4 ms·

Haha this sounds straight out of Asimov's Foundation novels where a civilization was driven to innovate miniaturized nuclear power.

• intrasight 10y ago
  What I was thinking as well
• petre 10y ago
  Wasn't the Earth in Asimov's Foundation radioactive and unhabitable? Having that blue glow at the horizon (ionizing radiation-induced luminescence?).
  • RangerScience 10y ago
    I was going to say that you're probably thinking of Trantor, the imperial capital, and that the earth was protected by R Daneel Olivaw and his "descendants", but now I just want to wave the nerd flag and link Wikipedia, because you're right about the radioactive but (apparently) wrong about the habitability. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_(Foundation_universe) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_(Foundation_universe) You win this round, sir. Edit: What petre was referring to was that the eponymous Foundation was deliberately founded on a world poor in radioactives (and other metals), so that they'd be forced to make the most out of what they had, resulting in extremely small, low power equipment.
  • AYBABTME 10y ago
    The Earth was made radioactive due to a plot by the Spacers. On the other hand, the Foundation - the civilization using miniature nuclear reactors - is happening many millennial later and far away from Earth. So the "miniature nuclear tech" and "radioactive Earth" aren't related in the plot.