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"We're about 20 minutes away from the point where Clarke's law kicks in and technology becomes indistinguishable from magic."
- Peter Watts
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| 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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