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"In my mind I have gone all over the universe, which may make it less important for me to make piddling little trips... I did enjoy seeing Stonehenge. It looked exactly the way I thought it would look."
- Isaac Asimov
 |
| Solid Power | ||
| A concentrated form of easily accessed energy to supply any need. |
| "...I'll tell you this - Vliet's fortune isn't in money. I learned that before I came here. It's in 'solid power'."
"Solid power" was, he knew, the most super-valuable substance in the solar system. For it wasn't really a substance at all, but compressed energy "frozen" by temporary transformation into artificial atoms. Trillions of units of power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice. And a suitable transformer would, when desired, turn it back into almost limitless power. "... Vliet has at least ten cubes of it." Kruppa was saying. "Whew!" Crane whistled softly. "The stuff's worth a million Earth dollars a cube." |
| Technovelgy from Revolt on the Tenth World,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Amazing Stories in 1940 Additional resources -
|
Here's how it works when hooked up:
Inside this pump-like object was the hastily assembled electrical apparatus which started the disintegration of "solid power' back into pure energy, by smashing one of its artificial pseudoatoms, the process being self-continuing thenceforward until damped out.
The thing they had partially built resembled outwardly a stock pump whose spout pointed toward the stockade, and atop which was a broad, round hopper for the supply of carbon required as a chemical "governor" of the process.
Compare to the shipstones from Friday (1982) by Robert Heinlein and the kink springs from The Calorie Man (2005), by Paolo Bacigalupi.
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More Ideas
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Tech news articles related to Revolt on the Tenth World
Tech news articles related to works by Edmond Hamilton
Solid Power-related
news articles:
- NDB Nuclear Waste Battery Lasts A Lifetime
- Nuclear Batteries May Pack Inner Punch
| Vipera Electric Skis From Frigid Dynamics |
| Pivotal Blackfly Electric Aircraft Lifts And Hovers |
| Tiny Flying Robot Weighs Just One Gram |
| Some Ringworld Configurations Are Stable |
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'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
'... nothing was perfected until M. Pantalon announced the completion of his automatic valet.'
'...its streets were of remarkable width, with few or no buildings so high as mosques, churches, State-offices, or palaces in Tellurian cities.'
