For example a group at MIT concluded that the planet Mesklin in Hal Clement's 1953 novel Mission of Gravity would have had a sharp edge at the equator, and a Florida high-school class calculated that in Larry Niven's 1970 novel Ringworld the topsoil would have slid into the seas in a few thousand years.

In Niven's first novel, World of Ptavvs, the hyperdrive used by the Thrintun required a ship to be going faster than 93 % of the speed of light.

In Niven's novel Ringworld's Children the Ringworld itself is converted into a gigantic Quantum II hyperdrive and launched into hyperspace while within its star's gravity well.

* A Mars Direct scheme is used in Larry Niven's novel Rainbow Mars.

A hull material that gets stronger with pressure in the film The Core was nicknamed unobtainium, but the concept under different names can be seen in the anti-gravity material cavorite and the super-strong material scrith from Larry Niven's novel Ringworld, which requires a tensile strength on the order of the forces binding an atomic nucleus together.

Those aspirations are remembered in science fiction such as Arthur C. Clarke's A Fall of Moondust and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Joanna Russ's 1968 novel Picnic on Paradise, and Larry Niven's Known Space stories.

According to Don D ' Ammassa, both this and Pratchett's 1981 sci-fi novel Strata are spoofing parts of Larry Niven's Ringworld.

A pentagon al rosette as described in Larry Niven's novel Ringworld.

In Larry Niven's novel Ringworld, the Puppeteers ' " Fleet of Worlds " is arranged in such a configuration ( 5 planets spaced at the points of a pentagon ) which Niven calls a " Kemplerer rosette "; this ( possibly intentional ) misspelling ( and misuse ) is one possible source of this confusion.

In a later novel, A World Out of Time ( 1976 ), Niven's protagonist is awakened in a society which gives no legal rights whatsoever to corpsicles.

: And a special acknowledgment to the author of Niven's Law: " There is a technical, literary term for those who mistake the opinions and beliefs of characters in a novel for those of the author.

Sidney Coleman reviewed the novel favorably in F & SF ; although describing it as really " two long novelettes passing as a novel ," he noted that " both halves of the book are permeated with the ingenuity that has been the driving energy of Niven's stories since his earliest work.

Apart from the obvious references to the preceding novel Ringworld, The Ringworld Engineers also draws upon ideas elaborated in Niven's 1973 novel Protector for Teela Brown's ultimate fate.

# There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it. in variant form in Fallen Angels as " Niven's Law: No cause is so noble that it won't attract fuggheads.

A model to other writers of hard science fiction, Clarke postulates advanced technologies without resorting to flawed engineering concepts ( as Jules Verne sometimes did ) or explanations grounded in incorrect science or engineering, or taking cues from trends in research and engineering ( which dates some of Larry Niven's novels ).

Larry Niven is also known in science fiction fandom for " Niven's Law ": There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it.

Other science fiction authors have devised their own variants of Niven's Ringworld, notably Iain M. Banks ' Culture Orbitals, best described as miniature Ringworlds, and the ring-shaped Halo structure of the video game Halo.

The Ringworld science fiction role-playing game was published by Chaosium in 1984, using the Basic Role-Playing system for its rules and Larry Niven's Ringworld novels as a setting.

" Known Space " ( also the commonly used title for Larry Niven's future history science fiction series ) is about 80 light years in diameter with 10, 000 stars, including Human Space ( 40 light years diameter, 524 stars in 357 systems, 30 billion humans, ⅔ on Earth ), as well as neighbouring Alien civilisations.

The game was inspired by such classic science fiction stories as the Dumarest Saga series by E. C. Tubb, the Foundation stories of Isaac Asimov, H. Beam Piper's Space Viking, Larry Niven's Known Space, Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium, Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League and several other works of science fiction literature.

* Larry Niven's Gil ' the ARM ' Hamilton stories: Death by Ecstasy ( 1968 ), ARM ( 1975 ), and The Patchwork Girl ( 1980 ) ( although it should be noted that, as these stories are science fiction, the methods of producing the locked-room mystery are not necessarily based on present-day science )

David Brin's science fiction series about the Uplift Universe is also often mentioned as inspiration for the Star Control II universe, as well as Larry Niven's Known Space universe.

Niven's approach to fantasy ( as with his approach to science fiction ) is relatively logical and somewhat distinct from the high fantasy normally associated with the genre.

From Larry Niven's Known Space series of science fiction books, the Kzinti Patriarch is the leader of the Kzin race.

A similar effect is seen in Niven's collaboration with David Gerrold, The Flying Sorcerers ; all the gods are well known science fiction or media personalities ( Ouells = H. G. Wells, Rotn ' bair = Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry ), etc.

Over the course of his career Niven has added to this first law a list of Niven's Laws which he describes as " how the Universe works " as far as he can tell.

In Niven's obscure story The Color of Sunfire it has entire continents covered with Slaver sunflowers ( bred as defense for Thrint manors, they focus sunlight using silver leaves as parabolic reflectors ), giving it an appearance from orbit of having " silver eyes ".

In Niven's future world, the deterioration of age has been largely reversed, so humans live hundreds of years.

Graham Lord, in NIV: The Authorized Biography of David Niven, suggested that Comyn-Platt and Mrs. Niven had been having an affair for some time before her husband's death, and that Sir Thomas may well have been David Niven's biological father, a supposition which has some support from her children.

For example, Larry Niven's fictional universe Known Space has an approximately 135 year period in which Niven allows other authors to write stories about the Man-Kzin Wars.

In one scene the younger daughter of Niven's character is seen reading Fanny Hill, whereas his older daughter, Linda, has apparently graduated from Cleland's sensationalism and is seen reading Sartre instead.

While Lavin has no biological children, she is the stepmother to Niven's children Jim and Kate Niven and the grandmother to Jim's sons Grayson and Talen.

Nessus is a male ( of the second type, his species has three sexes ) character in Larry Niven's Known Space universe, of the species Pierson's Puppeteer, an herbivorous species noted for two heads whose mouths act as capable hands.

In Larry Niven's Known Space stories, a wirehead is someone who has been fitted with an electronic brain implant ( called a " droud " in the stories ) to stimulate the pleasure centres of their brain.

Kristina later told biographer Graham Lord that she was convinced that she was Niven's secret child by another fashion model, Mona Gunnarson.

* Nessus ( Pierson's Puppeteer ), an alien character in Larry Niven's Known Space books, of the species Pierson's Puppeteer

Niven and Ustinov were working on the film The Way Ahead, as actor and writer respectively, but the difference in their ranks-Niven was a Lieutenant-Colonel and Ustinov a private-made their regular association militarily impossible ; to solve the problem, Ustinov was appointed as Niven's batman.

David Hilbert had proved the existence of such a g ( n ) in 1909 ; Niven's work established the value of g ( n ) for all but finitely many values of n.

Niven numbers, Niven's constant, and Niven's theorem are named in his honor ; also, in 2000, the asteroid 12513 Niven, discovered in 1998, was named after him.

While these works were not the first in the " Magic Universe " or " Warlock " series, they marked a turning point after the 1973 oil crisis and Niven's subsequent transformation of the series into an allegory for a modern-day energy crisis ; the novella was also the first work longer than a short story.

; Niven's Law: If the universe of discourse permits the possibility of time travel and of changing the past, then no time machine will be invented in that universe.

Ariel: The Book of Fantasy was a periodical book published by Peacock Press in the 1970s ; among the more famous stories published by this elaborately produced and illustrated ( and, for the time, expensive ) series was Larry Niven's " Source of Power.