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I read some time ago a Scifi book and cannot remember its title/author. In the near future humanity discover the technology to create bubble force fields that cannot be penetrated by anything and last for few seconds. During those seconds the time doesn't pass inside of the bubble and there is no way from outside to guess when the bubble will disappear.

Initially is used as a protection measure on accidents. Soon the technology evolves and the bubbles can be sustained for any amount of time. The exact dissolve time is set up just before activation. Some people used them to froze themselves for years (even centuries) and they wander through the future of humankind...

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This sounds like either Vernor Vinge's The Peace War or one of its sequels, The Ungoverned or Marooned in Realtime

Wikipedia summary of The Peace War:

The story takes place in 2048, 51 years after scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory develop "the ultimate weapon", a force field generating device they term a Bobbler. The bureaucracy running the Laboratory use it to enforce an end to conventional warfare (triggering a brief war in the process), calling themselves the Peace Authority. The Bobbler creates a perfectly spherical, impenetrable, and persistent shield around or through anything, and is used to contain nuclear weapons, people, and occasionally entire cities or governments, separating them from the rest of the world (and presumably killing everyone inside by eventual suffocation and lack of sunlight).

In an effort to retain their monopoly on this weapon, they make technological progress illegal, and their power and fear of rebellion corrupts them. In this world, governments are weak, where they are permitted at all; the Peace Authority is the true bearer of power and becomes a worldwide government. A group of rebels, the Tinkers, develop technology clandestinely far beyond what the Authority has (while limited to riding horseback and other Authority-mandated anachronisms), but still has no defense against the bobble. One of the original inventors of the bobble is part of the resistance, and he develops a more advanced version of the bobbler which does not require the huge electrical power sources available only to the Peace Authority.

It is discovered by the Tinkers (and much later by the Peace Authority) that the bobbles are actually not force fields, but stasis fields; within which time has stopped. So not only are the contents perfectly preserved, but they open spontaneously after a certain time period. The Tinkers use their knowledge and the Peacers' ignorance of this effect to their advantage (bobbling themselves for short time periods, for instance), and with the help of a young thief (and mathematical genius), they lead a rebellion to try to bobble the power generators of the Peace Authority and thus neutralize its primary weapon.

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  • While the plot of this story seems fascinating, the terms used on it (bobbler, bobbling, bobble) makes taking it seriously almost impossible!
    – T. Sar
    Sep 22, 2016 at 20:17
  • Sounds like ... but not exact. They are not initially used as a protection measure on accidents and initially (and for many years) they have a fixed duration of 50 years, not a few seconds. But the novel/novella/novel sequence is excellent. @ThalesPereira, by all means give it a try regardless of what you think about bobbler/bobbling/bobble!
    – davidbak
    Sep 22, 2016 at 21:50
  • Yes, I'm curious whether this series was what the OP was thinking of. I also recommend two other (unrelated to the Peace War) Vernor Vinge novels set: A Fire upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. I believe there is a third novel in that series, but I don't think I read it.
    – mantis
    Sep 23, 2016 at 13:27

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