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"...the space defense initiative drove the USSR bankrupt, and it originated at my house in Tarzana."
- Larry Niven
 |
| Geofractor | ||
| Device provides instantaneous teleportation of selected objects over vast distances. |
| “But the geofractor,” she said, “is based upon a principle totally new—affording a complete, controlled refraction of geodesic lines.
“The instrument utilizes achronic force-fields. My father independently discovered the same new branch of geodesy of which Commander Kalam’s expedition got some inkling from the science of the Cometeers.” “Ah, so,” Giles Habibula nodded. “Kay Nymidee used something of that sort to escape from the comet.” “But the geofractor, as my father perfected it,” the girl said, “had a power and a refinement of control that the Cometeers apparently never approached. Its achronic fields are able to rotate the world lines of any two objects within a range of several hundred light-years.” “Aye, lass.” Giles Habibula smiled as if he understood. “But in other words—?” “The geofractor projects two refractor fields,” the girl told him. “Each unit is able to deflect the geodesic lines of any object out of the continuum, and wrap them back again at any point within its range. Which means,” she smiled, “that the object, in effect, is snatched out of our four dimensional universe, and instantly set back again at the other point. “There are two coupled units,” she explained, “timed to perfect synchronism, so that each creates a perfect vacuum to receive the object transmitted by the other. That prevents the atomic cataclysms that might result from forcing two objects into the same space at the same tune. “That explains why the Basilisk—” she caught her breath, “why Derron has such a way of putting clay snakes and bricks and robots in the place of the things he takes. It balances the transmitter circuits, and saves power.” |
| From One Against The Legion,
by Jack Williamson. Published by Astounding in 1939 Additional resources -
|
There's more!
“So Derron has made it,” the girl whispered bitterly. “But my father intended it for purposes of peaceful communication. He dreamed of a timeless interplanetary express service. He even hoped to make wide stellar exploration possible, so that human colonists could spread across the galaxy.
“Yet he realized the supreme danger of his discovery. I doubt that he would ever have finished it at all, but for the bitter straits of mankind hi the cometary war. He completed it only as a weapon of last resort—and he provided a shield against it.”
Here's a description of the device itself:
“It looks a little bit like a twenty-million ton peanut,” he muttered. “But I never saw anything so black as those great globes!”
“They are not anything,” said Stella Eleroid. “They are simply holes in the continuum of our universe. That blackness is the darkness of a lightless hyperspace.
“It is through those holes that the geodesies are refracted,” she said. “They are held open by the achronic field coils in the rings about them. There are four rings about each globe of force—the three that you see, and a fourth that has been rotated into hyper-space.
Compare to the telepomp from The Man Without a Body (1877) by Edward Page Mitchell, the
displacement booth from Flash Crowd (1972) by Larry Niven, the
stepping discs from Ringworld (1970) by Larry Niven and the
trip box from Eye of Cat (1982) by Roger Zelazny.
Also, see the libra-transmitter from Into the Meteorite Orbit by Frank R. Kelly, the cosmic express from The Cosmic Express by Jack Williamson, Jaunte from The Stars My Destination and the Transo from Time is the Simplest Thing by Clifford Simak.
“So that’s the geofractor!” he wheezed. “Ah, a fearful thing!”
Chan Derron’s brain was staggered by that machine’s immensity, and baffled by its strangeness. Against the star-shot dark of space hung two great spheres of blacker blackness. Three colossal rings, set all at right angles, bound each of them; and between them, connecting them, was a smaller cylinder of the same dully gleaming metal.
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Okay, sf fans. If you could have some art created from a science fiction sentence, what sentence would you pick?
'There were the cleaners, with large padded feet, who were apparently polishing their way the whole length...'
It's fascinating to me how the Apollo program forced people to think outside their usual boxes.
'Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures, like excavators or centipedes.'
'the hair-fine wire going deep into Owen's brain, down into the pleasure center.'
'There was a dim whirring, and the spheres tipped and began to rotate...'
'The houses are prefabricated units... and they sell at the flat rate of five hundred dollars a room — set up.'
