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"Every scientist worth his salt that I know of has read science fiction."
- Greg Bear
 |
| Office Hand | ||
| A robotic hand with each finger customized for a different function. |
Would you really want to be this efficient?
| ...the titanium weave and carbonic fibers of the dead man's prosthetic hand glimmered in the dim light that infused the alley unencumbered by the ancestral wistfulness of human skin.
It was work as fine and precise as Whispr had ever seen. The bonding of metal and carbon fiber to wrist bone, tendons and muscles was seamless... In addition to permitting basic grasping, each finger had been further customized to perform a different task, from airscribing to communications. The hand of the dead man had been turned into a veritable five-digited portable office. |
| From The Human Blend,
by Alan Dean Foster. Published by Del Rey in 2010 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the interchangeable hands from Philip K. Dick's 1965 novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and the robot surgeon-hand from Dick's 1955 short story War Veteran.
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'A worker replaced by a nubot... had to be compensated.'
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to regrow his lost fingers.'
'The car surged and lifted, clearing its top by a negligible margin.'
Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too.
'I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.'
'Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? - any work a human being does around a house.'
SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century.
