Ansible facts for kids

An ansible is a cool idea from science fiction! It's a special device that can send and receive messages super fast, even quicker than light. Imagine being able to talk to someone across the galaxy with no delay at all! The word "ansible" was first used in a 1966 book called Rocannon's World by Ursula K. Le Guin. The name comes from "answerable," because it lets people get answers to their messages right away, even from far-off star systems.

Ansibles in Ursula K. Le Guin's Books

Ursula K. Le Guin, the writer who invented the ansible, used it in many of her stories.

• In her 1974 novel The Dispossessed, Le Guin tells us how the ansible was invented.
• In The Word for World Is Forest, she explained that for two ansibles to talk, one must be on a very large planet or star. The other ansible can be anywhere.
• In The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin wrote that ansibles don't use radio waves. Instead, they work in a way that is similar to gravity.

Ansibles can communicate with each other by setting their coordinates. They have a limited bandwidth, which means they can only send a few hundred characters of text at a time. They usually have a keyboard and a small screen for sending text messages.

Other Writers and Ansibles

Many other science fiction writers have used the idea of ansibles in their own stories. Here are some examples:

• Neal Asher used a similar device called a runcible in his Polity series of novels, like Gridlinked (2001). His runcible creates wormholes for travel.
• Becky Chambers included ansibles in her 2014 novel The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.
• L.A. Graf featured them in the 1996 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel Time's Enemy.
• Jason Jones put an ansible in the 1995 computer game Marathon 2: Durandal.
• Joe M. McDermott used the idea in his 2017 novel The Fortress at the End of Time.
• Elizabeth Moon wrote about ansibles in her 1995 novel Winning Colors.
• Remigiusz Mróz included them in his 2014 space-opera The Chorus of Forgotten Voices.
• Philip Pullman featured an ansible in his 2000 novel The Amber Spyglass, which is part of the His Dark Materials series.
• Kim Stanley Robinson used the concept in his 2012 novel 2312.
• Dan Simmons included ansibles in his 2003 novel Ilium.
• Vernor Vinge wrote about them in his 1988 short story "The Blabber".

See Also

In Spanish: Ansible para niños