Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"As the rate of technological development speeds up, the gap between science fiction and what we’re living now is getting narrower all the time."
- Richard Morgan
 |
| Tubecar | ||
| A pneumatic tube that carries people. |
I had to laugh just a little when I read this term.
| Glowing signs named the farflung metropolitan districts, from Perth Amboy to Peekskill, from Long Island’s South Shore to the Raritan.
Behind each a tubecar whined into its terminal trough, disgorged a half-dozen passengers, swallowed a half-dozen others from the head of the waiting line and vanished to be immediately replaced by another.
The whole system fanned out from this hub at the Old City’s center. |
| Technovelgy from The Faceless Men,
by Leo Zagat. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1948 Additional resources -
|
This is essentially a small urban capsule like the single car of a train.
The concept of pneumatic tubes as a means of delivering freight was not created by science fiction authors; it was originally proposed by George Medhurst, a London businessman in the early nineteenth century. Pneumatic tube system using small (six inch diameter) tubes were commonplace in the first part of the twentieth century in large buildings, or interconnected locations like hospitals.
I occasionally worked in a hospital tube room in the early 1970's; it was used to take doctor's orders from nursing stations to remote locations like the pharmacy, as well as send (carefully wrapped) blood samples to labs for analysis.
Imagine a ten by twenty foot room with open, padded troughs around three of the sides. The padded troughs were perhaps two feet deep and extended two feet from the side of the room. Directly above these padded troughs were the cylindrical tubes protruding from the ceiling, each one coming from a different nursing station or from a different department, like pharmacy or blood testing.
The room was at all times filled with a whooshing sound coming from the mostly closed ends of about fifty tubes leading into the room. Suddenly, you'd hear a distant clanging sound that would get louder - a pneumatic tube was coming in!
ping.. ping.. Ping.. Ping.. PING! PING! and then ka-chunk! the little door that sealed the tube would pop open and a tube would drop into the padded trough. The pinging sound came as the tube traveled through the pneumatic system; each ping meant that the messenger tube traversed a joint.
The attendant would read the cylindrical ring code, walk over the appropriate tube and insert it. Whoosh! off it would go.
I wonder if the people of Zagat's time got the joke, the idea of a commuter capsule with a half-dozen people in it popping out of a pneumatic tube system into a "trough" where it would come to a stop...
Compare to the submarine tube from An Express of the Future (1895) by Michel Verne, the
sub-Atlantic tunnel from Ralph 124c 41 + (1911) by Hugo Gernsback, the
air tunnel from Through the Air Tunnel (19129) by Harl Vincent, the
pneumatic tube station from Exiles of the Moon (1931) by Nat Schachner (w. AL Zagat), the
pneumatic-tube zone from Mechanocracy (1932) by Miles J. Breuer, the
vacuum cylinder from Wandl, The Invader (2839) by Ray Cummings, the
vortal tube from Whipping Star (1969) by Frank Herbert, the
public vehicle tube from The Houses of Iszm (1954) by Jack Vance, the
vacutubes from Double Star (1956) by Robert Heinlein and the
bounce tube from Double Star (1956) by Robert Heinlein.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Faceless Men
More Ideas
and Technology by Leo Zagat
Tech news articles related to The Faceless Men
Tech news articles related to works by Leo Zagat
| Nifty Folding Electric Bicycles! |
| Boring Company Drills Asimov's Single Vehicle Tunnels |
| Boring Company Vegas Loop Like Asimov Said |
| SpaceX Rocket Shuttle Point-To-Point On Earth |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
