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Yes, many science fiction fans believe that Robert Heinlein thought up the waterbed. However, see the comments below before making up your mind.
The water level (and possibly pressure) of the bed also seemed to be adjustable. A bit later in the chapter, we read "Here, help me lift him into the bed. No- fill it first. Frame did so, cutting off the flow when the cover skin floated six inches from the top.
The word "hydraulic" literally means water + pipe (or flute); hydraulics refers to the movement of water in a confined space like a pipe. You could think of the bed as a wide "pipe" that confines it; the water pressure attained keeps the bed surface firm.
In Expanded Universe, Heinlein writes:
Checking with other sources, however, we find that the first water-filled beds were probably goatskins filled with water, used in Persia more then 3,600 years ago.
In 1873, St Bartholomew's Hospital used a waterbed to treat and prevent bed sores. (Waterbeds allowed mattress pressure to be evenly distributed over the body.) Waterbeds probably did not enter into more popular usage until better materials were available.
The first commercially successful waterbed was created by Charles Hall in 1968.
The idea also appears in Heinlein's earlier novels Beyond This Horizon (1942) and Double Star (1956 - see the entry for the space-going cider press).
The basic idea of using water to cushion an individual in a spacecraft was probably first used by E.E. "Doc" Smith in his 1934 novel Triplanetary (see the entry for acceleration tank).
However, if you really want to look at water as a means of cushioning acceleration during space flight, you would have to go all the way back to Jules Verne. In his 1867 novel From the Earth to the Moon, he equips the projectile (that is, the space "capsule") with water-springs. Comment/Join this discussion ( 5 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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