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Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Ahasuerus <ahasuerus@email.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Clarke Award Finalists 1993
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2025 12:32:10 -0400
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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 <slrnvvqi2o.1vmf.naddy@lorvorc.mips.inka.de>
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On 4/15/2025 10:34 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <87v7r5yk1l.fsf@moroka.fritz.box>,
> Stephen Harker  <sjharker@aussiebroadband.com.au> wrote:
>> Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> writes:
>>
>>> On 2025-04-14, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Which 1993 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
>>>
>>>> Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
>>>
>>> ... where I learned that English geologic vocabulary is full of German.
>>
>> I understand that is because when in the Medieval period they wanted to
>> exploit mineral resources they did the usual invite specialists who were
>>from Germany.  Probably with incentives.
> 
> My engineer grandfather once mentioned MIT encouraged him to learn
> German. That would have been the late 1920s, early 1930s.

John W. Campbell, Jr. studied at MIT, where he was advised by Norbert 
Wiener, who would later become known as "the father of cybernetics", in 
1928-1931. He then had to leave due to his failure to learn German. 
Campbell took a break, then moved to Duke, where he was finally able to 
pass German and became involved with Joseph B. Rhine, the ESP guru.

Although neither relationship was particularly deep, one wonders how SF 
would have developed if Campbell had been better at German and stayed at 
MIT...