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"...if you want to know what your future looks like, don't waste your time on Analog; read Time magazine. We are already saturated in the future. "
- Peter Watts

Tiny Nuclear Generator  
  A complete nuclear-based generator of power no bigger than a walnut.  

What happens when a user of superior technology encounters the less sophisticated? Trader Hober Mallow shows his personal force-shield to a tech-man from further out in the provinces.

"Where's the power?"

Mallow's finger fell upon the largest knob, dull in its leaden case.

The tech-man looked up, and his face was congested with blood. "Sir, I am a tech-man, senior grade. I have twenty years behind me as supervisor and I studied under the great Bler at the University of Trantor. If you have the infernal charlatanry to tell me that a small container the size of a - of a walnut, blast it, holds a nuclear generator, I'll have you before the Protector in three seconds."

Technovelgy from Foundation and Empire, by Isaac Asimov.
Published by Doubleday in 1952
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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Foundation and Empire
  More Ideas and Technology by Isaac Asimov
  Tech news articles related to Foundation and Empire
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Tiny Nuclear Generator-related news articles:
  - Liquid Semiconductor Nuclear Battery Big As A Penny

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