I suppose this entry in the "ASOTV" showcase kicks off our theme
week for Halloween. After all, War is horror, isn't it?
DR. FELIX HOENIKKER
AS SEEN IN:
"Between Time And Timbuktu"
(or "Prometheus 5")
CREATED BY:
Kurt Vonnegut
PORTRAYED BY:
Hurd Hatfield
TV DIMENSION:
Alternate Toobworld
From Wikipedia:
Ice-nine is a fictional material appearing in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's
Cradle. In the story, it is developed by the Manhattan Project for use as a
weapon, but abandoned when it becomes clear that any quantity of it would have
the power to destroy all life on earth. Ice-nine is supposedly a polymorph of
water more stable than common ice (Ice Ih); instead of melting at 0 °C (32 °F),
it melts at 45.8 °C (114.4 °F). When ice-nine comes into contact with liquid
water below 45.8 °C (thus effectively becoming supercooled), it acts as a seed
crystal and causes the solidification of the entire body of water, which quickly
crystallizes as more ice-nine. As people are mostly water, this effect means
ice-nine kills nearly instantly when ingested or brought into contact with soft
tissues exposed to the bloodstream, such as the eyes. A global catastrophe
involving freezing the world's oceans with ice-nine is used as a plot device in
Vonnegut's novel.
From Technovelogy.com:
A general had a problem: mud. Marines have slogged their
way through it for generations. Is it possible to get rid of mud? Without having
to carry anything heavy? Marines already have enough to carry.
Dr. Felix Hoenikker, an original thinker, found the "outside-the-box" answer; a single crystal of Ice-Nine would crystallize every bit of water it touched.
From the source ("Cat's Cradle"):
"...suppose, young man, that one Marine had with him a tiny capsule containing a seed of ice-nine, a new way for the atoms of water to stack and lock, to freeze. If that Marine threw that seed into the nearest puddle...?"
"The puddle would freeze?" I guessed.
"And all the muck around the puddle?"
"It would freeze?"
"And all the puddles in the frozen muck?"
"They would freeze?"
"And the pools and the streams in the frozen muck?"
"They would freeze?"
"You bet they would !" He cried. "And the United States Marines would rise from the swamp and march on!"
Dr. Felix Hoenikker, an original thinker, found the "outside-the-box" answer; a single crystal of Ice-Nine would crystallize every bit of water it touched.
From the source ("Cat's Cradle"):
"...suppose, young man, that one Marine had with him a tiny capsule containing a seed of ice-nine, a new way for the atoms of water to stack and lock, to freeze. If that Marine threw that seed into the nearest puddle...?"
"The puddle would freeze?" I guessed.
"And all the muck around the puddle?"
"It would freeze?"
"And all the puddles in the frozen muck?"
"They would freeze?"
"And the pools and the streams in the frozen muck?"
"They would freeze?"
"You bet they would !" He cried. "And the United States Marines would rise from the swamp and march on!"
 |
| With Stony Stephenson |
- "Cat's
Cradle", by Kurt Vonnegut.
Published by Random House in 1963
BCnU!
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