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"None of us, no matter what continent or island or ice cap, asked to be born in the first place, and that even somebody as old as I am, which is 80, only just got here."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 |
| Atom-Shifter | ||
| A device that 'softens' matter, making it possible for a person to pass through. |
| He took one hand from the Martian's head, found the atom-shifter slackly caught in a turn of a tentacle. He wrenched it away. He flung a beam against the wall facing the corridor. He waited a moment for the softening process to be complete.
Letting go of his prisoner, he sprang forward. Once more he passed freely through the rayed area. With him went the ray mechanism itself, and behind him stayed the spy he had caught. |
| Technovelgy from The Worlds of Tomorrow,
by Manly Wade Wellman. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1940 Additional resources -
|
Here's how it worked:
An atom-shifting beam, focused at a point, would temporarily change the speed and path of atoms until the hard became soft, the opaque transparent.
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'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
