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"The world is really so surreal these days that it's necessary for us to blunt it somehow in order to stay sane. The artist functions to short-circuit the buffering mechanism, so that people can occasionally perceive the weirdness of things as they are."
- William Gibson
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| Gravity Detector | ||
| A device capable of detecting the gravitational field of a distant mass. |
As far as I know, this is the first use of this term. How could you be sure that an object was coming toward you in space if you could not see it and if it did not occult light sources?
| Professor Paxton was glancing nervously from speed indicator to gravity detector, and from gravity detector to chronometer. Presently he turned a series of six big wheels one after another. Then he shifted a little, silvery lever .from a vertical to a horizontal position. I felt the whole craft suddenly rotate in an alarming fashion, but it was all over in an instant. The flat base of the rocket was now toward the moon instead of its pointed nose. |
| Technovelgy from The Lunar Chrysalis,
by Raymond Z. Gallun. Published by Amazing Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
Jack Williamson makes good use of this idea in his 1936 story The Cometeers:
The gravity detector turns out to be a useful device for ordinary journeys through the solar system as well (more from The Cometeers):
"I am," Bob Star said, too busy to turn. "The gravity detector shows a mass dead ahead. Millions of tons. The deflector fields wouldn't swing it an inch.
"...there was nothing we could see with the tele-periscopes, but the gravity detectors betrayed an invisible object of fifty thousand tons, approaching behind us - as if it had followed us from Neptune."
"An asteroid?" Jay Kalam inquired. "You're certain?"
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| 'If Anyone Is Watching Earth...' |
| Cloud Of Space Rubbish From China's Long March Rocket |
| ESA's Draco To Study Heat Of Reentry |
| The United States Space Academy Is Official |
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'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
