Talk:Flash Crowd
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What's the name of the story?
- Here's a snapshot of the previous content :
- Did Niven actually title one of his stories "Flash Crowd"?
His collection titled A Hole In Space (copyright 1974) contains two stories on this topic, but neither is titled "Flash Crowd" in the collection. They are:
1. "The Alibi Machine", published in Vertex, 1973.
2. "The Last Days of the Permanently Floating Riot Club".
- "Flash Crowd" (1973) was collected in The Flight of the Horse, according to the bibliography in the back of Tales of Known Space. --rbrwr
[edit] Flash crowds are not flash mobs
People keep adding content to the flash mob and flash crowd entries stating that the concept of "flash crowds" created by Larry Niven is equivalent to the concept of "flash mobs."
These concepts are very different: news events draw people to flash crowds, messages passed around for the sole sake of starting flash mobs draw people to flash mobs. Flash crowds are enabled and encouraged by teleportation, this is obviously not the case with flash mobs. Flash crowds are spontaneous and aren't sparked by an organizer; flash mobs (or at least, their initiation) are planned ahead. The "flash" in flash mobs indicates quick gathering, short duration, quick dispersal; the "flash" in flash crowds indicates instantaneous speed of travel to a place. Flash crowds in the story lasted a long time, flash mobs by definition are very short, usually less than 20 minutes long.
Yes, both terms contain the word "flash" and both involve groups of people, but they're very different concepts and claims that they're equivalent are factual errors.
