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"There's a poetry in the materials we use to construct our world of artifacts; it speaks of our long history as a technological species."
- William Gibson
 |
| Earth Normal | ||
| Using the earth standard. |
Although this is not the usual sf meaning, it is the first use of this phrase that I know about.
| As he waited, he noticed a curious little dial, in a lower corner of the instrument board, which he had not seen at first. One end of its graduated scale was marked, "Earth Normal," the other, "Pygmy Planet Normal." A tiny black needle was creeping slowly across the scale, toward "Pygmy Planet Normal." "That's how we tell what size we are, without having to look at a bottle," he muttered. |
| Technovelgy from The Pygmy Planet,
by Jack Williamson. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1932 Additional resources -
|
A more typical use can be seen in Derelict, a 1935 story by Raymond Z. Gallun published in Astounding Science Fiction.
He climbed through the airlock, and for a minute stood quietly, viewing his surroundings. Somewhere gravity plates continued to function in this ancient wreck, for he had weight here— perhaps one third Earth-normal. Junk was everywhere in the cavernous interior, distorted and crumpled grotesquely.
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'...they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs.'
'...some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre...'
'These pods were programmed to hang in space in a hexagonal grid pattern...'
'...the meteor caught and halted just as a small boy catches a swift ball in his cap.'
'We have decided that it shall be but one ship... it must contain everything needed to take us through the generations.'
'You’re the robopsychologist of the plant, so you’re to study the robot itself...'
