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"the [science fiction] writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true...and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Chronoscopy | ||
| Using a device to view different points in time. |
| "They’re not interested in chronoscopy. I've come to you, sir, because for two years I have been trying to obtain permission to do some time-viewing — chronoscopy, that is — in connection with my researches on ancient Carthage." |
| Technovelgy from The Dead Past,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1956 Additional resources -
|
Still a worthwhile concept to explore:
For the government to encourage chronoscopy would have meant that everyone’s past would be visible. The government officers would be subjected to blackmail and improper pressure, since who on earth has a past that is absolutely clean. Organized government might become impossible.”
Compare to the time dredge from Time Dredge (1942) by Robert Arthur.
You saw the way my wife reacted to the news of a chronoscope in the basement. I had envisioned a chronoscope used for research purposes. All she could see was the personal pleasure of returning neurotically to a personal past, a dead past. The pure researcher, Foster, is in the minority. People like my wife would outweigh us.
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Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
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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.'
