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"I do think there is a link in that in both cases, writing fiction or writing a computer program, at any given moment you're focusing on a very specific and particular thing—one word, one line of code, whatever."
- Neal Stephenson
 |
| Matter Transmitter | ||
| Device which causes a physical object to disappear from one place and reappear in another. |
This reference to transmitting an object from place to place is not as early as you might think; however, it is probably the first use of this modern term to describe it.
| But when the word of the strangers' descent over our home city, Tola, came to us, all else was forgotten. With me at her side, Geble hastened to the beam station and there in the matter transmitter we dispatched our physical beings to the palace at Tola, and the next moment were staring upward at the two strange shapes etched against the sky. |
| From The Conquest of Gola,
by L.F. Stone. Published by Wonder Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
For an earlier (maybe earliest) use of the concept, see the entry for the telepomp from the still-enjoyable 1877 story The Man Without a Body by Edward Page Mitchell.
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'A worker replaced by a nubot... had to be compensated.'
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to regrow his lost fingers.'
'The car surged and lifted, clearing its top by a negligible margin.'
Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too.
'I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.'
'Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? - any work a human being does around a house.'
SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century.
