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"Everything starts as somebody's daydream. And, when you're daydreaming, it is science fiction. It's when you start work out how you put it together, true science fiction becomes real science."
- Larry Niven
 |
| Atom-Shifter | ||
| A device that 'softens' matter, making it possible for a person to pass through. |
| He took one hand from the Martian's head, found the atom-shifter slackly caught in a turn of a tentacle. He wrenched it away. He flung a beam against the wall facing the corridor. He waited a moment for the softening process to be complete.
Letting go of his prisoner, he sprang forward. Once more he passed freely through the rayed area. With him went the ray mechanism itself, and behind him stayed the spy he had caught. |
| Technovelgy from The Worlds of Tomorrow,
by Manly Wade Wellman. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1940 Additional resources -
|
Here's how it worked:
An atom-shifting beam, focused at a point, would temporarily change the speed and path of atoms until the hard became soft, the opaque transparent.
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Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
