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"My feeling is that the chance of our surviving into the twenty-first century as working civilization is less than fifty percent but greater than zero."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Project X | ||
| A device that produces sound rays that are intolerable to living things. |
| "Project X" Dr. Ferris was saying, "was devoted to some special research in the field of sound. The science of sound has astonishing aspects, which laymen would scarcely suspect..."
Some fifty feet away from the farmhouse, Dr. Stadler saw a structure, obviously new and of no possible purpose whatever: it looked like a few spans of steel trestle, rising into empty space, supporting nothing, leading nowhere... "...And it was discovered" said Dr. Ferris, "that there are certain frequencies of sound vibration which no structure, organic or inorganic, can withstand..." "...The sound ray is controlled by a panel inside the giant underground laboratory," said Dr. Ferris, pointing at the building on the knoll. "That panel is known to us affectionately as the 'Xylophone' - because one must be darn careful to strike the right keys, or, rather, to pull the right levers..." "...The sound ray is invisible, inaudible and fully controllable in respect to target, direction and range. It's first public test, which you are about to witness, has been set to cover a small sector, a mere two miles, in perfect safety, with all space cleared for twenty miles beyond. The present generating equipment is capable of producing rays to cover - through the outlets which you may observe under the dome - the entire countryside within a radius of a hundred miles... This is only a modest beginning." |
| Technovelgy from Atlas Shrugged,
by Ayn Rand. Published by Random House in 1957 Additional resources -
|
Thanks to Moira for suggesting this item.
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
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The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
