Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"I never saw why I had to give up science in order to write, or the other way around, so I didn't!"
- Gregory Benford
 |
| Filter Wheel | ||
| A device for filtering liquid or gas to obtain a pure sample of a selected molecule. |
Many science fiction authors of the late twentieth century are obsessed with cleaning things up. The air and the water, for instance.
| Dirty air and dirty water came in and pooled in tanks. Next to each tank was another tank containing slightly cleaner water or cleaner air. The tanks at the end were filled with perfectly clean nitrogen gas and perfectly clean water. The line of tanks was referred to as a cascade...All the action took place in the walls separating the tanks, which were not really walls but nearly infinite grids of submicroscopic wheels, ever-rotating and many-spoked. Each spoke grabbed a nitrogen or water molecule on the dirty side and released it after spinning around to the clean side. |
| Technovelgy from The Diamond Age,
by Neal Stephenson. Published by Bantam Books in 1995 Additional resources -
|
This kind of filter reminds me of Maxwell's demon, an amusing thought experiment by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), who revolutionized electromagnetism. The idea is that the demon operated a sort of gateway; put him at the boundary between two rooms and he could sort the fastest moving molecules into one room and the slowest moving into another. Voila! One room is hot and the other is cold, all without expending any energy. Stephenson's device could work, though; he doesn't say anything about it not requiring any energy to operate.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 3 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Diamond Age
More Ideas
and Technology by Neal Stephenson
Tech news articles related to The Diamond Age
Tech news articles related to works by Neal Stephenson
Filter Wheel-related
news articles:
- Combat Feeding: Just Add Water - Any Water
- Magnetically Driven Rotary Microfilter 3D Printed
| Your Solar Electric Paint Is Ready, Larry Niven |
| How Long Till We Have These Tattoos? |
| Taza Aya Air-Curtain Tech Protects Turkey Workers |
| CoulombFly Solar-Powered Micro Aerial Vehicle Weighs 4.1 Grams |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'If the biological robots were not living creatures, they were certainly very good imitations.'
"Everybody and his dog, it seemed, wanted to live out in the country; transportation and communication were no longer isolating factors."
'... the new typewriter that could be talked to, and which transposed the spoken sound into typed words.'
'... underneath they consisted of networks of cooling tubes against the skin.'
'My cars talk to one another. I have no doubt about it...'
'... the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell.'
