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"In 1977, it took about eight months for a slightly faster more refined mechanism to put punk in the window of Holt Renfrew. It's gotten faster ever since."
- William Gibson
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| Short-Wave Surgical Knife | ||
| A means of performing an internal cut without breaking the skin. |
The perfect companion device to the X-ray.
| "The entire scheme has its origin in Valenski's research on the short-wave surgical knife. Possibly you are familiar with that device. It severs flesh and seals the capillaries as it goes through..."
"...Valenski tried to develop an adjustable focus sufficient in length, accuracy, and sensitivity to permit interior surgery without surface penetration. Such an instrument seemed the natural adjunct to a three-dimensional X-ray apparatus..." "...After some years Valenski achieved his aim with a device that projected two converging ultra-short-wave beams. Each was innocuous in itself, but when the two were projected simultaneously and out of phase they cut at their mutual focal point, which had a diameter as fine as point two millimeters. |
| Technovelgy from Boomerang (A Great Deal of Power),
by Eric Frank Russell. Published by King-Size Publications in 1953 Additional resources -
|
I'm not aware of any device that purports to make internal cuts without breaking the skin. Lasers have been in use in medical research and practice since the 1970's, but they are used externally (as in LASIK eye surgery).
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More Ideas
and Technology from Boomerang (A Great Deal of Power)
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and Technology by Eric Frank Russell
Tech news articles related to Boomerang (A Great Deal of Power)
Tech news articles related to works by Eric Frank Russell
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'You’re the robopsychologist of the plant, so you’re to study the robot itself...'
