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"I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander."
- Isaac Asimov
 |
| Atomic Power | ||
| Amazing energy at hand. |
As far as I know, this is the first instance of the phrase "atomic power" in a way that makes sense to modern audiences.
| And now the great wheel was slowly rolling down the slope toward the outermost metal giant. There was no sound to indicate the source of the wheel’s motive power, but Lanier little doubted that Detmold had seized and utilized the same secret of atomic power that had been used by the brain for its own creatures. Slowly, almost clumsily, the wheel lumbered down to the chasm, until it was but a few hundred feet above the outer fighting-machine. Suddenly the inaction of the latter ended and one long arm flashed out, holding a globe from which the deadly gas spurted toward the hub of the wheel. |
| Technovelgy from The Metal Giants,
by Peter F. Hamilton. Published by Weird Tales in 1926 Additional resources -
|
The earliest use is in a 1909 set of stories by Garrett P Serviss, A Columbus of Space:
“They control the driving power,” he replied in perfect good humor, but like a schoolmaster addressing pupils who, he knows, cannot entirely follow him. “I push or turn one way, and we go; I I push or turn another way, and we stop or go back. So I concentrate the atomic power just as I choose. It makes us go, or it holds us motionless, or it carries us back to earth, according to the way I apply it.
“The earth is what I kick against, and what I hold fast by. Any other body in space would serve the same purpose..."
It appears to be the same idea as apergy, from Across the Zodiac (1880) by Percy Greg, an antigravity material that needed some sort of large mass to push against.
Another classic use of this phrase can be found in John W. Campbell's classic 1937 story The Immortality Seekers (1937):
“Plenty has happened to us since Earth kicked us out for taking off some of the three hundred square miles of territory spang in the center of Europe in an atomic explosion. It’s their own fault if they can’t find us — outlawing research on atomic power. It was obvious when we developed atomic power that we’d be the first men to reach the other planets. And nobody can follow to bring us back unless they accepted the hated atomic power and used it.”
“What are all these knobs, Edmund?” I asked.
TED PENTON, of the team of Penton and Blake, regarded his companion. Rod Blake, and grinned. In the great audience hall below, twelve hundred of Callisto’s scientists were assembling to hear the message of the visitors from space.
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