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"In 1970 I found little difficulty staying 30 years ahead of the man in the street, and now I find it difficult to stay 18 months ahead of the man on the street."
- Vernor Vinge
 |
| Weightless Work Area | ||
| A small workspace within which there is no gravitational pull. |
Joe Fernwright, pot-healer, spends his days mending broken ceramic pots of all kinds. What kind of workspace would be ideal for him?
| He walked over to it and inspected it with wonder. A weightless area, where gravity was balanced by a ring of invisible counterspin: this was the ultimate workshop device for a pot-healer, this weightless area. He would not need to secure the pieces of pot in order to mend them together ; the pieces, in the weightless chamber, would simply remain where he put them... the positioning would be absolutely exact. Nothing would slip, slide or tilt during the healing process.
Never in his life had he seen a more well-equipped workshop for pot-healing. |
| From Galactic Pot-Healer,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Berkley Publishing in 1969 Additional resources -
|
Is there such a thing as a gravity-free workspace here on Earth? It seems impossible. However, take a look at the low gravity bioreactor which simulates this kind of space for biology research.
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