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
"We [science fiction writers] always wanted to believe in "private sector" space -- hucksters make better characters than a government does."
- Larry Niven
 |
| Odorophonics | ||
| A system capable of reproducing selected scents capable of fooling the human nervous system. |
As far as I know, this is the first version of what today's science fiction fans refer to as the "holodeck" - a space in which a virtual (but very realistic) reality can be imposed.
| The nursery was silent. It was empty as a jungle glade at hot high noon. The walls were blank and two dimensional. Now, as George and Lydia Hadley stood in the center of the room, the walls began to purr and recede into crystalline distance, it seemed, and presently an African veldt appeared, in three dimensions, on all sides, in color reproduced to the final pebble and bit of straw. The ceiling above them became a deep sky with a hot yellow sun.
George Hadley felt the perspiration start on his brow. “Let’s get out of this sun,” he said. “This is a little too real. But I don’t see anything wrong.” “Wait a moment, you’ll see,” said his wife. Now the hidden odorophonics were beginning to blow a wind of odor at the two people in the middle of the baked veldtland. The hot straw smell of lion grass, the cool green smell of the hidden water hole, the great rusty smell of animals, the smell of dust like a red paprika in the hot air. |
| Technovelgy from The Illustrated Man,
by Ray Bradbury. Published by Doubleday in 1951 Additional resources -
|
The word "odorophonic" itself reminds me of other product names from the first part of the twentieth century, which combined Greek or Latin root words. At that time, many of the people who used the term (or were sold the device named) had some training in Greek or Latin, and were aware of the meaning of the device from the name alone.
This practice is in marked contrast to company and product names of the late twentieth century, in which the naming of the product is driven by the need to produce a copyrightable name. Company names like Vividence and Aquilent are easily copyrighted (because they are invented). Names like "Pentium" and "Itanium" for computer chips were put into use by Intel because strings of numbers like 386 and 486 are not copyrightable.
The idea of being able to reproduce a wide variety of odors (or scents) with a machine is making a come-back; see the commentary for odalarm a scent-producing alarm clock from The Dosadi Experiment, by Frank Herbert.
This item is taken from "The Veldt", the first story in the collection.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 3 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Illustrated Man
More Ideas
and Technology by Ray Bradbury
Tech news articles related to The Illustrated Man
Tech news articles related to works by Ray Bradbury
Odorophonics-related
news articles:
- Kaori Web: Odorophonics Comes To A PC Near You
| Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness? |
| Jetson Orin Nano Super 70 Just $249 |
| Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests |
| Neuroplatform Human Brain Organoid Bioprocessor Uses Less Electricity |
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
'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
