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"My feeling is that the chance of our surviving into the twenty-first century as working civilization is less than fifty percent but greater than zero."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Repulsor Ray | ||
| Fires an invisible beam of electrons for propulsion. |
| In our efforts to change the movement of electrons, we had found that when a stream of them was shot out in a concentrated ray, in any one direction, it produced an invisible but powerful repulsion. It was on this fact that Lantin relied to move our car in space, directing electron-streams toward the ground to raise and hold us in space, and directing other rays obliquely down toward earth, to move the car from side to side in any direction. |
| Technovelgy from The Time-Raider,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Weird Tales in 1927 Additional resources -
|
It really worked!
Compare to the ion drive from Equalizer by Jack Williamson.
One trial we made of the car’s abilities, testing its power to move in space. Waiting until darkness concealed our trial, we entered the car and rose easily some five hundred feet above the city, the heavy car easily upheld and moved by the powerful repulsion rays. Then, circling once or twice, Lantin pointed the car east and opened up the power. A whistling gale rose outside as we rocketed across the Atlantic with tremendous speed, attaining a velocity of almost five hundred miles an hour, speeding through the atmosphere like a pointed bullet.
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'What would you do,' Eric asked the robot cabdriver, 'if your wife had turned to stone, your best friend were a toad, and you had lost your job?'
'those suits they wear -- call them 'stillsuits' -- that reclaim the body's own water...'
'Now, except for weight and heat, the same conditions prevail in this chamber as in space.'
'there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net...'
'Now, look, let's start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics...'
'..the synthetic intellects at the Place of Knowledge had far outstripped the minds of men.'
'But after washing and drying clothes had to be smooth - free from fine lines and wrinkles ...'
