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74-454: Black holes in fiction • Portable hole • Teleportation in fiction • Wormholes in fiction • Stargate • Warp drive • Hyperspace • Time travel in fiction In science fiction , hyperspace (also known as nulspace , subspace , overspace , jumpspace and similar terms) is a concept relating to higher dimensions as well as parallel universes and a faster-than-light (FTL) method of interstellar travel . In its original meaning,

148-466: A Galactic Empire traversed through hyperspace through the use of a "hyperatomic drive". In Foundation (1951), hyperspace is described as an "...unimaginable region that was neither space nor time, matter nor energy, something nor nothing, one could traverse the length of the Galaxy in the interval between two neighboring instants of time." E. C. Tubb has been credited with playing an important role in

222-484: A hypervelocity star on a trajectory towards the Solar System . Says The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction , "the immense black hole at the galactic core has become almost a cliché of contemporary space opera " such as Greg Egan 's 2008 novel Incandescence . The pulp-era motif of black holes posing danger to spacefarers resurfaced decades later following the popularization of black holes in fiction. In

296-599: A telepathic scream from a being falling into a black hole thus becomes drawn out for eternity. Similarly, a spaceship appears forever immovable at the event horizon in Brian Aldiss 's 1976 short story " The Dark Soul of the Night ", and in Frederik Pohl 's 1977 novel Gateway , an astronaut is wracked with survivor's guilt over the deaths of his companions during an encounter with a black hole, compounded by

370-543: A wormhole . Wormholes were appealing to writers due to their relative theoretical plausibility as a means of faster-than-light travel, and they were further popularized by speculative works of non-fiction such as Adrian Berry 's 1977 book The Iron Sun: Crossing the Universe Through Black Holes . Black holes and associated wormholes thus quickly became commonplace in fiction; according to science fiction scholar Brian Stableford , writing in

444-566: A 1939 lecture at Columbia University in New York City: It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men on a train. One man says, "What's that package up there in the baggage rack?" And the other answers, "Oh, that's a MacGuffin." The first one asks, "What's a MacGuffin?" "Well," the other man says, "it's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands." The first man says, "But there are no lions in

518-520: A Finger " from 1942). The concept of hyperspace travel, or space folding, can be used outside space travel as well, for example in Stephen King 's short story " Mrs. Todd's Shortcut " it is a means for an elderly lady to take a shortcut while travelling between two cities. In many stories, a starship cannot enter or leave hyperspace too close to a large concentration of mass, such as a planet or star ; this means that hyperspace can only be used after

592-460: A black hole created to neutralize a supernova threat has the side-effect of transporting two nearby spaceships into the past, where they end up altering the course of history . In Bolivian science fiction writer Giovanna Rivero 's 2012 novel Helena 2022: La vera crónica de un naufragio en el tiempo , a spaceship ends up in 1630s Italy as a result of an accidental encounter with a black hole. Black holes need not necessarily be stellar-mass ;

666-582: A black hole that is sentient as a result of electromagnetic interactions in its accretion disk seeks to devour the Solar System. MacGuffin The MacGuffin technique is common in films, especially thrillers . Usually, the MacGuffin is revealed in the first act , and thereafter declines in importance. It can reappear at the climax of the story but may actually be forgotten by the end of

740-468: A central element in their storytelling. While most often used in the context of interstellar travel, a minority of works focus on other plot points, such as the inhabitants of hyperspace, hyperspace as an energy source, or even hyperspace as the afterlife . The basic premise of hyperspace is that vast distances through space can be traversed quickly by taking a kind of shortcut. There are two common models used to explain this shortcut: folding and mapping. In

814-473: A common feature of modern space opera . Recurring themes in stories depicting micro black holes include spaceship propulsion , threatening or causing the destruction of the Earth, and serving as a source of gravity in outer-space settlements . [V]irtually the whole of gravitational physics can be understood using Newtonian theory . As far as real-world astrophysics goes, the most important exception to this

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888-478: A computer self-destructs by intentionally entering a black hole. In Mildred Downey Broxon 's 1978 short story " Singularity ", scientists study a civilization on a planet that will shortly be destroyed by an approaching black hole. John Varley 's 1978 short story " The Black Hole Passes " depicts an outpost in the Oort cloud being imperilled by a small black hole. In Stephen Baxter 's 1993 short story " Pilot ",

962-626: A low average density and could theoretically contain intact stars and planets within their event horizons. An enormous yet low-density black hole of this kind appears in Barry N. Malzberg 's 1975 novel Galaxies . In Benford's Galactic Center Saga , starting with the 1977 novel In the Ocean of Night , the vicinity of the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center of the Milky Way

1036-403: A means to achieve faster-than-light travel. The proposed mechanism involves travelling through the singularity at the center of a black hole and emerging at some other, perhaps very distant, place in the universe. More exotically, the point of emergence is occasionally portrayed as another point in time—thus enabling time travel —or even an entirely different universe . To explain why

1110-824: A small black hole is depicted in Paul J. McAuley 's 1990 short story " How We Lost the Moon " and is suspected to have occurred in Neal Stephenson 's 2015 novel Seveneves . Small black holes are used as a way to provide an artificial gravity of sorts by placing them inside inhabited structures or settled asteroids in Sheffield's 1989 novel Proteus Unbound , Reynolds's 2008 novel House of Suns , and Iain M. Banks 's 2010 novel Surface Detail . The titular material in Wil McCarthy 's 2000 novel The Collapsium

1184-582: A small black hole is used as a weapon against a rebellious planet. Earth is endangered by miniature black holes in Gregory Benford 's 1985 novel Artifact , Thomas Thurston Thomas 's 1986 novel The Doomsday Effect , and Brin's 1990 novel Earth , and the planet's destruction in this way forms part of the backstory in Dan Simmons 's 1989 novel Hyperion , while the Moon 's destruction by

1258-430: A so-called white hole , and as such acts as a gateway to another point in space which might be very distant from the point of entry. More exotically, the point of emergence is occasionally portrayed as another point in time—thus enabling time travel —or even an entirely different universe . More fanciful depictions of black holes that do not correspond to their known or predicted properties also appear. As nothing inside

1332-496: A spaceship extracts energy from a rotating black hole's ergosphere to widen its event horizon and cause a pursuer to fall into it. Black holes also appear as obstacles in the 2007 video game Super Mario Galaxy . Black holes have been depicted with varying degrees of accuracy to the scientific understanding of them. Because what lies beyond the event horizon is unknown and by definition unobservable from outside, authors have been free to employ artistic license when depicting

1406-455: A starship gets to the outside edge of a solar system , so that it must use other means of propulsion to get to and from planets. Other stories require a very large expenditure of energy in order to open a link (sometimes called a jump point ) between hyperspace and regular space; this effectively limits access to hyperspace to very large starships, or to large stationary jump gates that can open jump points for smaller vessels. Examples include

1480-537: A window is opened into a new "hyperplane of hyperspace" containing those who have already died on Earth, and similarly, in Bob Shaw 's The Palace of Eternity (1969), hyperspace is a form of afterlife , where human minds and memories reside after death. In some works, hyperspace is a source of extremely dangerous energy, threatening to destroy the entire world if mishandled (for instance Eando Binder 's The Time Contractor from 1937 or Alfred Bester 's " The Push of

1554-510: Is a parallel universe much smaller than ours (but not necessarily the same shape), which can be entered at a point corresponding to one location in ordinary space and exited at a different point corresponding to another location after travelling a much shorter distance than would be necessary in ordinary space. The Science in Science Fiction compares it to being able to step onto a world map at one's current location, walking across

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1628-555: Is an attractive destination for spacefaring civilizations due to the high concentration of stars that can serve as sources of energy in the region; a similar use is found for a regular-sized black hole in Benford's 1986 short story " As Big as the Ritz ", where its accretion disk provides ample solar energy for a space habitat. McAuley's 1991 novel Eternal Light involves a journey to the central supermassive black hole to investigate

1702-706: Is just a convenient MacGuffin enabling faster-than-light travel necessary for their story without violating the prohibitions against FTL travel in ordinary space imposed by known laws of physics. The means of accessing hyperspace is often called a "hyperdrive", and navigating hyperspace is typically referred to as "jumping" (as in "the ship will now jump through hyperspace"). A number of related terms (such as imaginary space, Jarnell intersplit, jumpspace, megaflow, N-Space, nulspace, slipstream, overspace, Q-space, subspace, and tau-space) have been used by various writers, although none have gained recognition to rival that of hyperspace. Some works use multiple synonyms; for example, in

1776-461: Is made up of a lattice of micro black holes and makes teleportation possible. At the opposite end of the spectrum, black holes can have masses comparable to that of an entire galaxy . Supermassive black holes , with masses that can be in excess of billions of times the mass of the Sun , are thought to exist in the center of most galaxies . Sufficiently large and massive black holes would have

1850-458: Is often left to the reader's imagination, or depicted as "a swirling gray mist". In some works, it is dark. Exceptions exist; for example, John Russel Fearn 's Waters of Eternity (1953) features hyperspace that allows observation of regular space from within. Many stories feature hyperspace as a dangerous, treacherous place where straying from a preset course can be disastrous. In Frederick Pohl 's The Mapmakers (1955), navigational errors and

1924-475: Is often treated as a plot-enabling gadget rather than as a fascinating, world-changing item, and that there are next to no works that discuss how hyperspace has been discovered and how such discovery subsequently changed the world. Black holes in fiction Black holes in fiction • Portable hole • Teleportation in fiction • Wormholes in fiction • Stargate • Warp drive • Hyperspace • Time travel in fiction Black holes , objects whose gravity

1998-418: Is so strong that nothing—including light—can escape them, have been depicted in fiction since at least the pulp era of science fiction , before the term black hole was coined. A common portrayal at the time was of black holes as hazards to spacefarers, a motif that has also recurred in later works. The concept of black holes became popular in science and fiction alike in the 1960s. Authors quickly seized upon

2072-466: Is the existence of black holes. It's probably no coincidence that black holes also happen to be by far the most popular astrophysical phenomena found in science fiction . Andrew May, How Space Physics Really Works: Lessons from Well-Constructed Science Fiction The general concept of black holes , objects whose gravity is so strong that nothing—including light—can escape them, was first proposed by John Michell in 1783 and developed further in

2146-496: Is the thing that the spies are after, but the audience doesn't care." In Mel Brooks 's parody of Hitchcock films, High Anxiety (1977), Brooks's character's hotel room is moved from the 2nd to the 17th floor at the request of a Mr. MacGuffin, a recognition by name of Hitchcock's use of the device. In contrast to Hitchcock's view, George Lucas believes that "the audience should care about [the MacGuffin] almost as much as

2220-536: Is transported through a wormhole in Roger MacBride Allen 's 1990 novel The Ring of Charon . Travel between universes is depicted in Pohl and Jack Williamson 's 1991 novel The Singers of Time , the concept having earlier made a more fanciful appearance in the 1975 film The Giant Spider Invasion , where the spiders of the title arrive at Earth through a black hole. In the 2009 film Star Trek ,

2294-680: Is used by space pirates to capture spaceships. Small black holes are used to power spaceship propulsion in Arthur C. Clarke 's 1975 novel Imperial Earth , Charles Sheffield 's 1978 short story " Killing Vector ", and the 1997 film Event Horizon . Artificial black holes that are created unintentionally at nuclear facilities appear in Michael McCollum 's 1979 short story " Scoop " and Martin Caidin 's 1980 novel Star Bright . In David Langford 's 1982 novel The Space Eater ,

Hyperspace - Misplaced Pages Continue

2368-637: Is used for storage. In George R.R. Martin's FTA (1974) hyperspace travel takes longer than in regular space, and in John E. Stith 's Redshift Rendezvous (1990), the twist is that the relativistic effects within it appear at lower velocities. Hyperspace is generally unpopulated, save for the space-faring travellers. Early exceptions include Tubb's Dynasty of Doom (1953), Fearn's Waters of Eternity (1953) and Christopher Grimm 's Someone to Watch Over Me (1959), which feature denizens of hyperspace. In The Mystery of Element 117 (1949) by Milton Smith ,

2442-462: Is usually explained through the existence of magic . While mainly designed as means of fast space travel, occasionally, some writers have used the hyperspace concept in more imaginative ways, or as a central element of the story. In Arthur C. Clarke 's " Technical Error " (1950), a man is laterally reversed by a brief accidental encounter with "hyperspace". In Robert A. Heinlein's Glory Road (1963) and Robert Silverberg 's " Nightwings " (1968), it

2516-588: The Star Trek franchise, the term hyperspace itself is only used briefly in a single 1988 episode (" Coming of Age ") of Star Trek: The Next Generation , while a related set of terms – such as subspace, transwarp, and proto-warp – are employed much more often, and most of the travel takes place through the use of a warp drive . Hyperspace travel has also been discussed in the context of wormholes and teleportation , which some writers consider to be similar whereas others view them as separate concepts. Emerging in

2590-410: The binary stars serves as the gateway between the system and the outside world, while Paul Preuss 's 1980 novel The Gates of Heaven and its 1981 follow-up Re-Entry feature black holes that are used for travel through both space and time. In the 1989 anime film Garaga , human colonization of the cosmos is enabled by interstellar gateways associated with black holes. The entire Earth

2664-464: The event horizon —the distance away from the black hole where the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light —can be observed from the outside, authors have been free to employ artistic license when depicting the interiors of black holes. A small number of works also portray black holes as being sentient. Besides stellar-mass black holes , supermassive and especially micro black holes also make occasional appearances. Supermassive black holes are

2738-423: The relativistic effect of gravitational time dilation , whereby time passes more slowly closer to a black hole due to its immense gravitational field. Black holes also became a popular means of space travel in science fiction , especially when the notion of wormholes emerged as a relatively plausible way to achieve faster-than-light travel. In this concept, a black hole is connected to its theoretical opposite,

2812-649: The "jump" technology in Babylon 5 and the star gate in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Just like with the very concept of hyperspace, the reasons given for such restrictions are usually technobabble , but their existence can be an important plot device . Science fiction author Larry Niven published his opinions to that effect in N-Space . According to him, an unrestricted FTL technology would give no limits to what heroes and villains could do. Limiting

2886-549: The 1975 Space: 1999 episode " Black Sun ", one threatens to destroy the Moon as it travels through space ; the episode was one of those included in Edwin Charles Tubb 's 1975 novelization Breakaway . In Isaac Asimov 's 1976 short story " Old-fashioned ", astronauts surmise that an unseen object keeping them in orbit must be a modestly-sized black hole, having wreaked havoc with their spaceship through tidal forces. In Edward Bryant 's 1976 novel Cinnabar ,

2960-406: The 2006 work Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia , "wormholes became the most fashionable mode of interstellar travel in the last decades of the twentieth century". Ian Wallace 's 1979 novel Heller's Leap is a murder mystery involving a journey through a black hole. Joan D. Vinge 's 1980 novel The Snow Queen is set on a circumbinary planet where a black hole between

3034-497: The Scottish Highlands," and the other one answers, "Well then, that's no MacGuffin!" So you see that a MacGuffin is actually nothing at all. In a 1966 interview with François Truffaut , Hitchcock explained the term using the same story. He also related this anecdote in a television interview for Richard Schickel 's documentary The Men Who Made the Movies , and in an interview with Dick Cavett . Hitchcock also said, "The MacGuffin

Hyperspace - Misplaced Pages Continue

3108-488: The black holes avant la lettre as hazards to spacefarers. Later works that nevertheless predate the adoption of the current terminology include Fred Saberhagen 's 1965 short story " Masque of the Red Shift " with its "hypermass" and the 1967 Star Trek episode " Tomorrow Is Yesterday " with its "black star". Once black holes gained mainstream popularity, many of the early works featuring black holes focused on

3182-433: The concept of gravitational time dilation , whereby time passes more slowly closer to a black hole due to the effects of general relativity. One consequence of this is that the process of crossing the event horizon —the distance away from the black hole where the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light —appears to an outside observer to take an infinite amount of time. In Poul Anderson 's 1968 short story " Kyrie ",

3256-401: The concept of a wormhole ; or a shortcut-enabling parallel universe that can be travelled through. Usually it can be traversed – the process often known as "jumping" – through a gadget known as a "hyperdrive"; rubber science is sometimes used to explain it. Many works rely on hyperspace as a convenient background tool enabling FTL travel necessary for the plot, with a small minority making it

3330-553: The decisive factor is whether sufficient mass is contained within a small enough space—the Schwarzschild radius . The principal mechanism of black hole formation is the gravitational collapse of a massive star , but other origins have been hypothesized, including so-called primordial black holes forming shortly after the Big Bang . Primordial black holes could theoretically be of virtually any conceivable size, though

3404-401: The development of hyperspace lore; writing a number of space operas in the early 1950s in which space travel occurs through that medium. He was also one of the first writers to treat hyperspace as a central part of the plot rather than a convenient background gadget that just enables the faster-than-light space travel. In 1963, Philip Harbottle called the concept of hyperspace "a fixture" of

3478-916: The dueling heroes and villains on-screen." Lucas describes R2-D2 as the MacGuffin of the original Star Wars film , and said that the Ark of the Covenant , the titular MacGuffin in Raiders of the Lost Ark , was an excellent example as opposed to the more obscure MacGuffin in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and the "feeble" MacGuffin in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade . The use of MacGuffins in Indiana Jones films later continued with

3552-415: The early 20th century, within several decades hyperspace became a common element of interstellar space travel stories in science fiction. Kirk Meadowcroft 's "The Invisible Bubble" (1928) and John Campbell 's Islands of Space (1931) feature the earliest known references to hyperspace, with Campbell, whose story was published in the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories Quarterly , likely being

3626-683: The final disposition of the Grail is never revealed, suggesting that the object is not of significance in itself. An even earlier example would be the Golden Fleece of Greek mythology , in the quest of Jason and the Argonauts ; "the Fleece itself, the raison d'être of this entire epic geste, remains a complete [...] mystery. The full reason for its Grail-like desirability [...] is never explained." The World War I-era actress Pearl White used

3700-694: The first writer to use this term in the context of space travel. According to the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction , the earliest known use of the word "hyper-drive" comes from a preview of Murray Leinster 's story "The Manless Worlds" in Thrilling Wonder Stories 1946. Another early work featuring hyperspace was Nelson Bond 's The Scientific Pioneer Returns (1940). Isaac Asimov 's Foundation series , first published in Astounding starting in 1942, featured

3774-418: The folding model, hyperspace is a place of higher dimension through which the shape of our three-dimensional space can be distorted to bring distant points close to each other; a common analogy popularized by Robert A. Heinlein 's Starman Jones (1953) is that of crumpling two-dimensional paper or cloth in the third dimension, thus bringing points on its surface into contact. In the mapping model, hyperspace

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3848-733: The framework of Albert Einstein 's theory of general relativity by Karl Schwarzschild in 1916. Serious scientific attention remained relatively limited until the 1960s, the same decade the term black hole was coined, though objects with the overall characteristics of black holes had made appearances in fiction decades earlier during the pulp era of science fiction. Examples of this include E. E. Smith 's 1928 novel The Skylark of Space with its "black sun", Frank K. Kelly  [ Wikidata ] 's 1935 short story " Starship Invincible " with its "Hole in Space", and Nat Schachner 's 1938 short story " Negative Space "—all of which portray

3922-531: The immense gravitational field of the black hole does not crush the travellers and their vessels, the special theorized properties of rotating black holes are sometimes invoked by authors; astrophysicists Steven D. Bloom and Andrew May argue that the strong tidal forces would nevertheless invariably be fatal, May pointing specifically to spaghettification . According to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction , early stories employing black holes for this purpose tended to use alternative terminology to obfuscate

3996-778: The inside of a black hole is used as a prison, a role it also serves in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons 's 1985 Superman comic book story " For the Man Who Has Everything ". Alien lifeforms inhabit the interior of a black hole in McCarthy's 1995 novel Flies from the Amber . Expeditions into black holes to explore the interior are depicted in Geoffrey A. Landis 's 1998 short story " Approaching Perimelasma " and Egan's 1998 short story " The Planck Dive ". In much

4070-451: The interiors of black holes. The 1979 film The Black Hole , noted for its inaccurate portrayal of the known properties of black holes discernible from without, depicts the inside as an otherworldly place bearing the hallmarks of Christian conceptions of the afterlife . In Benford's 1990 novel Beyond the Fall of Night , a sequel to Clarke's 1948 novel Against the Fall of Night ,

4144-501: The map to a different continent, and then stepping off the map to find oneself at the new location—noting that the hyperspace "map" could have a significantly more complicated shape, as in Bob Shaw 's Night Walk (1967). Hyperspace is generally seen as a fictional concept not compatible with present-day scientific theories, particularly the theory of relativity ). Some science fiction writers attempted quasi-scientific rubber science explanations of this concept. For others, however, it

4218-517: The mistaken identity has created, and what matters to Vandamm and the CIA is of little importance to Thornhill. A similar lack of motivating power applies to the MacGuffins of the 1930s films The Lady Vanishes , The 39 Steps , and Foreign Correspondent . In a broader sense, says Lavandier, a MacGuffin denotes any justification for the external conflict in a work. Alfred Hitchcock popularized

4292-862: The perils of hyperspace are one of the main plot-driving elements, and in K. Houston Brunner 's Fiery Pillar (1955), a ship re-emerges within Earth, causing a catastrophic explosion. In some works, travelling or navigating hyperspace requires not only specialized equipment, but physical or psychological modifications of passengers or at least navigators, as seen in Frank Herbert 's Dune (1965), Michael Moorcock 's The Sundered Worlds (1966), Vonda McIntyre 's Aztecs (1977), and David Brin 's The Warm Space (1985). While generally associated with science fiction, hyperspace-like concepts exist in some works of fantasy , particularly ones which involve movement between different worlds or dimensions. Such travel, usually done through portals rather than vehicles,

4366-456: The places a ship can appear in, or making them more predictable, means that they will meet each other most often around contested planets or space stations, allowing for narratively satisfying battles or other encounters. On the other hand, a less restricted hyperdrive may also allow for dramatic escapes as the pilot "jumps" to hyperspace in the midst of battle to avoid destruction. In 1999 science fiction author James P. Hogan wrote that hyperspace

4440-716: The plot of the 1998 film Ronin revolves around a case, the contents of which remain unknown. At the end of the film, it is said to have led to a historic peace agreement and an end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. George Lucas also used MacGuffins in the Star Wars saga. He "decided that the Force could be intensified through the possession of a mystical Kiber Crystal [ sic ]—Lucas's first, but by no means last, great MacGuffin." A similar usage

4514-535: The process appearing to still be ongoing. Later sequels in Pohl's Heechee Saga , from the 1980 novel Beyond the Blue Event Horizon onward, portray time dilation being exploited by aliens who reside near a black hole to experience the passage of time more slowly than the rest of the universe; other aliens do likewise in David Brin 's 1984 short story " The Crystal Spheres " while waiting for

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4588-527: The same way as stars—and, to a lesser extent, planets—have been anthropomorphized as living and thinking beings, so have black holes. An intelligent, talking black hole appears in Varley's 1977 short story " Lollipop and the Tar Baby ". In Sheffield's Proteus Unbound , microscopic black holes are determined to contain intelligence through signals emanating from them. In Benford's 2000 novel Eater ,

4662-500: The science fiction genre, and in 1977 Brian Ash wrote in The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction that it had become the most popular of all faster-than-light methods of travel. The concept would subsequently be further popularized through its use in the Star Wars franchise. In the 1974 film Dark Star , special effects designer Dan O'Bannon created a visual effect to depict going into hyperspace wherein

4736-526: The smallest ones would by now have evaporated into nothing due to the quantum mechanical effect known as Hawking radiation . The concept of micro black holes was first theorized in the 1970s, and quickly became popular in science fiction. In Larry Niven 's 1974 short story " The Hole Man ", a microscopic black hole is used as a murder weapon by exploiting the tidal effects at short range, and in Niven's 1975 short story " The Borderland of Sol ", one

4810-653: The stars in space appear to move rapidly toward the camera. This is considered to be the first depiction in cinema history of a ship making the jump into hyperspace. The same effect was later employed in Star Wars (1977) and the "star streaks" are considered one of the visual "staples" of the Star Wars franchise. Hyperspace is typically described as chaotic and confusing to human senses; often at least unpleasant – transitions to or from hyperspace can cause symptoms such as nausea , for example – and in some cases even hypnotic or dangerous to one's sanity. Visually, hyperspace

4884-411: The story. Multiple MacGuffins are sometimes derisively identified as plot coupons —the characters "collect" the coupons to trade in for an ending. The use of a MacGuffin as a plot device predates the name MacGuffin. The Holy Grail of Arthurian legend has been cited as an early example of a MacGuffin. The Holy Grail is the desired object that is essential to initiate and advance the plot, but

4958-445: The term hyperspace was simply a synonym for higher-dimensional space . This usage was most common in 19th-century textbooks and is still occasionally found in academic and popular science texts, for example, Hyperspace (1994). Its science fiction usage originated in the magazine Amazing Stories Quarterly in 1931 and within several decades it became one of the most popular tropes of science fiction, popularized by its use in

5032-421: The term "weenie" to identify whatever object (a roll of film, a rare coin, expensive diamonds, etc.) impelled the heroes and villains to pursue each other through the convoluted plots of The Perils of Pauline and the other silent film serials in which she starred. In the 1930 detective novel The Maltese Falcon , a small statuette provides both the book's title and its motive for intrigue. The name MacGuffin

5106-570: The titular crystal skull in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Archimedes' Dial in the Dial of Destiny . Filmmaker and drama writing theorist Yves Lavandier suggests that a MacGuffin is a secret that motivates the villains. North by Northwest ' s MacGuffin is nothing that motivates the protagonist; Roger Thornhill's objective is to extricate himself from the predicament that

5180-442: The underlying issues. Thus, Joe Haldeman 's 1974 fix-up novel The Forever War , where a network of black holes is used for interstellar warfare, calls them " collapsars ", while George R. R. Martin 's 1972 short story " The Second Kind of Loneliness " has a "nullspace vortex". Speculation that black holes might be connected to their hypothetical opposites, white holes , soon followed—the resulting arrangement being known as

5254-666: The universe to be more filled with life, and in Alastair Reynolds 's 2000 novel Revelation Space , they do it to hide. In Bill Johnson 's 1982 short story " Meet Me at Apogee ", travel to various levels of time dilation is commercialized, used by people with incurable diseases among others. In the 2014 film Interstellar , a planet orbits a black hole so closely that it experiences extreme time dilation, with time passing approximately 60,000 times slower than on Earth. Black holes have also been portrayed as ways to travel through space. In particular, they often serve as

5328-672: The use of the MacGuffin technique. Examples from Hitchcock's films include plans for a silent plane engine in The 39 Steps (1935), radioactive uranium ore in Notorious (1946), and a clause from a secret peace treaty in Foreign Correspondent (1940). The briefcase in Pulp Fiction (1994) motivates several of the characters during many of the film's major plot points, but its contents are never revealed. Similarly,

5402-481: The works of authors such as Isaac Asimov and E. C. Tubb , and media franchises such as Star Wars . One of the main reasons for the concept's popularity in science fiction is the impossibility of faster-than-light travel in ordinary space, which hyperspace allows writers to bypass. In most works, hyperspace is described as a higher dimension through which the shape of our three-dimensional space can be distorted to bring distant points close to each other, similar to

5476-403: Was coined by British screenwriter Angus MacPhail . It has been posited that " 'guff', as a word for anything trivial or worthless, may lie at the root". Director and producer Alfred Hitchcock popularized the term MacGuffin and the technique with his 1935 film The 39 Steps , in which the MacGuffin is some otherwise incidental military secrets. Hitchcock explained the term MacGuffin in

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