E.O.T.
Well, Dr. Asimov, I have no idea
what any of that means. Sounds
like it's about some kind of outer
space bacteria. Do you think it
might be dangerous to us, too?
Should someone be notified? Thanks
a lot.
Sincerely,
Lee Corbin
Tymshare Inc.
Cupertino, CA
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