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"[Science fiction is ] That branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance upon human beings."
- Isaac Asimov
 |
| Conveyor Ribbon | ||
| A moving sidewalk. |
We see these most frequently today in airports.
| One had to be alert to pass across the series of progressively speeding conveyor ribbons to reach the central path that spiralled upward two hundred feet, then shot at sixty miles an hour along the radial street. He dimly remembered stumbling, someone hauling him upright, a shouted objurgation from a Traffic Controlman... |
| Technovelgy from Exiles of the Moon,
by Nat Schachner (w. AL Zagat). Published by Wonder Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
This passage describes how you cross conveyor ribbons at increasing (or decreasing) speeds:
Compare to the slidewalk from Sanity (1941), by Fritz Lieber.
In real life, demonstration-level sliding walkways were shown at the 1893 Chicago Exposition and the 1900 Paris Exposition. Take a look at this kinetoscope of the moving sidewalk from the 1900 Paris Exposition made by Thomas Edison.
Garry started to move outward, striding diagonally across the speed-graded belts, till he reached the stationary walk...
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
