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"Generally, the human race avoids doing anything radical until forced into it."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Poldek | ||
| Ability to sense life. |
I mostly interested in this term because it refers to the idea of being able to sense life; the idea of a mechanical life detector or life sensor can be seen later in science fiction.
| “Could you describe a color to a man
blind from birth?”
“No,” she admitted. “Can you explain to a Martian what your nose is for and how it can smell?” “No. I’ve tried, and it’s hopeless. Has a Martian ever succeeded in explaining to you what it means to poldek ?” “A Martian can’t explain it because no Terrestrial has been bom with the ability to poldek. All I’ve been able to gather is that it’s a sort of sense that enables them to perceive life, a faculty by which they can tell, with ease, where life is and whether or not anything contains life. But how they do it beats me completely.” |
| Technovelgy from The Saga of Pelican West,
by Eric Frank Russell. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1937 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the life detector from Cease Fire (1958) by Frank Herbert.
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and Technology from The Saga of Pelican West
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Tech news articles related to works by Eric Frank Russell
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'...small electric motors at the principal joints worked the prosthetic framework by means of steel cables...'
'Living protoplasm incorporated into the Ampek F-a2 recording system...'
'Twoflower's Luggage, which was currently ambling along on its little legs...'
'He came to as the ship went into free flight, arching in a high parabola over the plains...'
'The peculiar quality of this light, which gave it its great preeminence over all other penetrating rays...'
'The overworked leg motor would have to cool down before he could work on it...'
‘Where to, sport?’ the starter at cab relay asked.
