Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Brick Road-Printing Machine
This "brick road-printer" was created by Dutch manufacturer Tiger Stone; it can output 400 meters of road per day in spans of up to six meters. The bricks are assembled in a desired pattern and then laid down efficiently.
(Brick road-laying machine video)
Fans of China Mieville's Iron Council may recall the massive perpetual train that creates its own road as it travels:
Ahead... was the perpetual train.Judah had walked its length, skirting the crews. it was a rolling-stock town, an industrial citylet that crawled. At the end of a no-man's-land of empty rails, he saw the work. New Crobuzon reaching so far. The leviathan unfolding of metal, the greatest city in Bas-lag rolling out its new iron tongue, licking at the cities across the plains.
Fans of Alfred Bester's spectacular 1956 novel The Stars My Destination will recall something similar.
Arriving at an exclusive party, the grandees of the new age vied with each other to demonstrate conspicuous consumption. But it was Fourmyle of Ceres that caused the ultimate sensation:
Just as the crowd of guests turned to enter Presteign's home, a distant commotion attracted their attention. It was a rumble, a fierce chatter of pneumatic punches, and an outrageous metallic bellowing. It approached rapidly...A heavy truck rumbled down the lane. Six men were tumbling baulks of timber out of the back of the truck. Following them came a crew of twenty arranging the baulks neatly in rows. A giant machine, bellowing and pounding, approached crawling over the ties. Behind it were deposited in parallel rails of welded steel. Crews with sledges and pneumatic punches spiked the rails to the timber ties. The track was laid to Presteign's door in a sweeping arc and then curved away.
The bellowing engine and crew disappeared into the darkness. A shrill whistle sounded in the distance. Down the tack came a man on a white horse, carrying a large red flag. Behind him panted a steam locomotive drawing a single observation car. The train stopped at Presteign's door... A lady and gentleman in evening clothes descended.
"Shan't be long," the gentleman told the conductor. "Come back for me in an hour."
Update: A reader points out a road-laying machine in the Thunderbirds episode "The End of the Road".
(From Road-laying machine from Thunderbirds)
End update.
Update: 19-Nov-2010 In the 1958 Disney program Magic Highway USA, an atomic road building machine bores through mountains and melts stone for a perfect road bed. Click the link to see the movie; there is also a bridge road bed-building machine.
(From Magic Highway USA)
End update. Via BLDGBLOG. Thanks to Meditating Bear for the tip on this story.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/16/2010)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 3 )
Related News Stories - (" Manufacturing ")
DARPA Wants 'Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.' - Greg Bear, 2015
Robot Bricklayer Or Passer-By Bricklayer?
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.' - Bruce Sterling, 1998.
Organic Non-Planar 3D Printing
'It makes drawings in the air following drawings...' - Murray Leinster, 1945.
Laser-Beam Welding In Orbital Factories
'His contract with Space Industries required him to work summers in their orbital factory.' - Jerry Pournelle, 1976.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
AI Operates An Excavator
'So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.'
US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?'
Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'
Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
