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"Everything starts as somebody's daydream. And, when you're daydreaming, it is science fiction. It's when you start work out how you put it together, true science fiction becomes real science."
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RadiKS Mark II Smartwheels. Every skateboarder on Earth would have these - if only they really existed. I've never heard of an idea like this being considered. You might think of it as a variable radius wheel, or a really sophisticated system of stilts. But to Kouriers, this was professional equipment that got your messages through on time.
I want a car with wheels like these! When you think about it, wheels like this are very minimalist - which is a cyberpunk trait as well. The spoked wheel (for bicycles) was only invented in the last 150 years; now, we can do with out the round outer "wheel" part, and just use the spokes.
Here's another quote that gets the nature of smartwheels across:
For an earlier reference to a similar concept, see the flex-wheels from Arthur C. Clarke's 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Snow Crash is the novel that put the word "cyberpunk" on the map*; it's a great ride. (* Okay, I had just finished rereading the novel, and it's true that I could - fairly - be accused of an excess of enthusiasm, since the term had been around since being coined in a story published in 1983. Yes, yes I've read lots of the other stories by Gibson, Sterling, Shirley and others, all of whose works are represented elsewhere on the site.) And yes, the pizza delivery scene that starts the book is the most remarkable such scene in all of world literature.
You might also be interested in a different sort of "smart wheels" - a real-world technology with potential uses in robotics:
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EggTorte Mini Micromouse
'Something small, metallic, glittering had shot through one of the rat holes.'
Labor-Saving Centrifuge
'I made sure my left foot was positioned for the gravistat control and watched her belly.'
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