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
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"The world is really so surreal these days that it's necessary for us to blunt it somehow in order to stay sane. The artist functions to short-circuit the buffering mechanism, so that people can occasionally perceive the weirdness of things as they are."
- William Gibson
 |
| Planetary Telegraphing | ||
| A method for communicating with dwellers on other planets in the solar system. |
| Here, in Wisconsin, is the Penokee Range of mountains, chiefly remarkable for its belt of iron ore, forty-three miles in length, unbroken and very magnetic. This deposit, averaging 300 feet in width, extends to an unknown, unfathomed depth.
"It occurred to us that we might convert the whole Penokee iron deposit into a gigantic magnet by winding wire around it. The Society of Futurity wanted to talk with other planets; and to do this we must produce on earth magnetic disturbances of great and decided violence. We must produce them periodically, too, so that by their force and their definite order of recurrence they would send a shock through vast distances, and compel the attention of dwellers on another sphere. Then they might respond with similar movements, which we could record on our magnetometers; and so we could start a conversation." "See those telegraph poles?" "There are five hundred turns of that wire," his new guardian went on; "and each turn is eighty-six miles in length. They encircle this whole mouton mass of iron, which is their core, and make it a colossal magnet, with which we do our planetary telegraphing." |
| Technovelgy from In the Deep of Time,
by George Parsons Lathrop. Published by Not known in 1897 Additional resources -
|
This is a very ambitious method for interplanetary communication.
Compare to Communicate with Extraterrestrials from From the Earth to the Moon (1867) by Jules Verne, the ether-traffic from The Duel on the Asteroid (1932) by P. Schuyler Miller (w/D. McDermott), the Interplanetary Communications Center from QRM - Interplanetary (1942) by George O. Smith and the Quantum Communications Hub from Defeated (2004) by Sean McKee.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from In the Deep of Time
More Ideas
and Technology by George Parsons Lathrop
Tech news articles related to In the Deep of Time
Tech news articles related to works by George Parsons Lathrop
| Polish Turns Your Nail Into A Stylus |
| Huawei Pura X Folding Phattie Phone |
| Positioned Cybertrucks With Free Starlinks WiFi In LA |
| Will Whales Be Our First Contact? |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
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 Science Fiction 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
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
