An ansible is a hypothetical machine, capable of superluminal communication, and used as a plot device in science fiction literature. Superluminal communication is the term used to describe the hypothetical process by which one might send information at faster-than-light (FTL) speeds. ... A plot device is a person or an object introduced to a story to affect or advance the plot. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ...

Ansible is also a science fiction fanzine published by Dave Langford, and named after the faster-than-light communicator. Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... A fanzine (see also: zine) is a nonprofessional publication produced by fans of a particular subject for the pleasure of others who share their interest. ... David Langford David Langford (born April 10, 1953, in Newport, Monmouthshire) is a British science fiction author and critic. ...

Origin

The word "ansible" was coined by Ursula K. Le Guin in her 1966 novel, Rocannon's World.^[1] Le Guin states that she derived the name from "answerable," as the device would allow its users to receive answers to their messages in a reasonable amount of time, even over interstellar distances.^[2],^[3] Her award-winning 1974 novel The Dispossessed^[4] tells of the invention of the ansible within her Ekumen milieu. A neologism (Greek νεολογισμός [neologismos], from νέος [neos] new + λόγος [logos] word, speech, discourse + suffix -ισμός [-ismos] -ism) is a word, term, or phrase which has been recently created (coined) — often to apply to new concepts, to synthesize pre-existing concepts, or to make older terminology sound more contemporary. ... Ursula Kroeber Le Guin [] (born October 21, 1929) is an American author. ... 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1966 calendar). ... Rocannons World was Ursula K. Le Guins first novel. ... 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia is a 1974 utopian science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, set in the same fictional universe as that of The Left Hand of Darkness (the Ekumen universe). ... The Ekumen is the fictional galactic federation of human-inhabited worlds mentioned in several of the science fiction novels of Ursula K. Le Guin. ...

Usage

The name of the device has since been borrowed by authors such as Orson Scott Card,^[5] Vernor Vinge,^[6] Elizabeth Moon,^[7] L.A. Graf,^[8] and Dan Simmons.^[9] Similarly functioning devices are present in the works of numerous others, such as Frank Herbert,^{[citation needed]} and Philip Pullman, who called it a "lodestone resonator".^[10] The "subspace radio," best known today from Star Trek and named for the series' method of achieving faster-than-light travel, was the most commonly used name for such a faster-than-light (FTL) communicator in the science fiction of the 1930s to the 1950s.^{[citation needed]} One ansible-like device which predates Le Guin's usage is the "Dirac communicator" in James Blish's 1954 short story "Beep". Isaac Asimov solved the same communication problem with the "hyper-wave relay" in The Foundation Series. It has been suggested that Saintspeak be merged into this article or section. ... Vernor Steffen Vinge (IPA: ) (born February 10, 1944) is a mathematician, computer scientist and science fiction author who is best known for his Hugo award-winning novels A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky, as well as for his 1993 essay The Technological Singularity, in which... At the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, August 2005 Elizabeth Moon, born 1945 March 7, is an American science fiction and fantasy author. ... Julia Ecklar is a science fiction author and a singer and writer of filk music. ... Dan Simmons (born April 4, 1948 in Peoria, Illinois) is an American author most widely known for his Hugo Award-winning science fiction novel Hyperion and its sequel The Fall of Hyperion. ... Frank Patrick Herbert (October 8, 1920 – February 11, 1986) was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. ... Philip Pullman CBE (born October 19, 1946) is an English writer. ... The current Star Trek franchise logo Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment series. ... 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link is to a full 1930 calendar). ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... James Benjamin Blish (East Orange, New Jersey, May 23, 1921 - Henley-on-Thames, July 29, 1975) was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. ... 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Isaac Asimov (January 2?, 1920? – April 6, 1992, IPA: , originally Исаак Озимов but now transcribed into Russian as Айзек Азимов) was a Russian-born American author and professor of biochemistry, a highly successful and exceptionally prolific writer best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

Le Guin's ansible communicated instantaneously, and so do most other authors'. Notable exceptions are the HyperPulse Generator of the BattleTech universe and the ansible in the Vinge short story "The Blabber", which merely communicates faster than light — in a universe where that is believed impossible. Note: This article has been partially cleaned up with suggestions for further improvements added to the talk page This article covers technology and equipment from within the BattleTech (BT) fictional universe. ... BattleTech is a wargaming and science fiction franchise, launched by FASA Corporation and currently owned by WizKids. ...

In Le Guin's work

In The Word for World is Forest, Le Guin explains that in order for communication to work with any pair of ansibles at least one "must be on a large-mass body, the other can be anywhere in the cosmos." In The Left Hand of Darkness, the ansible "doesn't involve radio waves, or any form of energy. The principle it works on, the constant of simultaneity, is analogous in some ways to gravity... One point has to be fixed, on a planet of certain mass, but the other end is portable." Le Guin's ansibles are not mated pairs as it is possible for an ansible's coordinates to be set to any known location of a receiving ansible. Moreover, the ansibles Le Guin uses in her stories apparently have a very limited bandwidth which only allows for at most a few hundred characters of text to be communicated in any transaction of a dialog session. Instead of a microphone and speaker, Le Guin's ansibles are attached to a keyboard and small display to perform text messaging. The Word for World is Forest is a science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, published in 1976 and based on a 1972 novella. ... This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. ... Simultaneity is the property of two events happening at the same time in at least ONE Reference frame. ... Gravity is a force of attraction that acts between bodies that have mass. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A received SMS being announced on a Nokia phone. ...

In Card's work

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series is probably the most widely read work to use an ansible ("The official name is Philotic Parallax Instantaneous Communicator," explains Col. Graff in Ender's Game, "but somebody dredged the name ansible out of an old book somewhere").^[5] His description of ansible functions in Xenocide involve a fictional subatomic particle, the philote, and contradicts not only standard physical theory but the results of empirical particle accelerator experiments. In the "Enderverse", the two quarks inside a pi meson can be separated by an arbitrary distance while remaining connected by "philotic rays". This is similiar in concept to quantum teleportation due to entanglement, although even that is not capable of faster-than-light communication. Also, in the real world, quark confinement prevents one from separating quarks by more than microscopic distances. For reasons like these, most writers deliberately avoid explaining how their ansibles work. The Enders Game Series (or simply Ender Series) is a series of science fiction books by Orson Scott Card, started with the short story Enders Game, which was later expanded into the novel Enders Game. ... Hyrum Graff is a fictional character written about by Orson Scott Card, in several of his Ender and Shadow books. ... Enders Game (1985) is the best-known novel by Orson Scott Card. ... For the computer game related to X-COM: UFO Defense, see Project Xenocide. ... Philote is a term derived from science fiction writer Orson Scott Cards Enders Game series referring to the basic building blocks of matter, the true indivisible particle that is not made up of smaller ones. ... For the DC Comics Superhero also called Atom Smasher, see Albert Rothstein. ... These are the six flavors of quarks and their most likely decay modes. ... In particle physics, pion (short for pi meson) is the collective name for three subatomic particles: π0, π+ and π−. Pions are the lightest mesons and play an important role in explaining low-energy properties of the strong nuclear force. ... In quantum information, quantum teleportation, or entanglement-assisted teleportation, is a technique that transfers a quantum state to an arbitrarily distant location using a distributed entangled state and the transmission of some classical information. ... It has been suggested that Quantum coherence be merged into this article or section. ... This article refers to a particle physics phenomenon. ...

In reality

There is no known way to build an ansible. While current theories of physics do not absolutely rule out the possibility, the theory of special relativity predicts that any such device would allow communication from the future to the past, which raises problems of causality. For this reason, most physicists believe that they will eventually be proven impossible. Quantum entanglement is often proposed as a mechanism for superluminal communication,^[10] but our current understanding of that phenomenon is that it cannot be used for any sort of communication—superluminal or otherwise—because of the no cloning theorem in quantum mechanics. See time travel and faster-than-light for more discussion of these issues. The special theory of relativity was proposed in 1905 by Albert Einstein in his article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies. Some three centuries earlier, Galileos principle of relativity had stated that all uniform motion was relative, and that there was no absolute and well-defined state of rest... It has been suggested that this article be split into multiple articles accessible from a disambiguation page. ... It has been suggested that Quantum coherence be merged into this article or section. ... The no cloning theorem is a result of quantum mechanics which forbids the creation of identical copies of an arbitrary unknown quantum state. ... Fig. ... Time travel is a concept that has long fascinated humanity—whether it is Merlin experiencing time backwards, or religious traditions like Mohammeds trip to Jerusalem and ascent to heaven, returning before a glass knocked over had spilt its contents. ... Faster-than-light (also superluminal or FTL) communications and travel are staples of the science fiction genre. ...

References

Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... December 8 is the 342nd day (343rd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... David Langford David Rowland Langford (born April 10, 1953, in Newport, Monmouthshire) is a British author, editor and critic, largely active within the science fiction field. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... October 24 is the 297th day of the year (298th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 68 days remaining. ... Ursula Kroeber Le Guin [] (born October 21, 1929) is an American author. ... HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by Rupert Murdochs News Corporation. ... It has been suggested that Saintspeak be merged into this article or section. ... Enders Game (1985) is the best-known novel by Orson Scott Card. ... Tor Books is an imprint of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC which publishes popular fiction, and is particularly noted for its science fiction and fantasy titles. ... Vernor Steffen Vinge (IPA: ) (born February 10, 1944) is a mathematician, computer scientist and science fiction author who is best known for his Hugo award-winning novels A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky, as well as for his 1993 essay The Technological Singularity, in which... 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... November 1 is the 305th day of the year (306th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 60 days remaining. ... At the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, August 2005 Elizabeth Moon, born 1945 March 7, is an American science fiction and fantasy author. ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... August 1 is the 213th day of the year (214th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Julia Ecklar is science fiction author an a singer and writer of filk music. ... Pocket Books is the name of a subdivision of Simon & Schuster publishers. ... Dan Simmons (born April 4, 1948 in Peoria, Illinois) is an American author most widely known for his Hugo Award-winning science fiction novel Hyperion and its sequel The Fall of Hyperion. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... July 1 is the 182nd day of the year (183rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 183 days remaining. ... HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by Rupert Murdochs News Corporation. ... Philip Pullman CBE (born October 19, 1946) is an English writer. ... 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... October 2 is the 275th day (276th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 90 days remaining. ... Del Rey Books is a branch of Ballantine Books, which is owned by Random House. ...

See also

• No cloning theorem
• Tachyon

The no cloning theorem is a result of quantum mechanics which forbids the creation of identical copies of an arbitrary unknown quantum state. ... A tachyon (from the Greek takhús, meaning swift, fast) is any hypothetical particle that travels at superluminal velocity. ...

External links

• Ansible from the Oxford English Dictionary Science Fiction Citations project
• Ansible at Technovelgy
• Ansible at h2g2
• Ansible Home Page (fanzine)