unidade de spacewarp (n.) 1948
No que diz respeito ao site Citações de Ficção Científica , a primeira citação de "warp drive" (na verdade, em a forma "drive spacewarp") está na novela de 1948 (mais tarde expandida para um romance) What Mad Universe , por Fredric Brown . Citando a p 34 da publicação original em Startling Stories , setembro de 1948 (disponível no Arquivo da Internet ):
Nineteen hundred and three. An American scientist at Harvard had discovered the spacewarp drive. Accidentally! Working on, of all things, his wife's sewing machine, which had been broken and discarded. He was trying to change it around so the treadle would run a tiny home-made generator to give him a high-frequency low-voltage current that he wanted to use in some class experiments in physics.
warp (v.) 1946
De acordo com o site Citações de ficção científica , o primeiro uso conhecido de "dobra" como verbo no sentido de viagem espacial mais rápida que a luz está no conto "Placet is um Crazy Place ", também de Fredric Brown. A seguinte citação é de p. 129 de sua publicação original em Astounding Science Fiction , maio de 1946 (disponível no Arquivo da Internet ):
Tomorrow the Ark would leave Earth, with the shipment of conditioner that would solve one of our problems—and with whomever Earth Center was sending to take my place. It would warp through space to a point a safe distance outside the Argyle I-II system and come in on rocket power from there. It would be here Friday, and I'd go back with it. But I tried not to think about that.
gerador de urdidura espacial (n.) 1944
Entre as citações do citações de ficção científica para "space warp" eu encontrei este, que parece ser da novela "Circle of Confusion" por George O. Smith (como "Wesley Long") em Astounding Science Fiction , março de 1944 (disponível no site Arquivo da Internet ):
The alphatron is still in fine shape, and the space-warp generator can still do a job.
warp (v.) 1938
A palavra "warp" é usada em referência à viagem espacial na novela 1938 " Homens contra as estrelas " por Manly Wade Wellman , publicado pela primeira vez em Espantosa Ficção Científica , junho de 1938 (disponível em Arquivo da Internet ). Citando as páginas 36-37 da antologia do Gnome Homens contra as estrelas ( Martin Greenberg , ed.):
"Sixty ships, Tallentyre. Sixty of 'em—and two hundred and forty-two men started from Earth. Fifty-six ships, and two hundred and twenty-two men reached Luna Port. Eighteen men lost on that little hop. Four ships blew their tubes—and that bloody six-man experiment first of all.
"But fifty-six ships landed, and we warped 'em off to Mars. And how many of those fifty-six got through?" His grating scream roared in the cubbyhole office and pounded through its flimsy metal door. Tallentyre's eyes moved toward the door.
DeWitt's roar dropped to a whisper as the man leaned abruptly forward, close to Tallentyre's moveless, sun-blackened face. "Four. Four got to Mars, my friend. The rest were pretty, red firecrackers in space."
Infelizmente, não acho que esse seja exatamente o tipo de "dobra" que estamos procurando. As naves espaciais de Wellman não possuíam unidades espaciais; eles eram foguetes abastecidos com hidrogênio monoatômico . Eu não sei o que Wellman quis dizer com "dobra"; talvez ele tenha usado no sentido arcaico de "lançar, jogar, arremessar".
warp (v.) 1932
A palavra "warp" é usada em referência à viagem interdimensional em Clifford D. Simak < novela de 1932 1932 "Cães de Caça do Cosmos" , que apareceu em Astounding Stories , junho de 1932 ( disponível no Arquivo da Internet . Os seguintes trechos são do Projeto Gutenberg :
"It is a matter of the proper utilization of two forces, electrical and gravitational," proudly explained Dr. White. "Those two forces, properly used, warp the third-dimensional into the fourth. A reverse process is used to return the object to the third. The principle of the machine is—"
The old man was about to launch into a lengthy discussion, but Henry interrupted him. A glance at his watch had shown him press time was drawing perilously close.
"Just a second," he said. "You propose to warp a third-dimensional being into a fourth dimension. How can a third-dimensional thing exist there? You said a short time ago that only a specified dimension could exist on one single plane."
[. . . .]
The light did not waver or sparkle. It did not glow. It seemed hard and brittle, like straight bars of force. The newspaperman, gazing with awe upon it, felt that terrific force was there. What had the old man said? Warp a third-dimensional being into another dimension! That would take force!
[. . . .]
In a line stood the men who were to fling themselves into the light to be warped into another dimension, there to seek out and fight an unknown enemy. The line was headed by a tall man with hands like hams, with a weather-beaten face and a wild mop of hair. Behind him stood a belligerent little cockney. Henry Woods stood fifth in line. They were a motley lot, adventurers every one of them, and some were obviously afraid as they stood before that column of light, with only a few seconds of the third dimension left to them. They had answered a weird advertisement, and had but a limited idea of what they were about to do. Grimly, though, they accepted it as a job, a bizarre job, but a job. They faced it as they had faced other equally dangerous, but less unusual, jobs.
[. . . .]
Then he knew. He was not alone. Here, in this one body were the bodies, the brains, the power, the spirit, of those other ninety-eight men. In the fourth dimension, all the millions of third-dimensional things were one. Perhaps that particular portion of the third dimension called the Earth had sprung from, or degenerated from, one single unit of a dissolving, worn-out fourth dimension. The third dimension, warped back to a higher plane, was automatically obeying the mystic laws of evolution by reforming in the shape of that old ancestor, unimaginably removed in time from the race he had begot. He was no longer Henry Woods, newspaperman; he was an entity that had given birth, in the dim ages when the Earth was born, to a third dimension. Nor was he alone. This body of his was composed of other sons of that ancient entity.
He felt himself grow, felt his body grow vaster, assume greater proportions, felt new vitality flow through him. It was the other men, the men who were flinging themselves into the column of light in the laboratory to be warped back to this plane, to be incorporated in his body.