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"In 1970 I found little difficulty staying 30 years ahead of the man in the street, and now I find it difficult to stay 18 months ahead of the man on the street."
- Vernor Vinge
 |
| Vacuum Cylinder | ||
| Traveling first class, but like mail, in a tube system. |
This might be a good description of what it will be like to travel in the Hyperloop, if they ever build one.
| We've got to get into his office secretly, by
tte vacuum cylinders. We're to
meet a man from his office at the
Eighth Postal switch-station."
The girls were both in gray, with long dark capes. We took the public monorail down into the mid-Manhattan section under the city roof of the business district, and into the Eighth Postal switch-station where the sleek bronze cylinders came tumbling out of the vacuum portes to be rerouted and dispatched again, A man was on the lookout for us. "Daniel Dean and party?" "Yes," said Snap. "We were ordered here..." We were put into one of the oversize mail cylinders, routed through the tubes like sacks of recorded letters; and in ten minutes, with a thump that knocked the breath from all of us, we were in the switch-rack of Halsey's outer office. |
| Technovelgy from Wandl, The Invader,
by Ray Cummings. Published by Astounding Stories in 1932 Additional resources -
|
A bit more:
The cylinder-slide opened.
Compare to the submarine tube from An Express of the Future (1895) by Michel Verne, the
sub-Atlantic tunnel from Ralph 124c 41 + (1911) by Hugo Gernsback, the
air tunnel from Through the Air Tunnel (19129) by Harl Vincent, the
pneumatic tube station from Exiles of the Moon (1931) by Nat Schachner (w. AL Zagat), the
pneumatic-tube zone from Mechanocracy (1932) by Miles J. Breuer, the
vortal tube from Whipping Star (1969) by Frank Herbert, the
public vehicle tube from The Houses of Iszm (1954) by Jack Vance, the
vacutubes from Double Star (1956) by Robert Heinlein and the
bounce tube from Double Star (1956) by Robert Heinlein.
In the service room a passenger
cylinder was waiting. Our guide
entered it with us. At the switch-station we had our breath knocked
out with the bumping, but the
cylinder remained sealed. And after
another ten minutes in the vacuum
tube, we reached our unknown destination.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Wandl, The Invader
More Ideas
and Technology by Ray Cummings
Tech news articles related to Wandl, The Invader
Tech news articles related to works by Ray Cummings
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| Volvo's Autonomous Truck |
| Eviation Alice Electric Plane First Flight |
| Robotaxi By Cruise Premieres in Austin, Texas |
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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.'
