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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
 |
| Telelubricator | ||
| Makes any surface or substance perfectly frictionless. |
Professor Methuen has gone slightly mad and uses his considerable scientific and engineering gifts to pull pranks on his colleagues. When they try to stop him at his house, something unusual happens.
Every time he applied a horizontal component of force to a hand or knee, the hand or knee simply slid backward.
So, how does it work?
...something happened to the front steps under him. They became slicker than the smoothest ice...
| "...My telelubricator here neutralizes the interatomic bonds the surface of any solid on which the beam falls. So the surface, to the depth of a few molecules, is put in the condition of a supercooled liquid as long as the beam is focused on it. Since the liquid form of any compound will wet the solid form, you have perfect lubrication." |
| From The Exalted,
by L. Sprague de Camp. Published by Astounding Science-Fiction in 1940 Additional resources -
|
Clifford Simak was also fascinated by the idea of a frictionless surface; see the frictionless surface from his 1963 story Way Station.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Exalted
More Ideas
and Technology by L. Sprague de Camp
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Tech news articles related to works by L. Sprague de Camp
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| MIT Tunes Ions For Frictionless Surface - Superlubricity! |
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| Hand Gestures And Body Poses Control Devices |
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'A moment ago it was squeezing silver toothpaste in a ribbon...'
'My telelubricator here neutralizes the interatomic bonds the surface of any solid...'
