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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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| Inertia Screen | ||
| A device that canceled out the law of inertia to help decelerating space craft occupants. |
This is a very handy thing to have, when you are slowing down from interstellar speeds.
| Six days out from Earth found the Little Falls decelerating as it approached Rigel VI, its crew of ten protected from instant annihilation by the inertia screens, screens that permit humans to survive accelerations so stupendous that the stars were brought within easy reach of the Solar System. |
| Technovelgy from Space Rating,
by John Berryman. Published by Astounding Science-Fiction in 1939 Additional resources -
|
I believe that ol' 'Doc' Smith thought about canceling inertia in a somewhat different context several years earlier; see the entry for drop shafts.
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