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"I would say 75% of the economy is now being run by ex-science-fiction fans."
- Greg Bear
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| Short-Wave Surgical Knife | ||
| A means of performing an internal cut without breaking the skin. |
The perfect companion device to the X-ray.
| "The entire scheme has its origin in Valenski's research on the short-wave surgical knife. Possibly you are familiar with that device. It severs flesh and seals the capillaries as it goes through..."
"...Valenski tried to develop an adjustable focus sufficient in length, accuracy, and sensitivity to permit interior surgery without surface penetration. Such an instrument seemed the natural adjunct to a three-dimensional X-ray apparatus..." "...After some years Valenski achieved his aim with a device that projected two converging ultra-short-wave beams. Each was innocuous in itself, but when the two were projected simultaneously and out of phase they cut at their mutual focal point, which had a diameter as fine as point two millimeters. |
| Technovelgy from Boomerang (A Great Deal of Power),
by Eric Frank Russell. Published by King-Size Publications in 1953 Additional resources -
|
I'm not aware of any device that purports to make internal cuts without breaking the skin. Lasers have been in use in medical research and practice since the 1970's, but they are used externally (as in LASIK eye surgery).
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and Technology from Boomerang (A Great Deal of Power)
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Tech news articles related to works by Eric Frank Russell
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'The actuating mechanism that should have operated by the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell...'
'The only real cost was in the plastic balloon that guided the growth of the coral and enclosed the coral's special air-borne food.'
'The border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
'Nanny is different,' Tom Fields murmured... 'she's not like a machine. She's like a person.'
'We made a crude , small cell and were delighted - and, I admit, somewhat surprised - to find it worked.'
'...we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'The clothes and jewelery drew their tiny power requirements from her movements.'
'At the end of each appendage's eight fingers there are tinier appendages...'
