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"The SF approach: an awareness that things could have been different, that this is one of many possible worlds, that if you came to this world from some other planet, this would be a science fiction world."
- Neal Stephenson
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| Gravity Neutralizing Disks | ||
| Two plates between which Earth's gravitational influence is cancelled out. |
These gravity neutralizing disks are necessary for Fessenden's creation of a miniature universe in his lab.
| It consisted of two twelve-foot metal disks with grid-like surfaces, one on the floor and one on the ceiling directly over the other. They were connected by cables to the electrical machinery, and their grid-like surfaces shone faintly with wan blue light or force.
Fessenden walked over to the thing and motioned calmly toward the blue-glowing disks in floor and ceiling. These disks, Bradley, neutralize all the ordinary gravitational forces of earth in the space between them. "What?" I cried, astonished. I stepped forward, was about to thrust my hand between the two disks to test the assertion. But Fessenden held me back. "Don't try that," he warned. "The human body is accustomed to earth's gravitation, and is inwardly braced against it. If you were to step between those disks, out of earth's gravitation, your body would explode from its own inward pressure..." |
| From Fessenden's Worlds,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Weird Tales in 1937 Additional resources -
|
Hamilton was something of a child prodigy; he started college at 14, but quit three years later. If he had stayed in a bit longer, he might have been able to distinguish between the force of gravity and the force applied to our bodies by air pressure.
This is an interesting predecessor to the sleeping plates that Larry Niven wrote about.
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'... the two pairs of waldoes in the screen followed in exact, simultaneous parallelism.'
'THE SPACE VESSEL was traveling swiftly… For over five thousand years they had Voyaged on and on.’
'They circled the vast audiences, dancing, twittering, chirping...'
'The sun-quilt was a patchwork of colors and materials on the inward side, but silvered on the outward side...'
'Jim, I saw them reduce four of my doctors and nurses into those little cubes!'
'Fats Jordan was hanging in the center of the Big Glass Balloon, hugging his guitar to his massive black belly above his purple shorts..'
'When confronted by hills, or rough terrain, it did not stop, but simply slowed until the task demanded equaled its steady power output.'
'... the brain is no longer subjected to the accustomed pull, and it expands slightly in all directions.'
