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"People ask me how I do research for my science fiction. The answer is, I never do any research. I just enjoy reading the stuff, and some of it sticks in my mind and fits into the stories."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Nuclear-Field Depressor | ||
| A device that causes nuclear-powered devices to stop working. |
In Asimov's Foundation series, when a device is referred to as being "nuclear-powered' it means that it has its own nuclear power source.
| "Our few survivors have reported that the Mule's poss ... enemy's possession of a new weapon. A nuclear-field depressor."
"A what?" Ovall said, "Most of our ships were lost because their nuclear weapons failed them. It could not have happened by either accident or sabotage. It must have been a weapon of the Mule. It didn't work perfectly; the effect was intermittent; there were ways to neutralize - my dispatches were not detailed. But you see that such a tool would change the nature of war and, possibly, make our entire fleet obsolete." |
| Technovelgy from Foundation and Empire,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Doubleday in 1952 Additional resources -
|
Thanks to Gatomon41 for pointing this one out.
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'Tell me your torments,' the Padre said, in an elderly voice marked with compassion.
'...a slender-legged tripod surmounted by a spherical body no larger than a football.'
'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'
