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"The answer to the problem of information overload on the Net is reputations… engineer a system called a reputation server."
- Neal Stephenson
 |
| Tubular Field of Force | ||
| Can pull an object through space. |
This is Williamson's version of a tractor beam.
| "...Before we had time to repeat the signal, the Invincible was caught by some tremendous, unseen force. The geodynes were helpless against it. Like a pebble on a string, we were drawn toward that hostile craft."
"Can you conceive of an invisible field of energy, Bob - a tubular field of force, a mathematician might call it - strong enough to drag the Invincible against her fighting geodynes, five thousand miles in five minutes? That's what happened." |
| Technovelgy from The Cometeers,
by Jack Williamson. Published by Street and Smith in 1936 Additional resources -
|
The earliest reference to what most sf fans call a tractor beam is the attractive ray from a 1928 novel by Edmund Hamilton. The phrase "Tractor beam" was originated by E.E. "Doc" Smith in 1931.
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