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"At its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we can't predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe."
- John Brunner
 |
| Psychoprobe | ||
| Get to the truth. |
This is a very early use of this term; Asimov also used it in his I, Robot stories.
| "...We used to use a rubber hose 'cause it didn't leave no marks. Science has given us gadgets like the psychoprobe that beat the old hose all hollow. They don't leave no marks, either, but they sure get the truth out of a man." |
| Technovelgy from Satellite Five,
by Arthur K. Barnes. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1938 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the mechanical judge from The Lord of Tranerica (1939) by Stanton A. Coblentz, the quizzer from Agent of Vega (1949) by James Schmitz, the psychic probe from Foundation and Empire (1952) by Isaac Asimov, the truth meter from The Star Beast (1954) by Robert Heinlein, the cephaloscope from The Houses of Iszm (1954) by Jack Vance, the veridicator from Little Fuzzy (1962) by H. Beam Piper.
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and Technology from Satellite Five
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Tech news articles related to Satellite Five
Tech news articles related to works by Arthur K. Barnes
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'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
