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"[Science fiction is] anything that turns you and your social context, the social you, inside out."
- Gregory Benford
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| Poldek | ||
| Ability to sense life. |
I mostly interested in this term because it refers to the idea of being able to sense life; the idea of a mechanical life detector or life sensor can be seen later in science fiction.
| “Could you describe a color to a man
blind from birth?”
“No,” she admitted. “Can you explain to a Martian what your nose is for and how it can smell?” “No. I’ve tried, and it’s hopeless. Has a Martian ever succeeded in explaining to you what it means to poldek ?” “A Martian can’t explain it because no Terrestrial has been bom with the ability to poldek. All I’ve been able to gather is that it’s a sort of sense that enables them to perceive life, a faculty by which they can tell, with ease, where life is and whether or not anything contains life. But how they do it beats me completely.” |
| Technovelgy from The Saga of Pelican West,
by Eric Frank Russell. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1937 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the life detector from Cease Fire (1958) by Frank Herbert.
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'BY PUSHING AGAINST THE LITTLE MARTIAN MOON WITH OUR ROCKET SHIP, WE HAD LESSENED THE CENTRIFUGAL SPEED THAT HELD IT BALANCED IN THE SKY.'
'... he had tightened the chest to gain maximum pumping action from the motion of breathing.'
'...a prayer wheel swung into view and began spinning at a furious pace.'
'And are all the people willing to be governed by a machine?'
