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"You have to budget the number of fuzzy rules you use to control a system. It turns out, you can state the optimality principle in three words: 'patch the bumps.'"
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Attractor | ||
| A beam capable of holding objects motionless, as well as adjusting their position. |
This ray also stopped all movement on the part of the objects and persons being pulled toward the user.
| ...she herself manipulated one of Tubia's greatest power beams, attuning it to the emanations of the two Detaxalan flyers. In less than an ous the two ships were seen throught the mists heading for Tubia; For a moment I grew fearful, but on realizing that they were after all in our grip, and the attractors held every living thing powerless against movement, I grew calm and watched them come over the city and the beam pull them to the ground. |
| Technovelgy from The Conquest of Gola,
by L.F. Stone. Published by Wonder Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
Note that this is not quite the same thing as a tractor beam (from 'Doc' Smith's 1931 novel Space Hounds of IPC), not to mention the earlier attractive ray from Edmond Hamilton's 1928 novel Crashing Suns.
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'The robant and the tiny old woman entered the control room slowly...'
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'Gaines and Harvey mounted tumblebugs, and kept abreast of the Cadet Captain...'
