Isso soa um pouco como o conto de Willard Hawkins " The Dwindling Sphere "originalmente publicado em Astounding Science Fiction em março de 1940. A história foi um dos primeiros exemplos da ficção científica ecológica. O conceito tecnológico é que um pequeno grupo de engenheiros / cientistas descobriu um processo de transmutação de matéria - um pouco como a tecnologia replicadora em Star Trek - com a propriedade de que a massa do novo objeto é sempre menor que massa da matéria-prima utilizada para produzi-la.
It is very puzzling, for the fact remains that the lump has been reduced to a fraction of its original weight and size. There is, after all, only one possible answer: the greater part of its mass must have been converted into energy. The question, then, is what became, of the energy?
A tecnologia rapidamente se torna um processo de definição da civilização humana:
Actually, the discovery appears to have been an accident. Frank Baxter took no interest in its development—regarded it as of little account. Think of it! An invention more revolutionary than the discovery of fire, yet its inventor failed entirely to grasp its importance! To the end of his days it was to him merely a by‑product.
A história é contada como uma série de entradas de diário de descendentes do inventor do processo de transformação de matéria ao longo dos anos e milênios. Na entrada final, o tamanho da lua em relação à terra é mencionado:
I have no doubt he will return later with some other fantastic delusion. On one occasion it was the legend that, instead of being twin planets, our earth and Luna were at one time of differing sizes, and that Luna revolved around the earth as some of the distant moons revolve around their primaries. This theory has been thoroughly discredited. It is true that there is a reduction of the earth's mass every time we scrape its surface to produce according to our needs; but it is incredible that the earth could ever have been several times the size of its companion planet, as these imaginative theorists would have us believe.
E de fato houve guerras de recursos sobre a sujeira:
The Eighty Years' War is over... Chief among the basic causes, of course, were the disputes, between adjoining districts over the right to extend their conversion pits beyond certain boundaries.
"The Dwindling Sphere" apareceu em várias antologias, incluindo Isaac Asimov apresenta The Great SF Stories 2 (1940) , editado por Isaac Asimov, 18 Maiores Histórias de Ficção Científica editado por Lawrence Jannifer, e outros .
Uma boa leitura, e lembro-a frequentemente ...