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"At its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we can't predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe."
- John Brunner
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| Solar Reception Screen | ||
| A device for converting sunlight to electricity |
I don't know what kind of experimentation was going on fifteen years earlier than the date mentioned. I'm also curious when the idea of a set of receptors in a 'panel' format.
| The city of San Francisco replaced its antiquated cable cars with moving stairways, powered with the Douglas-Martin Solar Reception Screens. |
| Technovelgy from The Roads Must Roll,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1940 Additional resources -
|
Henri Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect in the late nineteenth century, which allowed the production of electricity directly from the sun. Photovoltaic power was never used commercially for many years, since it was very inefficient at turning sunlight into electricity.
See also the entry on sunpower screen, from Heinlein's story Coventry, also published in 1940.
The first commercial solar panel was made in 1954.
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| Smartwatch Powered By Slime Mold |
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'This was their world, their planet — this swift-traveling, yet seemingly moveless vessel.'
'Gaines and Harvey mounted tumblebugs, and kept abreast of the Cadet Captain...'
Accompanied by a small selection of similar ideas from science fiction.
'...war-balloons, or, as it would be more correct to call them, navigable aerostats.'
