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"A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam."
- Frederik Pohl
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Cosmic Teletype |
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A device that utilizes the fourth dimensional continuum to achieve communication at great distances. |
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Joseph Rane was not a scientist, but he applied his own special talents in the creation of the cosmic teletype.
First, he mounted the two teletypes on a wooden bench, side by side... He next turned his attention to his cosmic radio.

(Cosmic Teletype from 'Cosmic Teletype' by Carl Jacobi)
He called it that for want of a better term. The earlier developments of this machine were lost in a frenzy of experimentation. Starting with a study of atomic power, Rane had developed a miniature atom-smasher; later he elaborated his instrument into a device of which he himself stood a little in awe.
"You see," he said one day to his housekeeper, "this machine as it now stands is based on a concept of the relation between time and space. It will project a ray through the fourth dimensional continuum. In other words, when turned to full power, is will cause a disruption of the space-time coordinates, a channel so to speak which leads from our own three-dimensional world into the fourth dimension. I am convinced that such a channel is being utilized by beings of other planets as a means of communication."
Rane then connected the two teletypes to the machine, with a loading coil between each. He pulled the switch, set the dynamos in action and awaited results. |
Technovelgy from Cosmic Teletype,
by Carl Jacobi.
Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1938
Additional resources -
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Jacobi also describes it as a "cosmic radio."
In use throughout the story, it is clear that it is as quick a mode of communication as a teletype; instantaneous transmission, followed by a short interval in which a message is read and responded to.
Read more about the hyperwave concept.
Take a look at some of these explicitly FTL communication methods:
- Ultrawave relay or hyperwave relay (Isaac Asimov, Foundation, 1951)
- Dirac transmitter (James Blish, Cities in Flight, 1957)
- Ansible (Ursula LeGuin, Rocannon's World, 1967)
- Taprisiot call (Frank Herbert, The Dosadi Experiment, 1977)
- Fatline (Dan Simmons, Hyperion, 1989)
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