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 was involved in a cloning project. .. to send me into outer space along with a lot of other people. Not the whole me - just a hair from my head, while I still had some. I would thus pop up in another galaxy in the distant future."
- Arthur C. Clarke
 |
| Gravity Web | ||
| Device for limiting the extent to which a person is subject to gravitational attraction. |
Nice trick, if you can do it. McKie is a BuSab operative who travels to a wide variety of planets, which undoubtedly have a wide range of gravitational field strengths.
| There were times during the climb down the narrow path to the lava shelf when McKie felt thankful he had been fitted with a gravity web beneath his skin. If he fell, it would limit his rate of descent to a non-injurious speed. |
| Technovelgy from Whipping Star,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Galaxy Publishing in 1969 Additional resources -
|
Some science fiction ideas seem absurd. How could you limit gravity? Gravity is a (relatively) weak force, but a planet-sized mass creates a force that is difficult for us to ignore. Most of the thinking about anti-gravity takes the form of some sort of generator that creates an opposite strength field.
But radio waves can be kept out of a space that is surrounded by a metal mesh screen. What if there was some sort of mesh that would keep out gravity?
For those who think that only people who think that space aliens built the pyramids are keen on the idea of anti-gravity, consider this exerpt from a letter exchanged between noted scientists:
Another technovelgy worth considering is what Baron Vladimir Harkonnen uses in Frank Herbert's Dune - the suspensor. Compare to the geopeller from One Against the Legion (1939) by Jack Williamson. See also the levitator pack from Gears for Nemesis (1942) by Raymond Z. Gallun.
Here's a cartoonist's idea of what this might be like; George du Maurier created this drawing in 1879:
I always rejoice to hear of your being still employed in experimental researches into nature and of the success you meet with. The rapid progress true science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born too soon. It is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over matter. We may, perhaps, deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity, for the sake of easy transport. Agriculture may diminish its labor and double its produce: all diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured, (not excepting even that of old age,) and our lives lengthened at pleasure, even beyond the antediluvian standard. Oh that moral science were in as fair a way of improvement, that men would cease to be wolves to one another, and that human beings would at length learn what they now improperly call humanity.
(Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Priestly, 1780)
(Edison's Anti-Gravitation Under-Clothing)
You might be surprised how long ago the idea of weightlessness goes back.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 3 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Whipping Star
More Ideas
and Technology by Frank Herbert
Tech news articles related to Whipping Star
Tech news articles related to works by Frank Herbert
| Boring Company Drills Asimov's Single Vehicle Tunnels |
| Boring Company Vegas Loop Like Asimov Said |
| SpaceX Rocket Shuttle Point-To-Point On Earth |
| CORLEO Robotic Horse Concept Looks Ready To Ride |
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
'...each of them is a neural mapping of the mind of a Tibetan monk who actually lived.'
'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.'
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain, through the mediation of the electronic brain in the leg.'
'... every veephone on the continent would display, over and over, two propositions.'
'Completely silent, accurate up to about twenty meters. No recoil...'
'He wore spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.'
