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"I don't have an e-mail address. As much as I admire the Internet I suffer literally agoraphobia, which in it's original sense means a fear of the marketplace. I do not want to receive three hundred e-mail messages per week from strangers…"
- William Gibson
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| Gravity Detector | ||
| A device capable of detecting the gravitational field of a distant mass. |
How could you be sure that an object was coming toward you in space if you could not see it and if it did not occult light sources?
| "...there was nothing we could see with the tele-periscopes, but the gravity detectors betrayed an invisible object of fifty thousand tons, approaching behind us - as if it had followed us from Neptune." |
| From The Cometeers,
by Jack Williamson. Published by Street and Smith in 1936 Additional resources -
|
The gravity detector turns out to be a useful device for ordinary journeys through the solar system as well:
"I am," Bob Star said, too busy to turn. "The gravity detector shows a mass dead ahead. Millions of tons. The deflector fields wouldn't swing it an inch.
"An asteroid?" Jay Kalam inquired. "You're certain?"
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and Technology from The Cometeers
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and Technology by Jack Williamson
Tech news articles related to The Cometeers
Tech news articles related to works by Jack Williamson
| The Interplanetary Internet, Vint Cerf Speaking |
| 30-Day Trip To Mars? |
| The Atacama Large Millimeter Array - And Fred Hoyle |
| Students! NASA's Space Radiation Challenge Is On |
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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 Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
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'The legs are long, curled way up to deliver power, like a cheetah's.'
'It rested among green parklands and... stood in total isolation, a glittering block of whites and flashing windows dotted with colors.'
'George Walt's corporate existence proved the workability of wholly mechanical organs...'
'This was the center of Interplanetary Communications.'
'... the Scarab [flying robot] buzzed into the great workroom as any intruding insect might...'
'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'
