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"[Science fiction] is the only kind of writing that allows you to look at the world we live in and change one piece at a time."
- Frederik Pohl

Magnetic-Soled Shoes  
  A means of walking on a surface in zero gravity.  

This is a very early use of the idea of magnetic shoes or shoe soles as a way of walking on a surface in zero G.

Joe said wryly, "It seems that we ought to weigh something, now we've got here. So we feel queer that we don't. Shoes, Mike?"

Mike peeled off the magnetic-soled slippers from their place on the cabin wall. He handed them out and opened the door. A biting chill came in it. Joe slipped on the shoe-soles with their elastic bands to hold them. He stepped out the door.

He didn't land. He floated until he reached the sidewall. Then he pulled himself down by the netting. Once he touched the floor, his shoes seemed to be sticky...

The door in the back of the lock clanked open. Joe tried to walk toward it. He discovered his astounding clumsiness. To walk in magnetic-soled shoes in weightlessness requires a knack. When Joe lifted one foot and tried to swing the other forward, his body tried to pivot. When he lifted his right foot, he had to turn his left slightly inward. His arms tried to float absurdly upward. When he was in motion and essayed to pause, his whole body tended to continue forward with a sedate toppling motion that brought him down flat on his face. He had to put one foot forward to check himself. He seemed to have no sense of balance. When he stood still—his stomach queasy because of weightlessness—he found himself tilting undignifiedly forward or back—or, with equal unpredictability, sidewise. He would have to learn an entirely new method of walking. .... They went out of the lock. Sanford suddenly peeled off his metal-soled slippers, put them in his pocket, and dived casually into a four-foot metal tube. He drifted smoothly away along the lighted bore, not touching the sidewalls. He moved in the manner of a dream, when one floats with infinite ease and precision in any direction one chooses.

From Space Tug, by Murray Leinster.
Published by Not known in 1953
Additional resources -

My first recollection of this idea is from the famous scene in 2001:A Space Odyssey in which a stewardess walks very carefully in a space craft in zero gravity condition (see the entry for grip shoes. However, this reference from Leinster is about fifteen years ahead.

On the other hand, here's a reference to magnetized boots from 1941.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Space Tug
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