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"Science fiction operates a little bit like science itself, in principle. You've got thousands of people exploring ideas, putting forth their own hypotheses. Most of them are dead wrong; a few stand the test of time; everything looks kind of quaint in hind"
- Peter Watts
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| Escalladder | ||
| A ladder that you don't have to climb to get to the top. |
I have no idea how this could be made to work. But as a person who has worked on ladders, I can't tell you how handy it would be to just rise to the top without a lot of unwieldy climbing with your hands full of tools.
I don't think this is like a fireman's extending ladder; it's more like the steps just cycle upward when you want them to.
| We rode an escalladder into the nose. |
| Technovelgy from Crashlander,
by Larry Niven. Published by Del Rey in 1994 Additional resources -
|
The creation of this word follows in the tradition of the word escalator, which is a combination of escalade and elevator. Escalade is itself a word meaning "to scale a wall using a ladder."
From the story Neutron Star, collected in the volume Crashlander. Just for the record, the first escalator was installed in 1897 as an amusement park ride in Coney Island. Even today, you can see small children who are excited to "ride the escalator."
We're lucky they don't charge us.
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'... he had tightened the chest to gain maximum pumping action from the motion of breathing.'
'...a prayer wheel swung into view and began spinning at a furious pace.'
'And are all the people willing to be governed by a machine?'
'It's an old model,' Rawlins said. 'I'm not sure what to do.'
'the robot-boss was busy at the lip of the new lode instructing and egging the men on to greater speed...'
'He rode the bike with an intense lack of physical grace...'
