Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"...the space defense initiative drove the USSR bankrupt, and it originated at my house in Tarzana."
- Larry Niven
 |
| Meteorometer | ||
| A device that warned space ships in flight about oncoming meteors. |
If you had been asked by the Council of the Galaxy to make haste in investigating a huge nebula in the center of the galaxy that was slowly speeding up and threatening the entire galaxy with destruction, you'd still want to watch out for meteors.
| On and on and on we had flashed, past sun after sun, star system after star system. Many times we had swerved from our course as our meteorometers warned us of vast meteor swarms ahead, and more than once we had veered to avoid some thundering dark star which our charts showed near us, but always the prow of our craft had swung back toward the great nebula. |
| Technovelgy from Crashing Suns,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Popular Fiction Publishing Co. in 1928 Additional resources -
|
Hamilton uses this idea again in The Face of the Deep (1942):
"That's because you're not allowing for ether drift and relativity space-warp," Captain Future told him. "Out here in deep space, you have to correct for those factors. "
His keen gray eyes swung along die deep bank of complicated dials. The red tell-tale lights under four of the meteorometers were blinking.
The readings of those meteorometers showed the presence of a body of planetoidal dimensions, several hundred thousand miles away.
Watching out for meteors as you zoomed through space seemed like a very practical problem for the writers of the Thirties and Forties; see Meteor Warning System from the 1932 novel A Conquest of Two Worlds and the Meteor-Spotting Radar from the 1943 story Recoil (by this time, the equipment had been automated).
Old Tuhlus Thuun began a voluble explanation. "I never saw instruments act so crazy! They indicate a meteor-swarm or some other celestial body near us, but the readings of its position they give are impossible! "
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Crashing Suns
More Ideas
and Technology by Edmond Hamilton
Tech news articles related to Crashing Suns
Tech news articles related to works by Edmond Hamilton
| Beautiful Visualization of Dawn Spacecraft |
| Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars |
| Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris |
| Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
