JF Ptak Science Books

Definitions of "Multiverse"

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I just wanted to include a few more definitions of "multiverse" after having just read "Parallel Worlds (If human history turns on the tilt of the multiverse, can we still trust our ideas of achievement, progress and morality?)" by Andrew Crumey on Aeon.  It's a very good article. 

Multiverse via the Oxford English Dictionary

 a. The universe considered as lacking order or a single ruling and guiding power.

1895   W. James in Internat. Jrnl. Ethics 6 10   Visible nature is all plasticity and indifference, a multiverse, as one might call it, and not a universe.

1899   F. W. O. Ward Eng. Roses iv. 433   Within, without, nowhere and everywhere; Now bedrock of the mighty Multiverse, And then the thinnest wreath of thinnest cloud Inpalpable.

1904   Daily News 11 Oct. 3   [Reporting Sir Oliver Lodge] The only possible alternative was to regard the universe as a result of random chance and capricious disorder, not a cosmos or universe at all, but rather a ‘multiverse’.

1957   Times Lit. Suppl. 11 Oct. 602/1   It is precisely Mr Powys's ever-present contact with the vital, or spiritual, principles within the universe which enables him to explore..the deeper problems of that comparatively small section of the universe—or as he would say multiverse—which constitutes man.

The Illuminated Artifical Hand-Held Hand Directional for Cars, 1916

JF Ptak Science Books   Daily Dose from Dr. Odd

In general I'm not in favor of left turns for autos in cities of a size where traffic congestion is an issue.  It seems that from a main thoroughfare that three rights should make a left, easy congestion in the center of a busy street, eliminating lines of cars waiting behind a left-turning car waiting for a break in oncoming traffic, and so on.  This semi-crackpot notion was just sparked after seeing this As Seen on TV-style pre-televsion promotional for an artificial hand for a left-turning hand-directional 1916 automobile.  The hand is actually illuminated, which would have made it more effective than a stark hand in the night.  It seems that they were just about <this close> to figuring our a less mechanical-anthropomorphic and more elegant solution than the illuminated artificial hand-held hand.

[Source: Illustrated World, 1916, page 257.]

The Electric Titan Robot Tank Monster, 1916

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"The Electric Engineer", by Herbert C. Crocker, was an article in the December 1916 issue of Illustrated World, and featured this extraordinary idea:

"This mechanical marvel may furnish the warring armies of Europe with a new engine of destruction", page 504.

"King Grey", the creation of Vern Pieper of Alton, Illinois, turns out not to be an extraordinary giant as depicted in the cover art, but a giant on the humanish scale, topping out at nine feet tall and 750 pounds, "a marvel of steel plates, knuckles and cog wheels", that would have its own guns and haul a small armored cart. It looks quite a bit like a more-famous British steampunk version of this idea from mid-century.