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"At its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we can't predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe."
- John Brunner
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| Drop Shaft (Neutralization of Inertia) | ||
| An 'elevator shaft' in which the user can fall at the speed of gravity, then be stopped without inertia (i.e., instantly). |
Cadets in formation descend the full ninety stories of Wentworth Hall using an unusual elevator. Just the shaft of the elevator is used - and a device to neutralize inertia.
| In perfect alignment and cadence the little column marched down the hall. In their path yawned the shaft - a vertical pit some twenty feet square extending from Main floor to roof of the hall; more than a thousand feet of sheer air, cleared of all traffic by flaring red lights...
Dropping with a velocity of over two thousand feet per second though they were at the instant of impact, yet those five husky bodies came from full speed to an instantaneous, shockless, effortless halt at contact, for the drop had been made under complete neutralization of inertia - 'free' in space parlance. |
| From Galactic Patrol,
by E.E. 'Doc' Smith. Published by Street and Smith in 1937 Additional resources -
|
Inertia is a difficult property of matter to get around. As Isaac Newton wrote "The vis insita, or innate force of matter is a power of resisting, by which every body as much as in it lies, continues in its present state, whether it be of rest, or of moving uniformly forwards in a right line."
Compare to dropshaft from Deeper than the Darkness (1957) by Harlan Ellison and bounce tube from Robert Heinlein's 1956 juvenile Double Star.
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| Helios Modular Touch Screen Wall Lights |
| Harvest Water From Air With Sunlight |
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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 Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
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''... major cities of Earth have free electrical power conveniently processed from their own noise.'
'The appearance was enough like a giant witch's broom to justify the nickname.'
'A vast circle of scarlet stars came up into the greenish desert dusk.'
'He had constructed an organ, a brain, of metal, entirely inorganic and lifeless...'
'I shall never forget the sight... when the yellow gleam of the precious metal appeared under the star dust.'
Oh, and now I suppose someone will develop the robotic porch pirate.
'This thing will start at one end of ...a house and build it complete to the other end, following drawings only.'
