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"The science fiction method is dissection and reconstruction. You look at the world around you, and take it apart into its components. Then you take some of those components, throw them away, and plug in different ones, start it up and see what happens."
- Frederik Pohl

Amtal Rule  
  Testing to destruction  

AMTAL or AMTAL RULE: a common rule on primitive worlds under which something is tested to determine its limits or defects. Commonly: testing to destruction.
Technovelgy from Dune, by Frank Herbert.
Published by Putnam in 1965
Additional resources -

Modern example showing benefits of testing to destruction:

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Dune
  More Ideas and Technology by Frank Herbert
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  Tech news articles related to works by Frank Herbert

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