The imaginary device invented by Ursula K Le Guin for instantaneous communication between two points, regardless of the distance between them. The speculative Physics which led to its invention is described in The Dispossessed (1974), but the device is mentioned in a number of the Hainish series of stories written before The Dispossessed, and indeed is central to their rationale. It compares interestingly with James Blish's Dirac Communicator. (> Faster Than Light and Communication for further discussion of both.) The ansible has since been adopted as a useful device by several other writers who retained Ursula K Le Guin's name for it, including Orson Scott Card, Elizabeth Moon, Dan Simmons and Vernor Vinge. Neal Asher's Human Polity sequence nods to the ansible with "runcible" technology which provides both faster-than-light communication and travel, the latter via Matter Transmission.
The ansible is merely the best-known of the many names given by sf writers to essentially similar instant communicators. Isaac Asimov's Foundation sequence makes play with Ultrawave and hyperwave transmissions, extending to the hyperwave relay of Foundation (May 1942-October 1944 Astounding; fixup 1951; cut vt The 1,000 Year Plan 1955 dos) – a remote-control switch that can be operated with immediate effect from many light-years away. Cordwainer Smith's "Under Old Earth" (February 1966 Galaxy) refers to instant-message machines. Frederik Pohl's unpoetic Aliens in Heechee Rendezvous (1984) simply call it a zero-speed (sic) radio. Further examples abound. [DRL/PN]
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