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"Tokyo homeless people reiterate the whole nature of living in Tokyo in cardboard boxes, they're only slightly smaller than Tokyo apartments, and they have almost as many consumer goods. It's a nightmare of boxes within boxes."
- William Gibson
 |
| Antigrav Boots | ||
| Footgear that negate gravity. |
Probably the first use of the term "antigrav" as a contraction of "antigravity" (which first appeared in The Vanguard of Neptune, by J.M. Walsh, in 1932).
| Johnson, Bridges and Howe stumbled in from outside, stomping the powdery snow from their thick-soled antigrav boots. |
| Technovelgy from The Day We Celebrate,
by Nelson S. Bond. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1941 Additional resources -
|
SF great Theodore Sturgeon picked up on this word in June of the same year, in his story The Artnan Process; the Bond story was published in the January issue:
For other science-fictional methods of maintaining your footing in various low gravity situations, Compare to space-boots from The Passing of Ku Sui (1932) by Anthony Gilmore, magnetic boots from Atomic Fire (1931) by Raymond Z. Gallun, magnetic shoes from The Dual World (1938) by Arthur K. Barnes,
Steel-Lined Space Boots from Roamer of the Stars (1938) by Clyde Wilson, the neutronium slippers from Revolt on the Tenth World (1940) by Edmond Hamilton, space socks from Lost Rocket (1941) by Manly Wade Wellman, the weight shoes from The World With A Thousand Moons (1942) by Edmond Hamilton, magnetic sandals from The Warriors (1966) by Larry Niven, magnetic-soled shoes from Space Tug (1953) by Murray Leinster, the grip shoes from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Arthur C. Clarke and the flexible sprung boots from Inherit the Stars (1977) by James P. Hogan.
The ship settled down gently, her antigrav plates moaning.
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| Amazing Photonic Crystal Light Sail |
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'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
