John Wood Campbell

“ Certain men in both the Navy and the Air Force are looking forward, rightly enough, to space travel. These men also seem to take it for granted that their own branch of service, viz. the Navy or the Air Force, will be the one to take over the military duties of patrolling the spaceways, or whatever might be required. ”

“ It seems to me, from the stories I have read recently, that either you or your writers are prejudiced in favor of the Navy. Even the rocket forces of alien peoples many light-years away have signed away their rocket forces to the local navies. ”

“ A hit of supporting evidence, here, is that most cases of "mysticism" generally originate in the backwoods of this planet. There's something like a psychic accord between man and nature that considerably helps the subject attain mental accord, it seems. ”

“ It is a little-known fact that any gas upon expanding may either heat up or cool down, or even do both in the same operation, depending upon the nature of the gas, the temperature at which the operation started, and the extent of the expansion. Below a certain temperature called the Joule-Thomson inversion temperature—different for each gas: -83° C for hydrogen; much higher for most gases—gases do indeed cool down upon expanding, as you state, but above this temperature, astonishingly enough, they heat up. ”

“ Immediately, I laid Locke’s article down for an instant and took off on my own speculations as to why we reputedly use only nine-tenths of the brain and why, as he says, the brain is apparently too large for efficiency already. I was considering a normally healthy brain, of course; psychotic brains are no more attractive to me than polio or cancer. ”

“ Your stories seem to be much more logical and scientifically substantiated than the usual run of science fiction, which usual run usually runs into nausea. I am science editor for our local paper here at the University of Texas, have had a more than average amount of training in science and I think I may speak with some authority. ”

“ A rocket takes off with an initial horizontal velocity of 500 miles per hour and an initial rate of climb of 1,000 feet per minute. With each 1,000 feet of altitude its velocity increases 10 mph, and each 100 mph faster it goes the rate of climb increases 100 feet per minute. ”

“ Obviously, we'll have to go a long way farther toward something resembling a good definition of the word "civilization" before: (A) the human race is physically in such good shape that we aren't bothered with such things as colds, rheumatism, fevers, chills, and whatnot, which are distracting ”

“ It is even too much worry, as yet, remaining compatible with the little woman so as to raise a fine, strong family of red-blooded young Americans. We'll have to get all these items off our neural patterns before we're mentally healthy enough to tackle ESP and PK code-messages with a vengeance! ”

“ That suggested something else: anything that far "out of this world" would prove difficult for the brain itself to utilize! The communications received from such a system might conceivably be a tricky code that the brain would have trouble deciphering unless its physical structure was hitting peak efficiency! Good physical health and mental awareness. ”