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"Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful."
- Philip K. Dick
 |
| Antigravity | ||
| A force opposed to gravity. |
This is the earliest use of this word in a strictly science fiction magazine. See antigrav boots for the earliest use of the abbreviated version of that word, as far as I know.
| But the antigravity apparatus will have to be capable of generating a greater repulsive force than is required for ordinary interplanetary conditions. |
| Technovelgy from The Vanguard of Neptune,
by J.M. Walsh. Published by Wonder Stories in 1932 Additional resources -
|
An earlier use of "anti-gravity" can be found in a short story in a publication called The Scrap Book, published in 1906:
Hanging on a level with my eyes was a pair of feet in tan shoes... As I stared in wonder at the dangling feet, they gradually receded, in a gliding manner, until they had faded from view...
"...bending down he twisted the handles on two metal rods that were strapped to his legs, like pole-climbers' irons.
Immediately, to my consternation, he rose in the air until his head touched the ceiling...
It's ridiculously simple, this new force. A piece of platinum and a piece of copper coated with - but that's the real secret of it all. I'll say nothing of that just now. A disk of platinum coated with my new preparation, in which, I may say, radium plays some part, has a propelling power of immense force.
...For want of a better name I am temporarily referring to it by the ridiculous and wholly inadequate name of "Anti-Gravity". The power of this strange agenc y is the greater the larger the superficial area of the metal exposed. A cover of rubber-coated copper neutralizes the force. On the instep of my shoes I have a disk of the prepared platinum fastened, together with a cover of copper that can be turned on or off at will by means of these connecting rods...
(From The Man in the Air, by Frederick R. Keates)
Note also that the idea of a force that acts in opposition to gravity can be found in the description of "apergy" found in Percy Greg's 1880 novel Across the Zodiac:
The use of antigravity is also seen in the spindizzy from James Blish's 1957 novel Cities in Flight.
As I passed the window of his workshop, I looked in. What I saw there puzzled me exceedingly.
" I needed a repulsion which would act like gravitation through an indefinite distance and in a void..."
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Tech news articles related to works by J.M. Walsh
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'Then she looked up with a smile and moved closer to the camera.'
'... folios and tapes and playable discs of platinum alloy.'
'... another corner of his mind began to think about the shields.'
'Michel Ardan, as a Frenchman, was declared chief cook, an important function, which raised no rival.'
'Sapiro’s computer just kept dialing at random, hanging up on humans, until it got a fellow computer of the same type as itself.'
'I request that you feed the correlation between those dots and the levers of the panel into my memory banks.'
