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"SF is a controlled way to think and dream about the future."
- Gregory Benford

Probability Time Wave Tube  
  A device that allows the user to see every possible event.  

True genius is rare - but maybe it's better to have a great many minor tinkerers, than just one genius.

"They had the tube then. They called it the PTW tube - Probability Time Wave. They'd been trying to make a television set that would see through walls..."

"Their PTW tube caught and displayed every possibility that was ever to exist. And somewhere in that vast sweep of probability, every possible thing existed. Somewhere, the wildest dream of the wildest optimist was, and became fact."

Technovelgy from Elimination, by John W. Campbell.
Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1936
Additional resources -

The short story Elimination appears in the collection Who Goes There, published in 1948. These stories were published under the pseudonym Don A. Stuart.

See also the infinite improbability drive from Douglas Adams' 1979 novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Elimination
  More Ideas and Technology by John W. Campbell
  Tech news articles related to Elimination
  Tech news articles related to works by John W. Campbell

Probability Time Wave Tube-related news articles:
  - LEXID Sees Through Walls To Next Apartment
  - See People Through Walls

Articles related to Engineering
'Whisper Mode' ala Blue Thunder Researched At Bristol
Moonwalkers AI-Controlled Electric Shoes
Electric Catamaran 'Explorer Eco 40m' Has 'Solar Skin'
Harvest Power From Tears And Blinking With Smart Contact Lens

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Science Fiction in the News

Brin's 1990 Novel Earth Still Full Of Predictions
'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'

Gaia - Why Stop With Just The Earth?
'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?'

Microsoft VASA-1 Creates Personal Video From A Photo
'...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.'

Splendid View Of Eclipse From Orbit Visualized And Repurposed By Arthur C. Clarke
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'

Bespoke Environment Music From AIs
'Call 'em Winter Mute," said the other, making it two words.'

Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'

SpaceX Wants A Moonbase Alpha
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'

Vast Apartment Living Will Get Even More Vast
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'

NASA Wants Self-Driving Or Remote-Controlled Vehicles For Lunar Astronauts
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'

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