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"Science fiction operates a little bit like science itself, in principle. You've got thousands of people exploring ideas, putting forth their own hypotheses. Most of them are dead wrong; a few stand the test of time; everything looks kind of quaint in hind"
- Peter Watts

Portable Atomic Heater  
  Compact source of energy.  

Libby found himself assigned to the roofing detail. He helped the metalsmith’s mate struggle over the hill with a portable atomic heater, difficult to handle because of a mass of eight hundred pounds, hut weighing only sixteen pounds. The rest of the roofing detail were breaking out and preparing to move by hand the enormous translucent tent which was to be the “sky” of the little valley.

The metalsmith located a landmark on the inner slope of the valley, set up his heater, and commenced cutting a deep horizontal groove or step in the rock. He kept it always at the same level by following a chalk mark drawn along the rock wall.

Technovelgy from Misfit, by Robert Heinlein.
Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1939
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