反物質

人類自一誕生起就注意到瞭天空中的種種奇怪跡象：劃破夜空的流星，恒星爆炸形成的新星，坑坑窪窪的月球錶麵以及行星炸裂後形成的一群小行星。

這些都是由來自太陽係以外的反物質與太陽係裏的物質發生反應形成的。反物質的原子極性與物質恰好相反，原子核為陰性，環繞在核周圍的電子為陽性。它擁有我們所熟悉的物質的所有元素和性能。隻要不與物質接觸，反物質就十分穩定。

物質與反物質一旦相碰就會發生劇烈的爆炸，核爆炸與之相比，隻不過像劃燃瞭一很火柴，微不足道。物質與反物質的反應方式既不同手正負電荷相互吸引，也不同於正負粒子相互抵銷。在這種特殊反應中，一種電荷被消除，留下另一種電荷，釋放齣巨大能量。愛因斯坦曾計算過每消耗一韆剋反物質就能産生大約二百五個億韆瓦時能量。

最先真正瞭解反物質的人是那些太空工程師。他們乘坐宇宙飛船到達瞭最新、最遠的太空前沿地帶，其中多數人都死於這種爆炸，這是因為反物質與物質看上去一模一樣。唯一的測試方法隻能是接觸，而迄今為止，這種接觸的結果就是一場災難。

太空工程師們不但沒有被反物質嚇倒，反而親切地稱它為CT，正在大膽嘗試著徵服它，用它的強大能量創造一種新的自由——能量自由。但CT一旦使用失當，就會毀滅人類已獲得的種種自由。這就是今天我們所有行星所麵臨的問題。

——摘自馬丁·布賴恩著《無盡的能量》

Williamson was born April 29, 1908 in Bisbee, Arizona, and spent his early childhood in western Texas. In search of better pastures, his family migrated to rural New Mexico in a horse-drawn covered wagon in 1915. The farming was difficult there and the family turned to ranching, which they continue to this day.

Williamson discovered the local library and used it to educate himself. As a young man, he discovered the magazine Amazing Stories, after answering an ad for one free issue. He strove to write his own fiction, selling his first story at age 20: "The Metal Man" appeared in the Dec. 1928 issue of Amazing Stories. His work during this early period was heavily influenced by A. Merritt.

Early on, he became impressed by the works of Miles J. Breuer and struck up a correspondence with him. A doctor who wrote science fiction in his spare time, Breuer had a strong talent and turned Williamson away from dreamlike fantasies towards more rigorous plotting and stronger narrative. Under Breuer's tutelage, Williamson would send outlines and drafts for review. Their first work together was the novel Birth of a New Republic in which Moon colonies were undergoing something like the American Revolution—a theme later taken up by many other SF writers, particularly in Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

Wracked by emotional storms and believing many of his physical ailments to be psychosomatic, Williamson underwent psychiatric evaluation in 1933 at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, in which he began to learn to resolve the conflict between his reason and his emotion. From this period, his stories take on a grittier, more realistic tone.

By the 1930s he was an established genre author, and the teenaged Isaac Asimov was thrilled to receive a postcard from Williamson, whom he had idolized, congratulating him on his first published story and saying "welcome to the ranks". Williamson remained a regular contributor to the pulp magazines, though not reaching financial success until many years later. He published many collaborations with the science fiction author Frederik Pohl. He continued to write as a nonagenarian and won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards during the last decade of his life, by far the oldest writer to win those awards.

Williamson received his BA and MA degrees in English in the 1950s from Eastern New Mexico University (ENMU).

In the mid 1970s, Williamson was named a Grand Master of Science Fiction by the Science Fiction Writers of America. He was only the second person to receive this honor. The first was Robert A. Heinlein.

After retiring from teaching full-time in 1977, Williamson spent some time concentrating on his writing, but after being named Professor Emeritus by ENMU, he was coaxed back to co-teach two evening classes, "Creative Writing" and "Fantasy and Science Fiction" (he pioneered the latter at ENMU during his full-time professorship days). Williamson continued to co-teach these two classes well into the 21st century.

In November 2006, Williamson died at his home in Portales, New Mexico at age 98. [2] Despite his age, he had made an appearance at the Spring 2005 Jack Williamson Lectureship and published a 320-page novel, The Stonehenge Gate, in 2005.