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"Real science opens windows for us to look through. We're right at the footsteps of the most interesting scientists around."
- Larry Niven
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| Radio Meteor Detector | ||
| A device carried by space ships that could detect meteors in space early enough to avoid them. |
| "We can't reach any great velocity without accelerating for so long a time, that we would take a lifetime to make the round trip, and if we hit anything more massive than a dust grain at that speed, we would be going at so terrific a rate that we would be volatilized." He looked curiously at Arcot. Then he added, "And, going faster than light, our radio meteor detectors would be useless, the beams would be going backwards when they went from behind, and would never go ahead of us so as to leave us in front!" |
| Technovelgy from Islands of Space,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Amazing Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
Here's a variation on this phrase from Planet of the Small Men by Murray Leinster, published in Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1950:
Compare to meteor-spotting radar from Recoil (1943) by George O. Smith and Meteor Warning System from A Conquest of Two Worlds (1932) by Edmond Hamilton.
It went into overdrive too, and for the first time in all history meteor-detectors rang a strident, continuous alarm signal while a human ship sped through emptiness at two hundred times the speed of light. Which meant that another solid object was within detector-range and stayed there.
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'If you're one of those rarities who haven't attended a rocket-polo "carnage", let me tell you it's a colorful affair.'
'They filed clumsily into the battleroom, like children in a swimming pool for the first time, clinging to the handholds along the side.'
'a walking balloon proceeded with long strides of its aluminum legs...'
'There was nowhere on the planet where science and technology could not provide one with a comfortable home...'
'Most men updated their PIP on New Year's Day...'
'...a misshapen, many-tentacled thing about twice the size of a man.'
