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"I can remember when the first pulsars were discovered. I was able to go and sit down and listen to graduate students talking about what their theories, to explain what pulsars really were."
- Vernor Vinge
 |
| Telelubricator | ||
| Makes any surface or substance perfectly frictionless. |
Professor Methuen has gone slightly mad and uses his considerable scientific and engineering gifts to pull pranks on his colleagues. When they try to stop him at his house, something unusual happens.
Every time he applied a horizontal component of force to a hand or knee, the hand or knee simply slid backward.
So, how does it work?
...something happened to the front steps under him. They became slicker than the smoothest ice...
| "...My telelubricator here neutralizes the interatomic bonds the surface of any solid on which the beam falls. So the surface, to the depth of a few molecules, is put in the condition of a supercooled liquid as long as the beam is focused on it. Since the liquid form of any compound will wet the solid form, you have perfect lubrication." |
| From The Exalted,
by L. Sprague de Camp. Published by Astounding Science-Fiction in 1940 Additional resources -
|
Clifford Simak was also fascinated by the idea of a frictionless surface; see the frictionless surface from his 1963 story Way Station.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Exalted
More Ideas
and Technology by L. Sprague de Camp
Tech news articles related to The Exalted
Tech news articles related to works by L. Sprague de Camp
Telelubricator-related
news articles:
- MIT Tunes Ions For Frictionless Surface - Superlubricity!
| Stick-On Tape Speakers, As Predicted By Bruce Sterling |
| Has Climate Change Already Been Solved By Aliens? |
| Skin Electronics 3D Printed |
| Super-Resolution Microscopy Provides '4D' Views |
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