Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"it slowly dawned on me that the landscape of science is maybe what interests people a great deal in science fiction."
- Gregory Benford
 |
| Voice in the Ear | ||
| Project a voice or sound to one individual's ears only. |
Another great Arthur C. Clarke idea.
| "All political problems," Karellen had once told Stormgren, "can be solved by the correct application of power."
"That sounds a rather cynical remark," Stormgren had replied doubtfully. "It's a little too much like 'Might is Right'. In our own past, the use of power has been notably unsuccessful in solving anything." "The operative word is correct. You have never possessed real power, or the knowledge necessary to apply it. As in all problems, there are efficient and inefficient approaches. Suppose, for example, that one of your nations, led by some fanatical ruler, tried to revolt against me. The highly inefficient answer to such a threat would be some billions of horsepower in the shape of atomic bombs. If I used enough bombs, the solution would be complete and final. It would also, as I remarked, be inefficient - even if it possessed no other defects." "And the efficient solution?" "That requires about as much power as a small radio transmitter-and rather similar skills to operate. For it's the application of the power, not its amount, that matters. How long do you think Hitler's career as dictator of Germany would have lasted, if wherever he went a voice was talking quietly in his ear? Or if a steady musical note, loud enough to drown all other sounds and to prevent sleep, filled his brain night and day? Nothing brutal, you appreciate. Yet, in the final analysis, just as irresistible as a tritium bomb." |
| Technovelgy from Childhood's End,
by Arthur C. Clarke. Published by Not Known in 1953 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the soft speaker from The Exalted (1940) by L. Sprague de Camp, green bullet from Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 or the raisin from Bart Kosko's 1987 novel Noontime.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Childhood's End
More Ideas
and Technology by Arthur C. Clarke
Tech news articles related to Childhood's End
Tech news articles related to works by Arthur C. Clarke
Voice in the Ear-related
news articles:
- MEDUSA Controls Crowds By Talking Inside Their Heads
| China's 'Magpie Drone' Ornithopter |
| FTC: Says Ring Employees Illegally Surveilled Customers |
| Perching Ambush Drones |
| India Ponders Always-On Smartphone Location Tracking |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
