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"This is a predictive tool I've used: There are goals we've sought for ten thousand years, and we'll go on seeking them. Instant transport and travel, immortality (or at least longevity and miracle cures.), instant learning …"
- Larry Niven
 |
| Air-Propelled Train | ||
| A silent means of mass transit. |
This quotation comes from the start of the book; the main character, Montag, lives a peaceful and quiet life. His internal life is also peaceful and quiet.
| He walked out of the fire station and along the midnight street toward the subway where the silent air-propelled train slid soundlessly down its lubricated flue in the earth and let him out with a great puff of warm air onto the cream tiled escalator rising to the suburb. Whistling, he let the escalator waft him into the still night air. He walked toward the corner, thinking little at all about nothing in particular. Before he reached the corner, however, he slowed as if a wind had sprung up from nowhere, as if someone had called his name. |
| From Fahrenheit 451,
by Ray Bradbury. Published by Doubleday in 1953 Additional resources -
|
The use of the word "flue" here is peculiar; the word itself comes from a word meaning "to flow" and does refer to a passageway for conducting a current of air. But the most common use of the word is a reference to a fireplace chimney; this foreshadows the use of fire in the novel, just a little subliminal reference.
There is a prototype for an air-propelled train:
the AEROMOVEL® blowers propel air (under low pressure) through a duct built into the guideway. The pressurized air pushes a propulsion plate attached to the bottom of the vehicle. This propulsion plate acts like an upside down sail, propelling the vehicle forward and helping to stop it when the air flow is reversed.
Read more about it at AEROMOVEL - A pneumatically propelled automated peoplemover (APM) system.
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'The pokkecon rang again. *The coffee’s for him?* Tsuyoshi said.'
The Jetsons imagined so much future.
'Rod placed the brain inside the panel... the horse raised its head, wiggled its ears, blinked twice, gave a tentative whinny.'
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
'Chain of hotels that specialized in non-human service.'
'But then... not every bulldozer operator works on the Moon.'
'Griff found the white and pink map distracting and switched it off using his tongue mouse.'
