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"At its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we can't predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe."
- John Brunner
 |
| Ultramicrominiature Waldo | ||
| A device for transforming ordinary human hand movements into extremely small-scale surgical motions. |
| I am even a gene surgeon now, in theory, and would not hesitate to be one in practice once I had time to construct the ultramicrominiature waldoes needed for such fine work. I am equally expert as obstetrician and gynecologist and rejuvenator. |
| Technovelgy from Time Enough For Love,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Putnam in 1973 Additional resources -
|
Although this was published relatively late in Heinlein's career, he wrote about this basic idea much earlier. In his original 1940 story Waldo, he described "tiny pixie hands" (waldoes) used for very fine work.
As far as I know, however, the idea of micro-surgery was first named and described by Raymond Z. Gallun in his 1939 short story Masson's Secret; see the entry for microsurgery tool.
Compare also to the microrobot from The Scarab (1936) by Raymond Z. Gallun, the ultra-microrobot from Menace in Miniature (1937) also by Gallun, waldo from Waldo (1942) by Robert Heinlein, the golden shuttles from The Mechanical Mice (1941) by Maurice Hugi, the autofac nanorobots from Autofac (1955) by Philip K. Dick, the nanomachine swarm from The Invincible (1954) by Stanislaw Lem, the Christmas Bush robot from Rocheworld by Robert Forward and the robot cells from Robot City (1987) by Michael Kube-McDowell.
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'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...'
'We had discovered that metal was relatively impervious to the telepathic effect.'
'Detailed plans for the construction of the Gundstetter-Halone warp drive were flowing.'
'Do not waste your priceless company on the unappreciative folds of a sleep pod...'
'...so we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
