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"At its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we can't predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe."
- John Brunner
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| Psychophone | ||
| A device that allows the user to tune their mind to a future reality - a time-traveling device. |
In the story, the author argues that while the body is stuck in the present, the mind is able to move more freely. But you need a very specific gadget to do it.
| It looked just like one of those old-fashioned crystal sets, except that the crystal was very big, very shiny and was set in a horizontal vacuum tube. There was the same single dial, the same cat's whisker. Attached to the lot by a length of flex was what might have been a pair of headphones, except in place of the phones were a pair of polished, smoothly rounded copper circles shaped to fit outside the ears and close against the skull. |
| Technovelgy from The Mechanical Mice,
by Maurice G. Hugi. Published by Astounding Stories in 1941 Additional resources -
|
Here's how it works:
This is a very early use of the "alternative futures" idea in science fiction.
When you imagine what the future will be like, you make a characteristic choice of all the logical possibilities, you pick your favorite from a multitude of likely futures. The psychophone somehow tunes you into a future reality. It makes you depict within your mind the future as it will be shaped in actuality, eliminating all of the alternatives that will not occur.
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Mechanical Mice
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Tech news articles related to works by Maurice G. Hugi
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I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
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'...it was all composed of tiny, identical cubes, carefully laid to form a tilelike surface.'
'He carried on his person a triggering mechanism sensitive to his heartbeat.'
'...Anything was possible in my imaginary environment.'
'Somewhere in space, a chrome and blue automobile raced the green light of Earth.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...'
