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"I love that computer science has made mathematics into something like an experimental science. I was never all that good at proving things, but I love doing computer experiments."
- Rudy Rucker
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| Zoo Fences | ||
| Caustic water moat |
This is a great extension on a clever idea. Moats are used in zoos to keep animals who fear the water separate from visitors without an intrusive fence. If the liquid was caustic, you could probably use it even with animals who ordinarily felt no fear of water.
In the park outside the headquarters of Jorj McKie (one of the main characters), caustic water was used to fence in some of the plant life showcased in the park.
| There were bold stretches of lawn and hidden scraps of lawn, and some stretches of greenery which were not lawn at all but mobile sheets of predatory leaf imprisoned behind thin moats of caustic water. |
| Technovelgy from The Dosadi Experiment,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Berkley Putnam in 1977 Additional resources -
|
The city of Chu (the only habitable city on the surface of Dosadi) was also surrounded by rivers, which doubled as moats to keep out the feral population outside. The Dosadis themselves used "caustic" language to keep themselves isolated socially, since any sort of sincere tie with another person was only a tool that could be used against you by the unscrupulous.
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'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
'I went to the control room where the three other men were manipulating their mechanical men.'
'The low-slung monorail car, straddling its single track, bored through the shadows on a slowly rising course.'
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'
'... he thrust in his charging arm to replenish his store of energy.'
'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
