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"[Science fiction is ] That branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance upon human beings."
- Isaac Asimov
 |
| 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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'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain...'
'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
