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"Science fiction has gotten more accurate as we've gotten closer to the present, because science fiction stories have not only attracted, but also generated current scientists."
- Larry Niven
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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..." |
| Technovelgy 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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'If the biological robots were not living creatures, they were certainly very good imitations.'
"Everybody and his dog, it seemed, wanted to live out in the country; transportation and communication were no longer isolating factors."
'... the new typewriter that could be talked to, and which transposed the spoken sound into typed words.'
'... underneath they consisted of networks of cooling tubes against the skin.'
'My cars talk to one another. I have no doubt about it...'
'... the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell.'
